What Doesn't Kill Us

by Scott Carney

In 2007, at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research on Long Island, Kenneth Kamler, a world-renowned expedition doctor who has worked on Everest, observed an experiment in which Hof was connected to heart and blood monitors and immersed in ice. At first the experiment hit a major snag. The standard hospital devices that track respiration declared him dead after he’d been in the ice only 2 minutes. The machine got confused because he hadn’t taken a breath and his resting heart rate was a mere 35 beats per minute. He wasn’t dead, though, and Kamler had to disconnect the device to continue. Hof stayed in the ice for 72 minutes. The results were astounding. Hof’s core temperature initially declined a few degrees but then rose again. It was the first scientific validation of Hof’s method. “Exactly how you explain it depends on the kind of philosophy you want to believe in,” says Kamler when I later track him down on the telephone. He references similar feats called tummo performed by Tibetan monks where they modulate their body temperature with breathing and intense visualizations of tantric deities. Ultimately, he says, it boils down to how Hof uses his brain. “The brain uses a lot of energy on higher functions that are not essential to survival. By focusing his mind, he can channel that energy to generate body heat,” he speculates.