Conquer The Cold And Get Quantum Leaps In Performance In This Exclusive Interview With The Amazing Iceman Wim Hof.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and I want you to meet the amazing Iceman, Wim Hof. Now you may have heard of Whim before or seen him sitting in the ice or sitting on top of a snow covered mountain somewhere, typically in the news or on a TV show. He's a Dutch world record holder, adventurer and daredevil and they call him the Iceman because he has almost a superhuman ability to be able to withstand extreme cold. He holds 20 world records, including a world record for the longest ice bath. He stayed immersed in ice for over an hour and 50 minutes. I believe he has reached the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in his shorts. Within a couple of days of climbing, he's completed a full marathon above the Polar Circle in Finland where it drops to negative 20 degrees Celsius, dressed in nothing but shorts. And he also ran a full marathon in the Namib Desert without any water. Today we're going to delve into some of Wim's tips, his tricks, how he does this stuff and really get a chance to kind of get inside the mind of one of the most amazing human beings on the face of the planet. So, Wim, thank you so much for coming on the call today.

Wow, Ben, what an introduction. But okay, let's go.

All right, well, let's jump right in. You have specific techniques that you use to do things like control your body temperature and be resistant to the cold. So I'm curious how you use things like science of breathing and meditation to accomplish this.

Yeah, exactly. I'm into science these days, these years, and they did all kinds of experiments with me and they saw I have a control of sustaining the inner core temperature at 37 degrees Celsius, which is in Fahrenheit. You know, the blood temperature of the liver, the lungs, the brain and the heart needs to be constantly at the same temperature to be able to function. And I'm very well in maintaining that blood temperature inside throughout my ice immersions or running in beyond the Polar Circle or climbing Mount Everest in shorts. So how did I do this? How did I learn about this? Just interest by interest, I came upon this, you know, the ice Water. I got in and I felt, this is working. This is deep. This is what I'm looking for. So I went in and into regular practice. I could expand the time span and at a certain moment, you know, just got a deeper control over your physiology. And it showed in the universities later on that I'm able to control the physiology much more deeper than scientifically is mentioned, the humans, to be able. So that's what I showed. And it showed even that I am able to go into the autonomic nervous system, which is normally outside of the will.

Yeah, it's subconscious.

It is. That's what they say. And I show to go deeply into that system by. By will. And I think the cold is very, you know, direct, and it goes very deep. And once you learn about the control to control the cold, you learn to go very deep, so deep that you go into these areas of the autonomic nervous system. And it showed in the university. So then they said, okay, you are the iceman. You can do it. But that's. Yeah, it takes years and years of training to be able to go into the autonomic nervous system. Others cannot do that. Just, you know, normal people cannot do this.

And.

And I told them, no, it's not like that. What I've learned, anybody can do what I've learned, because what I've learned is naturally trained and exercised by nature and in nature. And it was called in this way, which brought me into the depth of the. Of the autonomic nervous system, which is the physiology of man. I thought, now I know you're talking about tricks and etc. There are no tricks. It is just physiology. And now I know to bring people in just a very short period of time into the autonomic nervous system and that related to the immune system, brings about great changes in the power within yourself. That's inner fire.

Can you give me an example? Because I know that you use breathing and you also use meditation. Can you give me an example of how it actually works? Like what you would do if you were to, say, go out in the cold? You know, if I were to walk out. My backyard right now is covered in snow. If I wanted to get that inner fire. What's an example of the type of breathing technique or the type of meditation technique that you'd use for something like that?

I would go out with you in the morning, say, let's do a breathing exercise within five minutes. Like we do a very concentrated. You are concentrated right now, for example, you are talking to me. So the same attention I am asking of you to go deep into breathing with me right now. And just in a couple of minutes you will be quite able to go without air in the lungs and push up more than you do with breathing and have less, less electric acid in the body. So I'm gonna make you conscious of the ability of your physiology in a different way. And the same thing I will use to convince you by feeling. Feeling is understanding. I always say going into the cold and we take off our shoes. I would walk with you like 15 minutes just in snow, barefooted and even do exercises in the snow, which inside with all the heat and warmth would take you time to get into flexibility and a good bloodstream. No, I would get you in freezing cold into more flexibility than inside.

