Wim Hof: On Breathwork Science, Cold Exposure, Immune Control, & Human Potential | TUH #263

If you go into the cold and you use the breathing the right way, you're going to feel better. You are sharper and you learn to know who you are and what you can trust.

It was the breath that allowed you to mitigate the effects of the cold.

I am able to do more than we think is possible. It's in the power you can take over in your own mind.

So you determined your susceptibility to the cold. That's what's so fascinating.

We are born to be the masters of of our mind and captains of our soul.

What I love about your teachings in the breathwork and the cold is like it's bringing the control back to you.

Breathing exercise, we are able to activate 100% neural activity in our brain. The breath is the life, life force itself. Just get it in.

For people that are fascinated by the idea that they might have some control over their stress, where do they begin?

The thing is, what's most surprised me Is that—

today I'm sitting down with a man who has literally rewritten the rules of human physiology. He's run a marathon barefoot in Antarctica in nothing but board shorts. He's helped a 76-year-old woman with Lyme disease summit Kilimanjaro and in 31 hours, a climb that takes most people 5 to 9 days. He's activated 100% of the human brain under clinical observation using nothing but conscious breathing. His name is Wim Hof, and the world calls him the Iceman. But here's what I want you to understand before we get into this conversation. I've tried hyperbaric chambers, I've tried red light therapy, saunas, peptides, every supplement on the planet as a single input in my life. Wim Hof's breathwork protocol has had the greatest impact on my health, my family, and my outlook on life. Full stop. In this episode, Wim is going to show you how to take back control of your nervous system, your emotions, and your destiny using a practice that is free, portable, and backed by peer-reviewed science. You don't want to miss this one. Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. You've heard me say this before about how excited I am for certain guests, for certain mentors. But today is extraordinarily special for me. And the reason is that in 2013, my mother, who's now 82 years old, she's sitting right in the room with us today. My mother told me about this breathwork session that she was going to go to in Orlando with, with a practitioner named Wim Hof, and they were going to pack him in ice up to his neck live at this, this event. She was going to be sitting in the front row. She's a Reiki practitioner. And I truly thought it was a bunch of hocus pocus. And so I didn't go. And in 2013, my mom, Judy Brecka, met Wim Hof, the Iceman. And I regret not going that day because this man, this guest, has probably had as a single unit the greatest impact on my life and my family's life. I need to say that before we start the podcast because I have, uh, taken your courses. I have, um, practiced your, your breathwork as best as I can for, uh, 5 years now. It has, as a single input in my life, has had the greatest impact on my life, full stop. I use it when I travel to accommodate to time zones. I use it to go to sleep. I use it to wake up. I use it to release stress. And I just want to say thank you for all that you have poured into the world. I am so excited to run this podcast with you. Thank you for taking the time to come on to The Ultimate Human Podcast. So the one, the only, the Iceman Wim Hof. Welcome to The Ultimate Human.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Wow.

What an introduction. This is amazing. Especially it's coming from real respect. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah, I love it. Like science, non-speculative, evidence-based. There is more. Than we think is possible.

I totally agree with you.

And I want to dig in right now because I think you got the right platform to bring out what I got.

Yes.

Already evidence-based, proven for humanity is a great message how to get into the deepest of our brain and physiology and change our lives and take over autonomy.

Couldn't agree with you more. You know, we had such a great conversation and connection before before the podcast started, and one of the things that you and I completely align on is how in control we actually are. We're just— we just don't know it. And I think when we— when I was in the mortality space, we knew that isolation was the most detrimental thing to humanity. People feel disconnected, they feel isolated, terrible things happen. One of the things that you have proven, and I want to back this story up a little bit, one of these things that have you have proven is just how much control we truly have over our health, our nervous system, our cardiovascular system, our stress, our sleep, our waking energy. It is just so fascinating how powerful the human body and human beings really are. And you've tapped into that special innate power. I, I do wanna rewind the clock a little bit though. So for my audience that may not be familiar with you, um, I want to say that your journey really began when you were around 17 years old. This was the first time that you broke the ice.

Yes.

And got into the cold. And at the time, you were a student of— you were studying, like, was it religion, philosophy, Buddhism?

Oh, languages, traditions, esoteric disciplines, practices. So reading about it and doing it. But it didn't really fulfill me. Yeah. My rumination in the head, thinking brain just went on. A Sunday morning, very silent, everybody sleeping. I was out in the park and just thinking as I used to about what is this all about? Troubled, like confused. Confused. And then I saw by a gut feeling the ice on the— it was wintertime in Amsterdam in a park. And a thin layer on the ice, and I felt attracted to go in. Why? I did not know. But I looked around, I stripped myself of the clothes, I went in, and there I felt without words, this is it. I was looking for this without knowing I had found what I was actually looking for in books. And it is the cold. The cold that opens up a deeper realm of the physiology, both in the brain and in the body. But back then, I did not have any scientific knowledge about this. I just felt it that way. I felt euphoric afterwards the whole day long. The other day I came back with the expectation, is it maybe not going to feel so good like yesterday? That is just, yeah, a new thing and all. And I went in and it happened and again. Wow. And since then, 17, almost 50 years ago, I am every day in the ice when I can. Yeah. When I'm traveling or something, sometimes I cannot. But that's all right because it changed my life. It changed the circuitry in my brain. I am able to do more than we think is possible. It's in the end the power you can take over in your own mind. Yes, because we have a brain and it works, as you say, separately, like over-individualized we are. We are not living the life the way nature meant it to be. So we don't feel that full spirited being because it's not all together united within our brain, which is the seat of the unlimited power of the mind. Yeah, but who, who felt the unlimited power of the mind? Who felt omnipresence and omnisight? And omnipotent. Who felt God? You know, divine, great, happy, strong, and healthy. Those are the components I live now by, and I say it's accessible for everybody in the world. Wow.

