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Anyone using the Wim Hof Meditation Method?

Lex DeVille

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Can someone explain or link to an explanation of how his breathing is intended to be performed throughout the day? The only video's I've watched show his deep breathing techniques leading up to an event, such as pushups.

I tested his technique for pushups against a control state and did more pushups in one minute than I've ever done in my life. To do this we started one week apart. Same time each day. Same place in the kitchen. One round normal breathing and a week later with Wim Hof method.

Normal breathing brought me to my average range of around 75 pushups. With Wim Hof method I was around 5 over.

I see the advantages in some arenas, but I'm not sure I understand how it's meant to work throughout the day. Is the technique the same or does it differ?
 
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MattR82

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FYI all of his courses are currently 50% off.
 

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Haven't tried it but heard about this guy. Was going to do the polar bear swim in Van but was to lazy to train to downtown.

Ended up taking a freezing cold shower for 5 minutes though giving myself pre hypothermia and was focusing on my breathing. Interesting body experience.
 
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I see his courses are 50% off. But I've heard he is not very clear in his explanations (he can be all over the place, as I've noticed in some interviews) and there is not much more to learn except the breathing and the showers. So I decided not to get the course from his website. I did start his 30 day course on Insight Timer. It's not really a meditation, and also not guided breathing. It's just him explaining the science behind the method and talking all over the place. I'm not sure if this is useful. But I do stick to the structure of the course, which includes increasing the cold showers with 5 seconds each day, and adding 1 round of breathing every week.

I use the Wim Hof app when I do my breathing, which offers guided sessions. This is great, because it measures your times and saves them in the app. You can check out the guided breathing on youtube also. It indicates when to pause the video, in case you want to hold your breath for a longer period. This is a great way to learn how to do the breathing I think.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ



I see the advantages in some arenas, but I'm not sure I understand how it's meant to work throughout the day. Is the technique the same or does it differ?

I think you do it once (or twice) a day and you are set for the rest of the day. At least that's how I'm doing this now. Breathing + shower in the morning, and sometimes also a few rounds of breathing in the evening.
 

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Can someone explain or link to an explanation of how his breathing is intended to be performed throughout the day?

The course I have, focuses on one or two sessions per day.

As always, get into a relaxed position, I personally like a reclined position somewhere between sitting and lying.

The breathing technique does not change, as far as I'm aware. So take 30-40 hyperventilated breaths and hold breath for as long as possible on the last one.

When you can't hold any more, take deep breath in (or out, depending on how you've held), and hold for another 10-15 seconds. Do as many rounds of these as you can.

You can then take this further by showering afterwards with cold bursts, or get into a cold bath for between 30-120 seconds.

To be honest, I've only done this once. I usually just stick to the breathing, however when I combined it with the cold bath (120 seconds), my whole body was tingling, and I couldn't stop smiling. My girlfriend came back into the house and was like; "wow! what happened to you? You look so energised!"

Science bit -

I read an abstract of the paper that came about from the independent experiments done on the test subjects, and it appears that holding your breath for 2 minutes or more, triggers the release of epinephrine, and your immune system goes into overdrive.

What wasn't clear was if that 2 minutes needs to be all at once. My guess was that it didn't, but helped if it was.
 

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Which of the courses do you guys recommend? I'm willing to buy one, especially if it's on sale, but I can't tell if the fundamentals course covers additional material or entirely different stuff.

Edit: I just googled it and I think I'm going to go with the fundamentals course as opposed to the original 10 week course.
 
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I have a client who suffered from debilitating back pain, severe ADD, financial loss teetering on bankruptcy, and was about thirty pounds overweight.

He did 20hr intermittent fasting plus breathing from Wim Hof for two months. He lost all the weight plus another five pounds, his back pain is almost gone, and he’s on track to make 300k this year after landing four entirely new clients in that two month period.

from almost bankruptcy to 300k in two months? that's impressive. what kind of service is he providing?


sorry to digress from the main topic but could't resist: it shows the power of this method
 
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Matt Sun

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This clearly can't be true.
Actually, science demostrated that the number of calories you take in your life is fixed, (eating less calories in meals equals longer life span)
so i wouldn't be surprised if the same happened to breaths


"
Future applications
Overall, the results from multiple studies show that both reduced calories intake (CR) and the ratio between macronutrients, namely the protein to carbohydrates ratio, positively impact lifespan. In particular, it seems that dietary restriction of proteins or other individual nutrients (DR), with respects to carbohydrates, produces an effect on longevity independent on that of CR.
"
 

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from almost bankruptcy to 300k in two months? that's impressive. what kind of service is he providing?


sorry to digress from the main topic but could't resist: it shows the power of this method

He’s actually in construction but, for whatever reason, during the fasting/breathing period he got a contract to build several things for the government. He had crews before he went bankrupt and applied for a contract.. and it finally came in.