Now do you ever experience cold burns or skin damage or anything along those lines when you do this? Because it sounds like you can heat yourself internally through breathing and meditation. But what do you do about your skin?

Yeah, I had some problems once with half a marathon in beyond the Polar circle in Finland in January after 18 kilometers barefoot. And the doctors told me I had suffered from inflicted self cold injury and to a degree of irreparable damage done in the cell tissue. That's what they told me. And that was going to be, you know, black and would die off. But within a month, within a month I showed them different. I healed all my foot and I came back.

How did you do that?

That's part of the method I have created is also very good in generating the regenerative neurons in the central nervous system, which is all about healing. We go deep, we go like animals. We don't have hospitals in the animal world and nor pharmacy. They heal themselves and for that they go deep into their system. And that's what I've learned from the gold as well. To go deep in the system and heal yourself a lot more effective than normal healing is done because I'm able to go deeper into the system now. That's nice for me to be able to do that. Okay, that's the exception once again. But it only confirms the rule, as they say. What I want to say is that everybody is able to do this. Everybody is able to heal better, to boost up the immune system in an autonomic nervous system level deep and to get more energy in the, in the cell production. All these processes normally we could not reach. But this method is able to generate all that in ourselves again because this is part of the human potential we do not use. And I showed it with a group of persons who had no experience in the cold whatsoever. And four days later. Listen. Well, they were like. They began in shorts at -10 degrees Celsius. You can calculate how much that means in Fahrenheit, but in Celsius, minus 10. In shorts with shoes, on a mountain, on the mountain slopes. And we climbed up to the top, which was where the wind was blowing, and we had a wind chill of -27 degrees Celsius. And that was hours later. And all these guys, after four days of training, were able not only to withstand the cold, but to have an inner power, some sort go which was able to resist completely what was going on and feel great.

Were these the thrombosis patients that you took into the wilderness in Sweden?

No, not these ones. A different group, a different study which is going to be published very soon now and it's going to be worldwide. All the universities going to know about this. But the most remarkable thing about this one was that we were accompanied with doctors, were fully dressed to control us because we were, you know, part of the research. They were going with us. It's all filmed. It's going to be on film too, on documentaries, probably Discovery Channel, National Geographic, later in the year. But I'm telling it you now, these doctors, they were suffering from the cold, fully dressed, and we with insurance were not suffering whatsoever of the cold, just feeling very, very strong. And that's, that's awakening human potential. And I'm. I'm telling you, everybody is able to do this like I did just recently, by taking 26 people, going completely, a complete team of 26 people, in short, in two days up to Kilimanjaro.

Now, when you take those people up there and you sit on Kilimanjaro in the cold, and these folks haven't been exposed to the cold before, are they having to learn how to do things like deep breathing and meditation, or you simply bring them right out there in the cold and just kind of doing trial by fire? Except trial by ice or snow, I guess, in this case.

Yes. No, it's all about control, Ben. And everybody is able to control by these techniques, to go deeply within control. And that's what they did. But there is no exception almost of, of people. The oldest one was like 65 years with heart problems before, and he managed to do it as well in two days where, you know, sports, people at the top of their talents, etc. Without these techniques just going to suffer, going up. So I want no one to say.

Something, if I may interject. Women's system consists like you said of breathing exercises, exposure to the cold and so on. And so this group, even though none of them was a mountaineer and they didn't have that experience, they did get training with Wim before going on the expedition. So the method was the tools that they used. And then they went to Africa and they were able to achieve it. So it wasn't like, okay, let's see what you can do.

Gotcha. Now you also took the thrombosis patients and I'm curious why you would take someone with heart issues out into the cold like that. What it is that you were trying to achieve.

