2 Years of the Wim Hof Method

Doctors and swab-taking, needle-poking nurses have said for years I don't have an immune deficiency but that didn't stop me from ending up in the hospital several times from immune responses that were akin to blowing up a house just because a window needs replacing.

My immune system is over-reactive, to say the least, like an angry drunk man looking for a fight, it verges on an auto-immune disease where a simple cold or flu can send it flying into a furious rage, toasting my organs into inflammation oblivion.

It's a serious issue, I've done some research and it turns out having working organs is fairly important.

After yet another bout in the hospital, doctors gave me drugs to gobble down in the event of a viral infection to mitigate the inflammatory overload.

I was in my late 30's, panicking every time I caught a seasonal cold wasn't a joy. I was anxious and depressed, which only made me more anxious and more depressed as I worried about how such emotions would lower my immunity and subsequently made me feel super-vulnerable to the wider world.

In retrospect, I was worrying about viral contamination before COVID-19 made it part of the cool and groovy zeitgeist.

Anyway... It was around this time I saw a trailer for a podcast with the title 'Never Get Sick Again'.

It was an interview with Wim Hof, otherwise known as 'The Ice Man', a Dutch super-athlete, famous for his record-breaking exposure to the cold, climbing up Mount Everest in just his shorts, running through Death Valley without drinking any water, and various other baffling feats of endurance.

He was on the podcast to promote the 'Wim Hof Method', a daily practice of cold showers and yogic breathing to improve the immune system and regulate inflammation.

It was like he was talking to me, about me.

I listened to the whole thing, then dug deeper; other podcasts, other articles, other interviews. I googled until my googling fingers felt numb and my browser told me if I opened even one more tab it was going to have some sort of breakdown.

It turned out Wim was no snake oil salesman, there was hard science behind his claims. He had offered himself up as a human guinea pig and in turn universities, doctors and even the textbooks began acknowledging the findings from these experiments.

Wim was able to tolerate extreme cold immersion without succumbing to frostbite or hypothermia and he could consciously regulate his immune response when injected with a (dead) virus that made the control participants in the same study sick with flu-like symptoms.

Most exciting of all, was he was able to get others to do the very same things he could do. They too regulated their immune systems when injected with a virus, they too endured the cold and climbed up snowy mountains in just their shorts.

I was sold. I don't care if I had to freeze in the cold every day, if it helped, I was in.

Starting the Cold Showers

Plenty of people have explained how to do the Wim Hof Method in ways I could not better, so to learn more, please look at the 'Further Reading and Resources' section at the bottom of this article.

However, to briefly explain for those who have not heard of the method before, it is built on 3 pillars, these are:

• Cold Water Exposure
• A breathing exercise
• Mindfulness

I started with the cold shower.

Beginning any new habit is challenging, but this time it was especially difficult as I was utterly cold-intolerant.

I was the man who wore a coat in summer. I couldn't stand even a light breeze from an open window. I grew up in a box room where the radiator couldn’t be turned off. Cold was anathema to me.

But the promise of better health made me do it. I had to try. I tentatively began by turning the shower half-way to cold before I got out.

When first doing this, I felt a sensation I'd only experienced a few times before, paddling in the British sea or dipping into a sunless pool on holiday for example.

That cold kicked off a rush of panic in my body. My pulse and adrenaline spiked and my brain questioned why I was standing there, letting it all happen.

What I realise now is that part of the Wim Hof method is confronting and controlling anxiety. One has to be calm as the cold water hits warm skin and sends alarm bells to the brain to get out. This is the mindfulness part of the method.

I tolerated that first cold shower for all of 20 seconds.

For my next shower, I did the same, and again, over and over, pushing my tolerance up as I pushed the temperature down.

All in all, it took me 9 months to be able to get into a full cold shower from start to end. Then, as winter drew in, the showers grew naturally colder and my tolerance grew with them.

I had conquered the cold. What I didn't expect was how much more challenging the breathing exercises would be.

The Breathing Techniques

Cold showers are about physical endurance. Breathing techniques are about mental endurance.

Wim's breathing method demanded I sat still for 15-20 minutes; a challenge for an overclocked person like myself. Every time I began to do 30-40 deep breaths then a breath-hold, my mind acted like a hyperactive child who was told to go to bed and would simply scream "nope!"

What’s more, that just one round. I had to do it 3-4 rounds consecutively, each session. I was bored. My mind raced. Then, after the first round, it always calmed as the entire chemistry of my body changed. I felt like I had been somewhere, gone through something. By the last round, I often wanted to go again. Sometimes I did.

It’s essentially a form of controlled hyperventilation followed by a breath-hold where one must control the adrenal messages telling you to breathe, and relax into the state of just being. As Wim says “Let the body do what the body is capable of doing!”

The science says the breathing increases red blood cells and lowers inflammation by alkalising the body. All I know is it feels great and I am always glad when I’ve done it.

Two Years In

Weird things have happened. I can’t shower hot anymore, it doesn’t feel right and it doesn’t deliver the same euphoria as a cold shower. I’ve become obsessed with that cold hit. Just before the coronavirus lockdown, I went swimming in a London lake in winter. It was freezing, it hurt, but afterwards, it was amazing.

I can’t operate if I don’t cold shower and breath each day. I feel woolly, distracted, fuzzed-headed. The Wim Hof Method feels like a reset, back to who you are.

And no, I haven’t been hospitalised since for inflammatory overload. Not yet anyway. But I have had a couple of colds.

I don’t labour under the misapprehension a daily ritual is going to be a panacea for all health challenges, but I can feel the difference. I don’t do it because I want to, I now do it because I have to.

Wim says the cold is truth, it is his teacher. I didn’t understand that for a long time, but I do now. The cold gives back, deep breaths give back. They energise and fortify, they ground and neutralise.

This is my literal deep breath, my inhale, my exhale.

I watched a lot of YouTube videos about the method before I started, every person who practised the method said the same thing: “Please, please just try it!”

And now here I am, 2 years later, asking the same thing. Try it, let it ground you, let it clear your head and reconnect you to who you are. Words don’t do it justice, you have to feel it to believe it.

And as Wim always said “feeling is knowing.”

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Further Reading and Resources

There's a lot of information here, all of it worth visiting. I have placed it in order of best things to investigate if you are a newbie, but of course, this is only my suggestion.

To note, none of these are affiliate links, I make no money from these people and all information provided just to promote this wonderful method.

A good place to start is listening to some of the various podcasts Wim Hof has been on, including London Real, Joe Rogan and Impact Theory.

There are two amazing documentaries on Wim Hof by Vice and Yes Theory.

There are numerous, certified Wim Hof trainers out there, and one of the longest-serving, trained by Wim Hof himself is Jesse Coomer and his wonderful YouTube channel Midwestern Method. Jesse has taught me more than he'll know with his very informative Q&A style videos.

And finally, you can buy video courses from Wim himself on his website, as well as gain more knowledge from him directly on his YouTube channel, and I would highly recommend downloading his app, which I use every day as a breathing guide and timer.

Good luck, I promise this will change your life.