And along this journey, you know, I wouldn't say that you had an easy life. You know, I know that you've had some very traumatic events. You know, I also know that you've done some incredible feats of physical accomplishment. And you have always gone back to the cold as a way to channel that stress and to get back in touch with yourself. And, you know, for those of you that are not familiar, I really encourage you to watch this documentary, but— and I'll put a link to it in the show notes below. But this man has run marathons in the Arctic barefoot in a board shorts, no shirt, no water. Um, has run marathons in the— what is it— the Namib Desert. Um, not exactly a hospitable place. Um, um, also, uh, you know, no shirt, pair of board shorts, no drinking, no drinking. Um, nearly scaled Mount Everest, had a foot injury and had to, had to come off the mountain, but, um, scaled Kilimanjaro. Um, and so the, the physical feats, um, packed in ice an hour and 53 minutes. And, you know, no, no human being should be able to survive that, you know, being packed up in ice, solid ice, up to your neck for almost 2 consecutive unbroken hours. And what it has proven is the amount of control that you have been able to take back into, into your own body. The most fascinating thing for me um, as a data scientist is that you have broken the mold of the autonomic nervous system. And science and medicine say you have no control over the autonomic nervous system. Um, you cannot influence your heart rate, you cannot influence your respiratory rate unconsciously, you cannot, um, influence your immune system. And yet you have proven um, by actually the introduction of biotoxins into your bloodstream with hundreds of other Wim Hof practitioners, that even in the presence of deadly E. coli, which should inflame the immune system and immediately cause, you know, a dramatic immune cytokine storm, uh, response, that through controlling your autonomic nervous system, influencing your own immune system, you, you actually didn't even react to deadly poisons. So I just wanted to set the stage for that for those of you that are not familiar with Wim Hof and his work. I mean, it is astounding what this man has been able to do by taking back control of his, of his own body. Um, so it— and, and now let's, let's, let's walk through some of the science, you know, um, from then until now. What has surprised you the most about what you know?

So in 2014, we got the publications of, in Nature in the end, and the Proceedings of National Academy. That should have alarmed the scientific world that inflammation, which is the cause and effect of any disease, cytokine storms, that innate immune system can now be controlled. We can suppress through breathing techniques and faith, belief, your intention, your willpower, consciously we can tap into the innate immune system, into the autonomic nervous system, bring down inflammation. Once again, the cause and effect of disease. Since then, they should— the whole academic world should have gotten alarmed that we found a direction to gain a power over us which is a huge problem since ever, disease. Yes. And why is it not? That is what surprises me the most. Why is it not that the academic world is gone into this and produces 1,000 studies? Because we are hitting on a primordial problem humanity always has been suffering of. And now we found a solution. Yeah. And why did they not go into— that is the world where we live in. Yeah. We don't live where in a world where we want autonomy for the people, freedom for the people, power in the people to beat their problems like disease and psychosomatic diseases and depressions and all energy levels and all, all those things. Can be controlled. Yeah. And I just pointed out a direction. I came— I'm a dropout of school. I came into the scientific arena first, 80 minutes standing in the ice. I showed no shivering, 200% more metabolic rate going up just because I wanted to. I was talking to the people. The professors and all, while I was encased in a stressful environment of ice. And then they saw I was motionless. That is the power of the mind.

Yeah.

The power of the mind. Cold is like emotion, is like heat. It's an impact. Can we do something about it? Yes, we are the master. We are born to be the masters of our mind and captains of our soul. I go very fast and we will go back. The thing is, what's most surprised me is that that university should have 10 Nobel Prizes for having discovered a way, a natural, non-invasive way, how to battle inflammation, the cause and effect of disease. We only pointed it out. I came from nature into a hospital, university hospitals. There is no speculation. Population there. Yeah, it's just data. Yeah. And you see it in the blood, the inflammatory markers, the cytokines, the IL-6, the IL-8. Also in COVID, it's, it's the problem, it's the essence. Yeah. And we just brought it down. And the IL-10, pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory, up. We turned everything around. What normally is like the cytokines, IL-6, IL-8, IL-2, whatever, the interleukins that cause the inflammation are up and we could not do anything. And that's what makes it go down. It's going down, we turn the table and we should have had many more university studies. And I know you understand what I'm saying.

