Lately, I feel the word “hack” is used
far too often. Pretty much any slight improvement on something
is a “hack” nowadays - So it’s not too often you see the word used properly as in
referring to gaining unauthorized access to a computer or system. However, the word “hack” is actually pretty
appropriate to describe the The Wim Hof method. Bio-hack, body-hack, mind-hack, whatever you
want to call it, what it lets you do is consciously access something you shouldn’t be able to-
the autonomic nervous system. This system is the primary mechanism in control
of the fight-or-flight response. Wim Hof’s method seems to be a path towards
achieving incredible feats like withstanding freezing temperatures and things like climbing
mountains or running marathons without any prior training. But how, and what other effects does it have
on your body? Well, The Wim Hof breathing method has 3 components. 30 or more deep breaths,
Followed by exhaling and holding the breath for one to three minutes
Followed by a deep inhale which is held for about 15 or 20 seconds. Depending on how many deep breaths you did
and how long you held the exhale, that last deep inhale should give you a noticeable rush. No, not like that. Less than that. Maybe that's a little closer. Anyways, that rush feeling will last for maybe
10 or 20 seconds. Afterwards, you will be left feeling more
alert physically and mentally than before you started the breathing. This effect comes from stimulation of the
endocrine system. Something about breathing in the way Wim Hof
instructs causes your body to pump out certain hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline
to levels that you don’t normally see in people’s day to day life, which suggests
the breathing is manipulating the fight or flight response. So what changes in the body does this breathing
cause? One has to do with blood pH. If you’re a fan of Michael Crichton, you
may remember the scene in The Andromeda Strain where one of the infected characters was told
to hyperventilate to raise his blood pH to stop the infection from growing. â– The reason this works is because breathing
deeper than necessary means you exhale a lot of carbon dioxide. Because most carbon dioxide is converted to
bicarbonate and carbonic acid in the blood stream, lowering carbon dioxide levels through
deep breathing will raise your blood pH. Your blood becomes less acidic and more alkaline. While making your blood alkaline can have
some interesting effects when it comes to exercise performance and resisting the cold,
alkalosis can lead to constriction of the brain’s blood vessels, and reduced calcium
levels, leading to increased nerve and muscle excitability. This is one of the reasons why you feel pins
and needles when doing the breathing, and if you do the deep breathing step for a particularly
long time, you may experience cramps or muscle spasms. "You get these tingling sensations throughout
your hands and your body so it feels like everything's vibrating." "Mine was so weird, my hands were like this,
just locked and I could not move them and I just..." Your blood doesn't stay alkaline for very
long after the deep breaths. A study involving people trained in the Wim
Hof method, shows that blood pH returns to normal just 85 seconds into the breath hold,
and blood pH levels out and stays in the normal range after stopping the breathing techniques. I don't mean to say the Wim Hof method is
dangerous, I just mean to clarify the enhanced alkaline state of the blood is only temporary
and that's probably for the better. Other than the raise in pH, another thing
that happens when you exhale so much carbon dioxide is most of your oxygen becomes stuck
in the blood. This is because carbon dioxide is what releases
oxygen from the blood so your cells can use it. So after the deep breaths, you hold your breath
on an exhale. Holding your breath will allow carbon dioxide
to build up, and it will start to pull oxygen out of the blood and into the tissues. Because no new oxygen is coming in and there’s
no air in the lungs, your blood oxygen saturation begins to quickly drop. Here a pulse oximeter my oxygen saturation
dropping and the graph shows how my heart rate is changing. One of the effects of this, is that your body
will try to adapt to these low blood oxygen levels. That is, it adapts you to environments where
the air has low oxygen ...like high altitudes. This is why people doing the Wim Hof method
could climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in record time. People normally have to slowly climb mountains
over several days to avoid acute mountain sickness, because the body needs to acclimate
to low oxygen levels at that altitude. However, since the Wim Hof method acts as
a sort of high altitude training, the Wim Hof trained group could move much faster. The way this works is: Erythropoietin, known as EPO, is secreted
in response to reduced oxygen levels in the blood. EPO stimulates the production of red blood
cells- this increases oxygen delivery capability in the body. So, after a while of holding your breath,
receptors in the brain will be triggered either by too high carbon dioxide levels or too low
oxygen levels. These receptors will then urge you to breathe. You should try and fight against this signal
as long as you can but be careful to not pass out. Then breathe in deeply and hold that breath
for at least 20 seconds, and you should be left feeling calm, but at the same time focused
and alert. So, some point in this sequence will stimulate
your endocrine system, leading to a strong release of hormones- adrenaline and noradrenaline
in particular. Matthijs Kox and Peter Pickkers of Radboud
University led an experiment where individuals who were taught the Wim Hof method were injected
with a bacterial endotoxin, a component of the E. Coli bacteria. This injection isn’t actually harmful to
the body, but it tricks the immune system causing it to over react. 99 percent of healthy people who come in contact