Yeah, thrombosis is weakened arterial system. You know, the skin of the arteries and the veins is very weak and something gets in and blocks the way and you get thrombosis. Okay. So what I do with the cold is gradually learning to adapt by feeling. I say never, never force your body, don't be violent to the body, but learn to go deeper. Because there is more. And one thing, there is more in the body is a better workings of the cardiovascular system. And the cold is being used to go gradually inside the optimization of the cardiovascular system. And it takes, it's actually mild cold exposure, which I use with people with thrombosis.

But then is that because of the nitric oxide release?

No, no, no, no. More oxygen in the body brings about a better conduction, a better. It's a relief of the body. We actually breathe shallow. I learn people to breathe, to bring about oxygen in the body much deeper into the tissue than ever before. And that makes, that relieves the body. So that, that's one thing. The other thing is the cardiovascular system is very much trained and triggered by gradual cold adaptation and all kinds of exercises. But the cold is needed as a to dilate and contract the vascular system. So that's what we do. And it all works wonders. I mean, we are actually a wonder. Our physiology is like developed throughout millions of years. But when we started to begin to get dressed with clothes, then of course you take away the stimulation toward all these developed mechanisms.

Right. You get comfortable.

Yes.

Yeah. Now I've got another question for you, Wim. Is there a special diet that you specifically follow to enhance your ability to withstand cold temperatures? Or have you found that that some type of carb protein fat ratio or diet approach is useful for you?

Not exactly. What I'm telling is we actually need energy, which is coming from the sun, solar energy. And solar energy is directly stored in plants more than in animals. Animals date plants, they eat plants. It's an indirect way. And the molecular structure of plants, plant food suits better with the molecular structure of our energy productive processes.

So do you not eat meat?

Well, occasionally I eat some meat, but mostly it is vegetarian.

Interesting, interesting. Now I'm curious also about the immune system, because we've all heard that frequent exposure to cold might make you sick. Do you find that immune system becomes stronger with exposure to cold or is there not a difference?

No, there's absolutely a difference. Because if you train the cardiovascular system, there's hundreds thousand kilometers cardiovascular system in the body. That means capillaries, arteries, veins. Now listen very well. This is a concept which is not only a concept, is the way it works in the body. After so many years, it just came out very simple. There are two things. The cardiovascular system is cardio. The cardio is the heart. If the cardiovascular system is not working well because it is not stimulated too much, then all these little muscles, primitive muscles in the arteries and the veins, as well as the reflexes of the capillaries, which is totally hundred thousand kilometers of transportation system channels, all that, if that is not really stimulated, then of course it gets weakened. It's like a muscle in the arm. If you do not train it, it gets weak. And like that it is in the arteries and the veins. So then the heart needs to pump really hard to get the blood through the system.

Right?

And that creates stress hormones. A chronic presence of stress hormones creates a basis for lacto acid. It creates a depletion of energy. It's no good. It's bringing the heart under stress, immune suppression. And then the immune system, which is immune cells, they are fed by the vascular system. But if the vascular system is not working really well, then there is a chronic shortage of feeding toward the immune cells.

Now, I noticed that there's an actual study on your website and I'll link to this study in the show Notes for folks. But it says that they did a study to investigate whether a special concentration or meditative technique employed by you could influence autonomic nervous system and the innate immune response. And in that study they talk about what they call a cytokine response. Can you explain what that is and how it works?

Cytokines are inflammatory bodies, like in rheumatism or any autoimmune disease. The immune system is overactive and we have no capability of suppressing the cytokine release, which is which are inflammatory bodies in the system. And so we have no control over that. And I showed all these subjects I trained in four days to be very able to control this.

Now does that require the use of cold or can you just use your meditation and breathing techniques?

The cold brings about a better optimization of the cardiovascular system, which then under your will, works better.

Okay, gotcha. Interesting. Now, I know that our time is limited and I certainly don't want to ignore the fact that you ran a full marathon in the desert, apparently with no water. So I'm curious why you did that. And kind of as a follow up question, if you think that this cold thermogenesis that you do gives some kind of a better adaptation to perform better in the heat.