The thing is I watched this guy go through absolute hell with his life.. diving into cheating on his wife and doing hard drugs to deal with the stress. When he finally started intermittent fasting it was just after rock bottom. Things starting turning around pretty rapidly after that.

He still has issues.. don’t get me wrong.. but he’s much healthier.
 

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Actually, science demostrated that the number of calories you take in your life is fixed, (eating less calories in meals equals longer life span)
so i wouldn't be surprised if the same happened to breaths


"
Future applications
Overall, the results from multiple studies show that both reduced calories intake (CR) and the ratio between macronutrients, namely the protein to carbohydrates ratio, positively impact lifespan. In particular, it seems that dietary restriction of proteins or other individual nutrients (DR), with respects to carbohydrates, produces an effect on longevity independent on that of CR.
"

You are saying two things. You first implied that there was a predetermined amount of breaths that a person takes, and then they die.

This of course cannot be true, because our breathing rate changes during exercise, stress, sex, etc.

Reduced calorific intake, and in fact reduction of breaking down complex proteins has indeed shown to be beneficial. However the amount of calories you can take over the course of a lifetime is not fixed, because again, this would depend on various lifestyle and medical factors.
 
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1milclub

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When he finally started intermittent fasting it was just after rock bottom. Things starting turning around pretty rapidly after that.

That's a great turnaround story, you are lucky to be part of that. Thanks for sharing. I posted a TEDx talk something similar on another thread, that thread is also somewhat a similar story.

 

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I've found that body scanning first thing in the morning in complete silence has always benefitted me the most. Otherwise I get identified with my imagination.
 

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I see his courses are 50% off. But I've heard he is not very clear in his explanations (he can be all over the place, as I've noticed in some interviews) and there is not much more to learn except the breathing and the showers. So I decided not to get the course from his website. I did start his 30 day course on Insight Timer. It's not really a meditation, and also not guided breathing. It's just him explaining the science behind the method and talking all over the place. I'm not sure if this is useful. But I do stick to the structure of the course, which includes increasing the cold showers with 5 seconds each day, and adding 1 round of breathing every week.

I use the Wim Hof app when I do my breathing, which offers guided sessions. This is great, because it measures your times and saves them in the app. You can check out the guided breathing on youtube also. It indicates when to pause the video, in case you want to hold your breath for a longer period. This is a great way to learn how to do the breathing I think.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ





I think you do it once (or twice) a day and you are set for the rest of the day. At least that's how I'm doing this now. Breathing + shower in the morning, and sometimes also a few rounds of breathing in the evening.
I started using this as a total beginner after starting on hs free mini course. His guided breathing exercise you linked to is so good for getting started.

I've NEVER been able to get my head around normal meditation. This has such a great level of intensity that seems to click with me. Loving this so far.

Watched this doc by Yes Theory last night which was actually a lot better than the well known Vice one.
 
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Last edited:

MJ DeMarco

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I'm thinking about reading this book, but if its another "gung ho" David Goggins shit show of recklessness and dumb behavior, I won't be interested. Can anyone vouch for the book? Is it focused on mindfulness and meditation? Or is it from someone who needs to be in clinical therapy for childhood trauma?
 

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I'm thinking about reading this book, but if its another "gung ho" David Goggins shit show of recklessness and dumb behavior, I won't be interested. Can anyone vouch for the book? Is it focused on mindfulness and meditation? Or is it from someone who needs to be in clinical therapy for childhood trauma?

Can't comment on his book.

But if you are looking for a good book on breathing, I recommend:

1608595740713.png

The Hof method is a version of Tummo breathing. And the book also covers other breathing techniques.