with endotoxin react for a couple of hours as though they have the flu. The test is normally used to understand the
effectiveness of certain immune-suppressant drugs. What they found was that those trained in
the Wim Hof method showed significantly less negative symptoms when injected with the endotoxin. Essentially they were able to prevent their
immune system from overreacting. The study says:
“Healthy volunteers practicing the learned techniques exhibited profound increases in
the release of epinephrine, (epinephrine is another word for adrenaline) which in turn
led to increased production of anti-inflammatory mediators... This study could have important implications
for the treatment of a variety of conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation,
especially autoimmune diseases.” With autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis
or crohn’s disease, your immune system attacks healthy cells in your body. Being able to tell your immune system to stand
down through meditation and breathing, would be an incredibly useful tool for people with
these types of diseases. Even people with Parkinson’s- a disease
that is thought to have an auto-immune component could potentially benefit from the Wim Hof
method. In fact, in Scott Carney’s book “What
doesn’t kill us,” Carney talks about how One man “credits Hof with saving his life. He says that through Hof’s breathing technique
and ice-cold showers he can manage the disease with far fewer drugs than when he was first
diagnosed. He says Wim Hof has kept him out of a wheelchair.” Carney also talks about how a man who after
2 months of cold exposure and practicing the Wim Hof method, had drastically reduced the
pain and swelling caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Before, practicing the Wim Hof method and
doing the cold exposure, the disease was so bad that his index finger was swollen to the
size of a plum and he would have to have bits of bone removed just to help with the pain. Carney himself says that he used to get very
big canker sores every month or so, but after doing the Wim Hof method they only appear
once a year and are very small and manageable. Also people who suffer from allergies may
benefit from the breathing method considering it raises adrenaline. Adrenaline is used as a treatment for anaphylaxis
- severe allergic attacks. You may know someone with a serious food allergy
who carries an epipen- a small device that injects adrenaline. So at what point in the breathing is adrenaline
(or epinephrine) released? Well, the endotoxin study says they were not
able to precisely identify when the hormone is released but, it says: “...the effects on epinephrine are likely
a consequence of both the hyperventilation phase and hypoxia due to breath retention,
as both have been demonstrated to increase epinephrine levels.” It may be that because both the hyperventilation
and breath hold steps are stimulating the release of adrenaline, you end up with particularly
high levels. In fact, the study says that the adrenaline
levels in the individuals trained in the Wim Hof method reached higher levels than those
of people about to go into a bungee jump. From my own experience, adrenaline being released
during the breath hold sounds particularly accurate. Myself and others have noticed that if you
hold the exhale long enough, you will suddenly have the added challenge of... trying to not
piss your pants. Adrenaline is a key hormone in the fight or
flight response. The fight or flight response results in physiological
changes like dilation of the pupils, increased blood flow to the muscles and relaxation of
the bladder. In fact, holding their breath for as long
as they can is a strategy taught to people who have paruresis, the fear of urinating
in public places. The other clues that the fight or flight response
is being triggered at the end of the exhale hold and the start of the inhale is of course
the rush you feel at that point, and, for me at least - I consistently hear a bit of
a ringing at this point and my hearing fades out. Another physical effect of the fight or flight
response is auditory exclusion or hearing loss. What may be unique about the Wim Hof method
is: Because you first exhaled enough carbon dioxide
to raise your blood pH and then held your breath on an exhale so no new oxygen could
come in, you are able to decrease your oxygen levels enough to strongly stimulate the fight
or flight response. The fight or flight response presents itself
when a threat to survival appears. It’s not a surprise that your body would
interpret low oxygen levels as a threat to survival. One concrete benefit of the Wim Hof method
is that it will wake you up. The breathing is something you can do while
you’re still laying down, so it can very quickly bust through morning grogginess and
prepare you for the day. Since adrenaline and noradrenaline have so
many functions, we could speculate on various potential benefits. For example, fat and glucose are rapidly burned
up for energy, so enhanced weight loss might be a benefit of the breathing method. In fact, Scott Carney apparently lost 7 pounds
of fat in his first 7 days with Wim Hof. Whether the cold exposure left Scott’s body
with no choice but to burn up the fat for heat or he consciously provoked his endocrine
system to break down the fat is unclear- but it was probably at least a combination of
the two. Now this still isn’t a full coverage of
the Wim Hof method. Along with the breathing, cold exposure is
another key component to the method. And, while the breathing has significant physical
effects, personally I most appreciate the mental benefits that come from the breathing. I will discuss these points later on, so stick
around. Also, If you haven’t already, make sure
and check out my last video on Wim Hof. A big thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting
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Thanks for posting this. I have been considering trying it out.