I understand it to an extent that it's so fascinating to me because people, you know, when you get SARS-CoV-2 or COVID, COVID-19, you don't die of, uh, the virus or the infection. You divide— you die of the body's reaction to it. You die of the cytokine storm. The same thing happens with other viral pathogens. It's the over-inflammatory response from the immune system. It's— it gets hyperactivated. When we say that people have— they're immunosuppressed or they have a weak immune system, it doesn't mean that their immune system doesn't react. It means that it overreacts very often. So, you know, you get a viral infection and it takes so long for the immune system to lock in that that virus has built up to such a level that when the immune system finally engages, you die of inflammation. And the fact that we now have a mechanism to control that cytokine storm— proven, by the way, this isn't hyperbole. I mean, I'm going to link all of the studies that, that, that this man has done, um, with all of this, by the way, getting published in Nature and some of these journals. These are very, very prestigious um, peer-reviewed, um, journals, and the science is there. And, and I think that academia fears humanity having control of their own destiny.

There is the power.

And humanity having control over our own health. And we, we know that the Bible says this: so a man thinketh, he shall become. And when we get infected with disease, with pathology, if we give up and say, I no longer believe in what God gave us, I believe only in what man makes us, I'm going to need a pharmaceutical, a synthetic, a chemical to fix this, rather than the deep belief that we can heal ourselves and using things like cold and like breathwork. And I want to talk about some of the mechanisms because this is now no longer like a, you know, tree-hugging society that's out, you know, breathing in the wilderness. This is data that has been done at some of the, the leading universities in the world, leading research institutions in the world. So let's, let's, let's walk this back. And for, for, for people that are, uh, fascinated by the idea that they might have some control over their stress, over their inflammation, um, over their mood, over their emotional state, um, where do they begin? Like, how does the journey into breathwork and the cold begin? For them. If your energy is low during the day, the problem usually started the night before. Sleep affects focus, mood, metabolism, literally everything, and most people never learn how to properly support it. Our free sleep challenge is April 29th and 30th, and it's designed to teach the basics of better sleep in a way that's realistic and easy to apply. If learning how to sleep better feels like the right place to start, we'd love to have you join our challenge on April 29th. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

First of all, don't make it overcomplicated. Don't overthink. We got it proven. It's there. It's a matter of choice. Do you want to have the power over your emotions, the regulation of your emotions? We did the studies. Do you want the power over stress? We did the studies, comparative studies, and it shows that we found very effective ways how to bring down, for example, stress. Instead of stress being the absence of stress, health being the absence of stress. No, we face it. We have the power.

Step into it.

Yes. To navigate the stress and to become a better human than the stress is able to jeopardize us in whatever way, emotionally, physically, spiritually, it doesn't matter. It always comes to this the nervous system, which is jeopardized by toxins produced through the stress. And are we able to deal with that? Yes, we are. We are able directly to go into the adrenal axis just to spike it and to get the shit out what should not be in. And that now is there. And how do you do that? A little bit of breathing.

So we can actually get toxins out.

Yes. And I'm doing the studies right now in San Diego, it appears to be that the brain waste, which is also part of the quality of thinking— yeah, the glymphatic brain waste clearance, this works 800% better than normal.

Breathwork?

Yes, sir. That is the cold and the breath. And you are able to activate the adrenal axis and make it go into the spinal fluid to the head cleansing the lymphatic brain waste 8 times better.

That is one.

Then we did a study recently published in Nature with 500 people.

500.

500. And compared to meditation and mindfulness in the corporate world. In the corporate world, it's $1 trillion a year. In 2030, about $6 trillion a year. Yeah, because it's cumulative. It's a real problem. Stress is the real problem, not only in the corporate world, everywhere else in the world too. The thing is, we should not go like an ostrich into the sand. The stress is not there and I don't want it. It is there. The lion comes and eats you. Yes. Yeah, that is the stress. Yeah. Now we are able, very able, with some natural non-invasive tools to battle that stress. To create a coordinated circuitry in the brain that is suddenly much more able than before thought possible to battle the stress. And to be— we are built to take on any way stress comes to us, but we alienated from those, from those mechanisms inside our body and mind. And so So what they found was 300% better cognitive awareness than mindfulness, 300% more resilience toward stress compared to mindfulness as a stress tool, and 400% more energy boost compared to mindfulness. This is what we use in the corporate world. The corporate world is like production and numbers and this and that, and it's just production. We don't care too much about But the people, yeah, we need to produce, we need to work. Competition is luring upon us. We got to be better. And oh, hey, 300% better than the usual stress tools. 300% in cognitive awareness, sharpness of mind, and then 300% in resilience towards stress, 400% energy boost. And then they found too, if you go into the cold and you use the breathing, the right way by which the adrenal axis is able to cleanse the whole body the way and then become clean without the absence or without the presence of cortisol long-term, which is detrimental. Yes. We use hormesis, self-inflicted acute stressful exercise. And it doesn't take long. And if you just do that in the morning, You're going to produce better. You're going to feel better. You are sharper and you learn to know who you are and what you are, what you can trust. Yeah. And that's the study we did with Harvard Insight. Suddenly the people trusted.

Trust themselves.

Trust themselves. And from there, there was no competition. There was working together. There was an open energy. Yeah. And they talked to the authorities because they knew who they were. You are not gonna tell me what I am or what I gotta do. I know what I'm here for. And here it is clear and nice, 'cause that is the seventh neurological network within us. Six sense, seven sense, it's your purpose. And this is the time we enter into the science of the soul, the time for the soul. No longer, we are not here for the system. We are here to realize our soul. And that is when we are there, we trust back into God's presence. Even the Catholic Church even comes with its PhDs to me. They say this is a highly esoteric, mystical discipline. And how long does it take? 20 years of learning? Half hour. Wow.