* The book doesn't go into details but you have enough to try
** for those interested, I do HIIT workouts (a whole lot of burpees) and breathe through the nose 95% of the time

edit: For those interested, the ancients knew about the power of your breath. Yoga has practices centered around breath (Prayanama)
 

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I'm thinking about reading this book, but if its another "gung ho" David Goggins shit show of recklessness and dumb behavior, I won't be interested. Can anyone vouch for the book? Is it focused on mindfulness and meditation? Or is it from someone who needs to be in clinical therapy for childhood trauma?
Are you talking about Wim Hof's book? It's mostly about the research that has gone into studying the man who invested the method. I would say you'll get more out of it by listening to him do a few interviews like the one he did recently with Jordan Peterson. I have listened to a lot of them and found the book to just be a more clinical version of the same information. That said, this is a serious practice by a serious man who discovered this breathing technique when dealing with heavy depression following the suicide of his wife and mother of his children. There's nothing shit-showy or reckless imo.

As for the method and practicing it, 100% would recommend for physical and mental health. I actually just started practicing the Wim Hof breathing again today.
 
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I can't meditate for shit, but whenever I'm in a funk, his guided breathing bubble is a game changer for me.

I didn't even know he had a book, I'd be interested to know a bit more about him.

On the flip side, he has a LOT of angry customers these days that bought some kind of access to an app or course that now have to pay for something they feel they already paid for. Recent development I think.
 

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I'm thinking about reading this book, but if its another "gung ho" David Goggins shit show of recklessness and dumb behavior, I won't be interested. Can anyone vouch for the book? Is it focused on mindfulness and meditation? Or is it from someone who needs to be in clinical therapy for childhood trauma?

Can't vouch for the book but his "app" is free with some free content (you can also find two different recordings of the beginners 11 minute breathing on youtube) , + explanation of the ice bath stuff.

the breathing is controlled hyper ventilation, linked here would be an example of actual science attempting to account for why that would be useful.

I won't bore you with a gish gallop, presumably you can google things and add +scholar to the boolean. I think Hof's claim to fame would be popularizing these things more than inventing them. That is, its not woowoo but I don't buy that he is the "inventor" or discoverer of any of this and not just a good marketer / showman.

I've begun incorporating the breathing techniques every other day (I had a mkoderate COVID case a while back) , haven't died yet!

heres a quote from "the science behind..." from his website that I think is a little showy

"...It wasn't until the first Radboud University study in 2011 that things really kicked off.

The study showed that by using his method, Wim was able to voluntarily influence his autonomic nervous system - something which until then was thought impossible"

Well thats...not entirely true? , I think its arguing for the sake of arguing but by definition this is "largely" unconscious , I remember hearing about monks meditating half naked in the snow in tibet or some far away place in middle school (and melting the snow about them) so the fact that "some people , sometimes" can control these things isn't new to science.

In any case it's definitely interesting to play with and if you don;'t tick off any boxes for don't do this (certain chronic medical conditions / medications) go try it out and see.

The hypothesis that a little cold water shock, using a semi hypangogic state to begin controlling heart rate and intermittent temporary acidity (your blood ph is kept between 7.35 and 7.45 under normal conditions) might "strengthen" your body is worth a look.

here's a fun little primer from an anesthesiologist on "the magic of hyperventilation"

I know the body has ways to compensate in either direction from long term insult (if you have say, kidney damage thats futzing with the normal homeostasis it compensates with other systems) so it's fun to think that on a more broad level the body might respond to daily short periods of intentional hyperventilation by becoming better at oxygen use etc (which I think is part of his supposition, during the breathing exercise you are told to "slow your heart rate" on purpose - slower heart = less blood flowing = less blood used, and since your essentially meditating not doing calculous you shouldn't need that much)

So overall its got some woo components but I think its definitely worth playing with, the science seems to be catching up and lining up with a lot of what the mans saying.
 