Yes. The cold trains the thermoregulative processes and they are done by the hypothalamus. So the hypothalamus is into regulating the body and bringing out balance every time you pass into a different weather condition. That's to maintain homeostasis, a balance within the body. So I trained it in the cold and extremely trained in the cold. And that brought about a much greater control of the hypothalamus inside. And that I had a real, I have a real good contact with my hypothalamus in order to be able, without movement. And it has been scientifically shown to generate 3,300% more metabolic activity up in the cell just by thought. That means by willpower, you can control the hypothalamus. Okay, the hypothalamus. Then I showed it in the university. It's a study, a different study. And they went to a scientific conference in Florida just for scientists about autonomic nervous system. And can people influence on that. It was a. So it was a conference on the autonomic nervous system. And normally you get eight minutes. And two professors of here, of the Dutch university went with my results to that conference. And you get eight, eight minutes to present your results. Normally you get two questions. One, two questions. Now they had to answer for two hours all the questions because it is so strange. Somebody is generating without movement, 300% more metabolic activity in the cell. So that means you just directly have a line with a hypothalamus and you stimulate it and it brings about all these adrenaline, cortisol, all these things at once. Boom. And it goes up into the cell in which never before they thought you are able to do that without movement.

Now, now where does running a marathon in the desert without any water fit in here? How did you do that?

So that was my. The follow up was once you control, in the, in the heat, in the cold, you can control it. A thermoregulator, which is the hypothalamus then you go. Then I thought, why I not go now to the desert? I did all my things in the cold. Now I go to the desert to see if I'm able to do that. And to make it more stressful, I won't drink. So I had a physiologist measuring me up. I lost about 5.2 liters of water, but I never lost control of the core temperature. It always remained very controlled at 37 degrees and something.

Were you doing your special breathing techniques for that, too?

It is, you know, once you get control, you need. You're always. You always use breathing. Breathing is pneumatic pressure, pressure rising in certain parts of the body. And specifically when you get sick somewhere, this or that, you use this pressure, pressure rising and it helps. And you reach the area and you boost up the immune system. So anytime I feel I'm becoming short in something, wherever it is, in the heat, without air on the Mount Everest, or in a stressful situation, or when I'm sick or in the cold, it doesn't matter. I use the breathing. I go to the spot and I solve the question. I just begin to boost up the immune system and it knows exactly what to do.

Wow. Well, I know that you actually teach this method. And if someone wanted to, say, attend one of these workshops or go with you out into the. The Swedish wilderness or on the Mount Kilimanjaro, where does somebody go to find out more about this?

That's a Eisman Wim hof dot com. That's one. But in June, I'll be in Texas and afterwards in Tucson and afterwards in San Francisco.

Okay, cool.

Doing workshops and working with. Because they're very nice people over there. I'm working with those people there is great.

What I'll do for the listeners is I'll link over to Iceman, Wim Hof's website, but also to some of the articles about Wims breathing technique. A link to Whim's really good book called Becoming the Iceman, that's another excellent one. And then also a few books on breathing techniques and some of the ways that you can kind of tap into this yourself. And also a link over to. Well, Wim Hof's website is where you can register for any of his workshops. So I know that you guys are pressed for time, but is there anything else that you want to share with the audience?

We can do a lot more than we think. And really it is time to get into that.

Excellent. Well, I'm amazed at what you do, Wim. And you're an inspiration, and I would love to be able to to kind of tackle the cold like you do. And that's certainly one of my goals over this year, is to learn some of your breathing techniques and kind of tap into this and maybe even make it down to one of your workshops when you come up in the summer. So thank you so much for coming on the call.

Right on, Ben. Thank you very much, too. I love your work, too. You know, we make people conscious of things, and that's great work. Thank you.

Well, thank you. And, folks, until next time, this is Ben Greenfield and Wim Hof signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com be sure to head over there to check out the show notes and resources for this episode.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

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