So in this study with 500 people, What specifically did they— I assume there was a control group that didn't do these things. And then in the, you know, the non-control group, you have— they were doing breathwork and cold exposure. But what did that look like? Was it cold first, breathwork after? Was it breathwork in the cold? What did the study design look like?

They did— they had all watches.

So like Whoop or something to measure? Yeah.

Whoop watches. And so everything is registered. And they did breathing every day.

They would start in the morning with breathing.

Yes.

Okay. What did that look like? Hyperventilation?

What is it, 20 minutes? 20 minutes of breathwork. The way it works is very simple. You create respiratory alkalosis by breathing off the CO2 the cell is not able to fill it up so quickly. So the blood becomes alkaline. When it is alkaline, so alkaline, you don't need to breathe. There is no breathing trigger because it depends on the amount of CO2. So the CO2 is a little time absent. But in that little time of absence, we don't need to breathe because we are alkaline. It just goes back to the right homeostasis of alkalinity. And you feel like nice. Parasympathetic nervous system is on, but sympathetic as well. It is quite contradictory of— it's a biohack. It's an ultimate biohack. We are able to get into the vagus nerve, into the parasympathetic nervous system at the same time, consciously. At the same time sympathetic nervous system. Wow. And what now happens, that is the autonomic nervous system. What happens is we enter into the deep brain because we are not breathing. There is the breathing reflex mechanism.

This is in the breath hold.

Yes, in the breath hold. So it goes directly to the brainstem. And in the brainstem, you have the mechanisms to react on CO2 and alkalinity, but there is no CO2. So the brain thinks there is danger. The non-thinking brain thinks, or thinks, acts as if chemically there is danger. What happens? Hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal glands, adrenal spike. After 90 seconds of not breathing after exhalation, you got 5 times more blood flowing, flushing into the heart and brain. It's all survival reflexes. The thing is, Anything that should not be in the body is being exposed because it hits direct to the greatest of possible functionality of our being to survive this situation while you feel great. Yeah.

And this was over a 20-minute controlled period. So is it controlled hyperventilation and then a long pause, then controlled hyperventilation and a long pause? Yeah. Can we demonstrate it maybe?

We got a lack of oxygen. A lot of words and definition about this. I say hyperventilation is a kind of state, wrong state of breathing. Okay. And what I say is deep breathing.

So is it like—

letting go. Yeah, very simple.

So very simple. And this for 30 or so breaths.

If you do this— one month ago, I was with the strongest guy in the world, the strongest man. It's Eddie Hall. He was the first to lift 500 kilos.

Yeah.

Yes. That is 1,000 pounds. He was the first one. So I was with him and I said, yeah, you're good. You might be better than others, but who says you are the best of yourself? Yeah. So let's go into the breath for that. So first you do Dumbbells, 60 pounds here, 60 pounds here, and go like this as much as you can.

To complete failure.

Yes. 60 times he went. Yes. 60 pounds here, 60 pounds here. 60 times he did.

And then, ah, I lost.

You know, that way. Then I took him out. We talk a little, drink tea. Tea, water, something, uh, distracted. Yeah, out of his mind. Still the soreness was still in the arms. But after 10 minutes, we went back to the same place. They say, now we are going to do deep breathing, not hyperventilate, the deep breathing. I call it deep breathing because hyperventilation, people have a negative connotation. So, and do one thing with your mind. You follow the breath, nothing else.

Just tune into your breath.

Give the best.

Does it matter nose or mouth?

Give the best and the best is able to come. That is all.

Nasal or mouth or doesn't matter?

Doesn't matter.

Just get the air in.

Just get the air in. There's nothing complicated about it. There was somebody asking me, do I have to through my this nostril, that, or the diaphragm or the lungs, the belly? Do I have to simultaneously? Hey, hey, hey, use any hole you got. Just get it in. Just to make it so overcomplicating things. It is the breath. The breath is the life. Yeah. Life force itself. Just get it in. Yeah. And so I told him that and he did that. And instead of— and then say, and now you take the dumbbells again, the same dumbbells. 60 pounds, 60 pounds, and you go again. He still had the soreness of the exercise 10 minutes ago in his body, and he did 90, 90, and he was not tired.

Wow.

He was not tired. What is that? You can be better than somebody else, but are you the best of yourself? And that is the power of the breath. Wow. And we should bring this into secondary schools to the children. Because if they know that, then you become the best of yourself. You learn to cleanse yourself completely, the adrenal axis, than any emotional conflict you have because you have talents, but maybe not for this system. So you don't get conflict with yourself because you know how to cleanse yourself of the difference. Are exerted to be. You gotta do this and you gotta do this. But maybe you are a carpenter, maybe you are a woodworker, or a doctor, or a painter, or a musician. But the system demands, oh, this and this are the careers, this is the way you can make money, and this is the way the system survives. No, we are souls. And we have talents to realize what our soul is all about, to get into the depth of our physiology, of the mind and body. For that, we have talents. Those are the way to deal with matter. And if you want to get into psychology over physiology, mind over matter, you will have to learn to, to regulate your emotions in the depth. And we did the studies there in Detroit.

I've seen them.