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I'm thinking about reading this book, but if its another "gung ho" David Goggins shit show of recklessness and dumb behavior, I won't be interested. Can anyone vouch for the book? Is it focused on mindfulness and meditation? Or is it from someone who needs to be in clinical therapy for childhood trauma?
I got the book as a birthday gift last month. I thought I wouldn't learn anything new, since I watched quite a a few youtube videos and I knew how to do the breathing and the cold showers from his course. But it was a very interesting book. I would say it's part biography and part instructions of his methods and the results he got. If you're interested in the healing powers of breathing and the cold, it's definitly worth it. I liked it much better than the other book about him (Becoming the Ice Man), which I didn't finish

Tbh, the guy is quite reckless, he is a human guineapig trying unconventional methods. But his methods are backed by science. There was this one experiment where he was injected with an e-coli bacteria, and through meditation and breathing he did not get sick. They replicated the experiment with a larger sample size, where he trained a dozen people for a few days in the cold. They old got the same result (not getting sick), while people who didn't use his method all got sick.

If you just want to learn the breathing and the cold showers, you can just check out his videos with an explanation. But if you want to learn more about his methods and his mindset, this book is right for you. Also, it's quite an easy and short read.
 

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I've never tried it but I'm glad I bumped into this thread, I think I will try this method. I already do some meditation regularly but with most techniques I don't really experience big short-term improvements, it's usually a slower long-term change.
 
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I've never tried it but I'm glad I bumped into this thread, I think I will try this method. I already do some meditation regularly but with most techniques I don't really experience big short-term improvements, it's usually a slower long-term change.
With this method, if done correctly ofcourse, you get a real high right after the breath holds. It's quite amazing, and it really fires you up for the rest of the day (and for the cold shower that I do right after).
 

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Can't comment on his book.

But if you are looking for a good book on breathing, I recommend:

View attachment 36075

The Hof method is a version of Tummo breathing. And the book also covers other breathing techniques.

* The book doesn't go into details but you have enough to try
** for those interested, I do HIIT workouts (a whole lot of burpees) and breathe through the nose 95% of the time

edit: For those interested, the ancients knew about the power of your breath. Yoga has practices centered around breath (Prayanama)

Breath by James Nestor was my favorite book this year so far. I started mouth taping after I finished reading the book and my sleep quality increased tremendously. Highly recommended read!

I think I will also get the new Wim Hof book. I bought "The Way of the Iceman" by Koen De Jong a few years ago, but it talked mostly about the science behind the WHM. Maybe this will be more interesting to read.
 

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Breath by James Nestor was my favorite book this year so far. I started mouth taping after I finished reading the book and my sleep quality increased tremendously. Highly recommended read!

I think I will also get the new Wim Hof book. I bought "The Way of the Iceman" by Koen De Jong a few years ago, but it talked mostly about the science behind the WHM. Maybe this will be more interesting to read.
I've never heard of mouth taping before. What do you tape your mouth with? Does it make your sleep more restful?
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Breath by James Nestor was my favorite book this year so far. I started mouth taping after I finished reading the book and my sleep quality increased tremendously. Highly recommended read!

I think I will also get the new Wim Hof book. I bought "The Way of the Iceman" by Koen De Jong a few years ago, but it talked mostly about the science behind the WHM. Maybe this will be more interesting to read.

What do you tape your mouth with? Does it make your sleep more restful?

+1 ....
 

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I've never heard of mouth taping before. What do you tape your mouth with? Does it make your sleep more restful?

I use cheap 3M micropore tape which works just fine, but of course, you can buy more expensive alternatives like the mouth tape from Somnifix. Usually, a small Charlie Chaplin mustache-sized tape is enough, but I like taping my whole mouth. It's a personal preference.

For a starter, it forces you to breathe through your nose, which is the best and healthiest way to breathe - everything else is unnatural (except when doing breathwork). I slept with an open mouth mostly because my nose is often stuffed and I have a deviated septum and not using your nose leads to a more congested nose.

I wake up more rested and my Oura ring readings indicate that I have a better sleep in terms of quality (more deep sleep). I know that the Oura ring is not a super accurate device for measuring sleep, but it supports my subjective feeling that I wake up better rested.

Not sure about the scientific aspect, but nasal breathing is critical as it increases nitric oxide production which leads to lower blood pressure as nitric oxide expands the blood vessels which in turn improves oxygen transportation.

I can't cite any scientific studies on the top of my head right now, but it not only increases your oral health but your overall health can benefit greatly. I think it is shown that breathing to your mouth changes the pH-value rather quickly to an environment prone to the growth of bad bacteria. I think the dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne had an interesting video about this on YouTube.
 

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