Wayne State. And they say, and now we got the compelling evidence of the key components of the autonomous processes in the brain. Autonomous is outside the will. Now we found the key components related to mood regulation. That is emotion. Emotion is the expression of our soul. It's very simple. And once you are able to cleanse, or because of the stress accumulated from working in a system which is not necessarily exerting your talents, yeah, there you get problem. You learn to deal with that stress. Yeah. And your emotion stays clear. And with that, the soul stays clear. You can use anything in the world to get to the soul. If there is a system, you can abide to the rules of the system and have a position and it says, without losing your soul and use it, use it like the Budo principle in the old ways of martial art. Use the power of the opponent and lock them up. And there you bring peace. And that is within us. And we don't know how to do that. But it is not difficult. It's just simple.

Yeah.

Use any hole you got.

And just get the air in. Of my favorite biohacks outside of breathwork by far is mineral salts. Baja Gold Sea Salt. It's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs. You know, most of us are not just protein deficient, meaning amino acid deficient, or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral deficient. So a quarter teaspoon of this in water first thing in the morning will make sure that you get all of the essential minerals that you need. It tastes amazing. In fact, I made a steak today. I actually made a grass-fed steak with grass-fed butter, and I put just mushrooms and a little bit of rosemary, and I sprinkled Baja Gold Sea Salt all over the top. Try it. It'll be your new favorite for cooking too. It's the cheapest and one of my favorite biohacks. I don't know, a $15 or $20 bag of this will probably last you 5 years. It's literally the world's best biohacking secret. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. You know what I find is so, uh, just, just fascinating is I can't think of another singular practice or, um, singular supplement or singular ritual that cleanses the body of toxins right, which, which in and of itself improves our immune function, right? I mean, uh, I was asked on a podcast, uh, a few months ago, um, if I was to put all of the top leading, uh, anti-aging longevity experts in a room and have them agree on one theory of aging, what would it be? And I said we would all agree on the theory of immunofatigue, just a slow progressive overwhelming of our immune system. We're micropoisoning ourselves all the time, and it may not be just the glyphosate or just the fluoride in the water or just the and this and just the processed foods. But those things accumulate and eventually they collapse the system. And so through breathwork, to be able to detoxify, but to also impact the mental side, the mood, the emotion, to get rid of stress, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, these conditions that are conditions of the mind, they're conditions of the psyche. And to be able to cleanse both of those with a singular practice that is free, that you can do anywhere in the world, that's portable. And I think this is why it doesn't get the adoption that it deserves, because it's so accessible. It can't be that good.

Yes.

Um, you know, or else, you know, somebody would have a patent on it. You know, Pfizer would sell it in a bit, you know, uh, in a pill. And, um, and, and then when you add the hormetic stress and you think, I'm cleansing, I'm, I'm releasing trauma, I'm, I'm shifting the state of my nervous system. We talked about this on the balcony earlier, how 82% of all autoimmune disease is found in females. It's not because autoimmune disease is selective by sex, it's selective by weakness. And very often women don't feel safe in their own bodies. When you don't feel safe, you're trapped in this sympathetic state, the state of fight or fight, and the immune system doesn't work in that state. And so what happens is it weakens and you're susceptible to attack. And so, I mean, if there's no other message that comes out of this podcast, is that breathwork just has to be a part of your daily routine, full stop.

Absolutely.

Um, so I want to go back to this study. So, um, they did 20 minutes of, uh, this controlled breathing. Um, at the end of either 20 or 30 rounds of breath, they did, they did a prolonged breath hold, and it was during this breath hold that the CO2 CO2 was building up. They felt fine. Uh, CO2 is the main vasodilator in the body, is dilating the microvasculature, which, by the way, our heart is only circulating 30% of the blood in our body. 70% of the blood in our body is circulated by vasomotor activity. So there's no pressure in those vessels. So if we can dilate and relax them, just think about the amount of blood flow that's going to tissues that previously were not getting any any nutrients, any oxygen. We were trapping inflammation in there and not getting it out. So they would do this 20 or 30 minutes of controlled breathing, and then would they go into cold water? They would do cold water immersion?

Yes, cold showers. And once a week, coming together. As you mentioned in the beginning, we are over-individualized in this society. We are social human beings, and that is not just flower power, it is energy. Energy. And it interacts with our nervous system. It just runs better. When I get people, hundreds of people, doesn't matter their age, profession, background, even conditions, in 4 days' time, just exposing these people to elemental environmental forces like cold and breathing, they come together. And then in the last day, they go climb a mountain. Never been in the cold before, but they all do it in their shorts and bikinis outside for 4 or 5 hours in freezing temperatures. And they feel humanity. They feel great. They feel purpose, a depth of spirituality, which goes beyond what we think. It feels. And that brings the people all so together that they get lifelong friends just in 4 days. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, there's something to be said for that because, you know, doing hard things together really brings a bond. And I agree with you. You know, we are so starved for connection, community, and purpose. And, you know, the digital age has has made us more isolated and more disconnected. We knew in the mortality space, and I talk about this all the time, that if you want to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half, at any age, you put them in isolation. Broken heart syndrome in the elderly is a very real thing. Married 50 years, 60 years, a spouse passes, the other one goes quickly. It's very real. It's immediate isolation.

Death. I suffered it. Yeah, broken heart syndrome. Oh yeah, I know, but I could not stop. Yeah, I could not stop because I had 4 children, I had no money.

And now you have 7.

Now, now it's all prosperous. But how— where did I— yeah, oh yeah, I love it. The cold is not only good for you, it's a fertile system.

Clearly it makes you fertile.

Oh yes, I got— my oldest son is 42 and my youngest is 16 months.

Oh wow, that's amazing.

Yeah, and we are just fully in love. My wife is 30 years younger, but it's energy. My energy— I got a childlike energy.

Yeah, me too.

Every day.

It's infectious, man. I'm getting energy from you right now. My head's going to blow up.

It's there. And about the digital age and the isolation through that, it's not only that. I talked to neurosurgeons, they They put me at their dilemma, their problem. And the problem of the new generation is going to be that their brains are shrinking because they are too much on iPads and those devices, while we are human beings that need to be stimulated from all sides.

Yeah.

And then everything is growing and the brain is working, which is the central nervous system. System. And if it doesn't work, if you don't use it, you lose it. So that, that is all happening. And I told this neurosurgeon, one of the authorities in the world with a huge institute in Germany, very meticulous and great, but not knowing what to do, how to tackle that problem for the new generations to come. And I said, it's very simple. You do the breathing because what you do, you alkalize the blood. You ignite the adrenal axis. It goes into the spinal fluid. You squeeze to the head as if you got a poo and it doesn't want to get out. And you cleanse the brain of its brain waste and anything that was not flushed with blood flow and neural activity right now now, or the blood flow, the spinal fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, suddenly is everywhere. And we showed this in brain scans, how to activate 100% of our brain through breathing exercises. They saw it's a disco. It's a disco. And you will dance afterwards.

Yeah.

Because you feel good.

Yes.

You know, you don't need alcohol for That, get high on your own supply.

Yeah, I love that. That one's gonna go viral. So, you know, oh, I— what, what I, what I love even more about this is, is the individuality, the portability of it, that you can do it anywhere. Um, you know, you suggest, or would you suggest, for somebody that's like convinced that they want to go down this road, would you suggest that they just take 15 or 20 minutes in, in their morning and get outside and just do some breathing.

Yes.

And just that change. And what could they expect if they just did that 7 days a week? What might they expect?

I bring it back. Kilimanjaro is a mountain.

It's a big one.

And 6 kilometers, less than half the oxygen. And there was a man coming to me suffering from Lyme disease and 76 years old. He was 76 years old and he said, "Can I come with you to climb to Kilimanjaro in the record time you proposed?" Because this is a mountain that can be done between 5 and 9 days because of acclimatization. We cannot produce enough oxygen at those altitudes. That's why we have to go slowly but surely. So the body is able to adapt to the thinner air to produce enough oxygen inside. It's producing more red cells.

More red blood cells.

And that is called acclimatization. That takes 5 to 9 days. And then only 40% will be able to summit fully dressed because up there it's also arctic cold. It's Africa, but at 6 kilometers, the wind and ice and snow. And it's really— and with half the oxygen, you don't have the fuel to combat, to create energy.

Right.

So those predicaments, they are there. And for that 5 to 9 days, only 40% is summiting fully dressed. And this man, 76, he wanted to climb the Kilimanjaro within 35 hours. 35, not 5 to 9 days, in a short. That's what I said. The people who are going to come with me in this expedition, they're going to go, we are going to do it within 35 hours.

Wow.

And with that, we beat any physiological law of alpine acclimatization and high altitude sickness and all that. All that physiology 'Nah, we can do that a lot faster and better.' Yeah. And so he came. And when he came, he had no experience in mountain climbing at all. He was 76. He was suffering from Lyme disease. But what I saw in this man was motivation. So that is every time I ask first to the people, if you embark in this journey of breath and cold have motivation. It is scientifically endorsed, so it works. It is a matter of choice.

Wow.

Go wholeheartedly within it, and you will see the wonder of life, because life is a miracle, and miracles happen all the time if you only go to life. And that life force, you are able to control into the depth, as this man did. He did it in 31 hours.

He did it in 31 hours. No mountain climbing experience. 76 years old, suffering from Lyme disease. But what had he learned? He was a student of yours? Had he— had he—

he obviously knew who you were. Yeah, I said, "Do some breathing, do this." It is not complicated.

So how did that ascent look from a breathwork standpoint? How did you continue to acclimate at such an accelerated rate?

The only thing we do there on the mountain different than others, we don't wait until the lack of oxygen is there. We breathe consciously. So we are never getting trapped by a sneaky coming in deficit that builds up and suddenly you get high altitude sickness. No, you go and do conscious breathing. What I say is this, just breathe more than you feel you need.

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So you're just—

your attention is on— your attention is on your breath.

So that is consciousness.

So you're consciously attentive to your breath, and while you're ascending, you're maybe taking deeper breaths, more frequent breaths. So you're not letting your autonomic nervous system regulate your breathing. You are in control of your breathing.

Yes, that is consciousness. Consciousness is breathe more than you feel you need. That makes you conscious. And then you feel when the deficit is coming in, you compensate with a deeper breath. And it is not frenetic, it is not paranoid. That's not the way you go. Just a little bit more creates that consciousness that knows how to detect any deficit that is going to happen. And if you are just past that deficit and it never occurs, you can just simply walk to the top.

You know, my wife and I have a home in Colorado that's at 10,500 feet. We have a log cabin. Cabin. It's her favorite place in the world.

And for the first few days that I'm there, um, 53% less oxygen tension in the air.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's 13.7%, something like that. Atmosphere, or sea level, it's what, 21%? Um, so at that altitude it's about 13.7-ish, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a huge deal, right? I mean, it's 7% reduction in oxygen, is like a third more, like you say, less oxygen. And, um, and, and if you're not conscious of that and you're just breathing normally, um, which is what happens to me when I sleep because I'm not, not conscious, um, and so for the first 3, sometimes 4 days, I always wake up with a mild headache. Um, it's not a migraine, but it's a headache, and I'm foggy and slow to get out of bed. Um, and the first thing I do is I get outside and I do 3 rounds of 30 breaths with a breath hold in between. And not only is the headache gone, but I feel so alive and so connected. Just, it takes me maybe, I don't know, 12 minutes or something. And, um, I go back inside, I don't even feel like I need coffee. And then when, uh, I'll put a rucksack on and I'll just— I have this little 4-mile loop in the woods and, um, and When I get back from that ruck walk, I'm telling you, nothing makes me feel better. You see all the fancy stuff I have here in Miami? Nothing makes me feel better. Not red light, not hyperbarics, not sauna. Nothing makes me feel better than that round of breathwork, a little bit of weight, 4.5 miles through the woods. And I try to just draw my attention to what's going on there. There's a funny little squirrel. He's been there for years and he hates me. And he really does. He's like an angry little thing. And, um, and, and I've got— I've taken videos of this on, on— posted on social media because I'm like, this squirrel like legitimately doesn't like me. And so when I start going in the woods, he starts chirping, and then, and then, and he's chirping to all the other squirrels. And then I kid you not, he starts chewing off acorns and he holds them in his paws and he throws them. He literally throws them right down at me. And then he'll follow me in the treetops and throw acorns down, um, on top of me while He's like, if I spoke squirrel, there's some F-bombs going on up there. He's a hangry, grangry little thing. And so every year for a few years, but, you know, it's like I connect with him. I'm like, hey, I know I'm in your space, man. I'm like, I'm not going to mess with anything. I'm just passing through. But, you know, I come in peace. But maybe one day I'll do some breathwork with him. But really connect with nature.

Great story.

But But it's truly one of my favorite things, and I don't know how to describe it or emphasize it physiologically. I'm not even sure why it works so well, but I'm so happy. Sometimes I get back to the house and I tell Sage, I'm like, I am so happy right now. I feel like I could burst. I might be the first person to die of spontaneous happiness. Sometimes I need some bad news just to take the edge off. Right?

Is that possible? Can you dive spontaneous happiness?

So again, I want to now go back. We've talked about the breath, and I want to go into the cold because some of the feats, the physical feats that you've done, that you have accomplished in the cold. I mean, I think, you know, I ran 18 miles in Antarctica and my son ran a full marathon in Antarctica. He did the Great World Race, 7 marathons, 7 continents in 7 days. Case. It was freaking miserable, first of all. And I had size 14 Timberland boots, 3 layers of socks. I had long johns, I had windbreakers, I had puffy gear. I, I looked like the Michelin Man. Remember the Michelin Tire Man? Okay, that was me in Antarctica. Um, and I marched 18 miles. The thought of actually touching that snow barefoot, taking all my clothes off down to a pair of board shorts and going 6 more miles than what I did in this full gear is mind-numbing to me.

Hmm.

So there's something else there, something that you are able to tap into, something you are able to access, because physiology says your feet would freeze, you would get frostbite, um, you would not be able to keep the pace, which was just over 2 hours, which is a phenomenal normal pace at sea level in the best Nike running shoes. What else was it that allowed you to reach that level of physical feat?

Yeah, I like the squirrel story.

Maybe if you go with me, it'll be nice. But he's there every year. We're going on 4 years now.

Yeah, we come together there on the altitude. Yeah, great. I've been a mountain guide for 10 years. And I know I did some feats over there. Running and breathing makes me able to go faster than normal and in high altitude. And so I did it with 26 people with Crohn's disease, arthritis, cancer, asthma. We did it all in record time, just using the breath. Using the breath enables us to to go deeper into our physiology and to be just a little bit upfront, the impact of nature itself, whatever that is. And one of them is the cold. The cold is a power which with the same awareness we were talking about, a little bit more breathing, just breathe a little bit more than you feel you need. That is consciousness. That consciousness I use. I use, for example, in a scientific experiment with a perfusion vest, which is used by firefighters to stay cool. They get icy water flowing through in their—

I use that after knee surgery.

In their vest. And then they use that in a thermophysiological study. Psychological experiment in Detroit and the hospital to test to see if people are able to use parts of the mind that cope with the stress. Cold is stress. So what they do is pumping cold water into the vest, into the tubes, and they measure the skin temperature and they look inside the brain what is happening. Happening, how the person is dealing with stress. And nobody could really do something against that. And what I was doing, there was this— I'm talking squirrels— there was this not so tall— he looks like Napoleon, a professor. And he swims every day. He swims every day, 800 meters butterfly. You know, that is this. He is into breathing without knowing that, and he's got a lot of energy, but he had difficulties pouring ice cubes in the container which was pumping water, me being in the fMRI motionless because I was warming up the water. And I was— so my skin temperature never went down. Wow. And it came in and then warming the water again and then ice cubes again, cold, warm, cold. And you see fluctuation of skin temperature. And then you look inside the brain. What did I do? I just said, I just set my intention. I don't want to call today because today I got the chance to show that we can do more more than we think.

That is so powerful. I want to just lock in right there. You set the intention.

Yes.

So you determined your susceptibility to the cold. That's what's so fascinating.

Yes.

You took control.

And that is what I did in all these— I learned that in all these records I did and all the challenges in the cold. And we all have that power, interoception, Top-down regulated. Wow. Interoception, which is part of the central nervous system, and it commands the central nervous system to do what you say. And a cold is emotion. You can learn to deal with emotions. You want to feel good? Yeah, you can. Do you want to feel good?

Yeah.

Then train your nervous system.

Do you believe that you can feel good?

Yes.

That's the thing.

Your nervous system like you train muscles. You can train the nervous system very rapidly. It is actually awakening. We get back to the— be motivated. That is the way to start. We got all the evidence. It's already there. Don't mind about that. Just do it. And I was before Nike was with Just Do It. I did that 40 years ago when Nike was not there. Was there, or at least it was not out there. I always said to the people as a mountain guide, it's a, oh, what do you have to do? Yeah, I said, just do it. Yeah. And that is the belief in yourself to pacify yourself in very stressful situations. Yeah. Because we did abseiling and bungee jumping and going into rivers and all. And don't mind Yeah, use the mind.

I think it's so good, so powerful, because I think, you know, the vast majority of society has a victim mentality. You know, these things are happening to me, they're beyond my control, I'm where I am in my life because of this or because of that, or from this person or from that person, or, uh, you know, I just haven't had a chance or the luck of the draw. You know, then emotion turns to things like anger and resentment and hatred because either somebody has something that you want, that you feel that you deserve, and we just feel like we're not in control. And, uh, what I love about your teachings and the breathwork and the cold is like it's bringing the control back to you. Like, you are the— you are the— determine your destiny. You know, for me, my, my entire life changed when, when I, I stopped the pursuit of happiness and I realized that happiness was in the shoot, right? I, I said, what are the things that make me really happy? Um, well, my family, you know, my wife, uh, spending time with my parents, spending time with my kids, having them in my sphere. And so I designed this life that, that included those things. And, and, and now from, from an outsider looking in, they're like, oh, you're so busy, you travel all the time, you're never home, you, you know, you're all over the world. Um, but I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, right? Right, um, because no longer— I don't, I don't have a destination in mind. Like, I, I don't have an end date. I don't have an exit strategy, you know. Um, but, but I will say, Owen, that this was largely due to, to you and, and, uh, and your teachings. And my son and I, both 6 years ago— you used to have this course online. I don't know if it's still on there. It was about a 10-week course, and, uh, we completed all of the modules. At one point, we were, we were going to sign up to go to the Pyrenees mountains and do this retreat with you. But that was one of the more material changes in my life. It was right about the time that I decided I would schedule all of my meetings and travel around sleep and exercise. It was the day that I decided, when I finished that course, that breathwork would be non-negotiable. And there hasn't been a day in my life ever since, no matter where I am in the world, that I haven't done it. I do it on airplanes. Planes. Like, people think I'm— I was on Emirates Airlines, and you got the little lounge in the back. Everybody's standing around the bar. I'm sitting at the table doing breathwork, sound like I'm, you know, about to hyperventilate and pass out. And I'm awake the entire flight, and I'm functioning the entire flight. It's, it's just so fascinating. Uh, so, so it was the breath that allowed you to mitigate the effects of the cold?

Absolutely. Yeah. In breathing exercise, we are able to, uh, activate 100% neural activity in our the brain. That means anything that is deprived of blood flow and lymphatic presence the right way, the right homeostasis, creates a non-accessible pathway. We cannot enter with our will when there is less blood flow. So what we do, we cleanse the brain of brain waste. Through these breathing exercises. And then we activate all the brain the way nature meant it to be. It's our brain. It should be 100% in possible contact with our will to use the brain for whatever we are, our path demands. And there it comes a fearless state of being. A fearless state is where the whole brain is serving with that, the brain is the seat of the unlimited power of the mind. Suddenly, with the whole brain possibly functioning, not being all— it's like a house. You should be able to get into any room of your house and it should be clean. Yeah. So you clean up the house and then you should be able sometimes there, but not all the time everywhere. Yeah. Yes. It's a brain. Yeah. Leave it. And so it's the seed of the mind. And the seed of the mind is there connected to the unlimited power of the mind. What is that? That is, we are senders and receivers with the omnipresence and the omnipotency is there. We just send a signal not only into our own bodies, interoception, central nervous system, but out there into the omnipotency, omniscience, and omnipresence. It's all there. And then God is revealed. It's no longer a person, this and that, or has died on the cross. No, it's here and now. It's divine, that power. Wow. And I want just to show the directions that that is there. You are the owner of your— rightful owner of your own mind, your own brain. But are we schooled that way. For that, we are here talking common sense to the people. Look at this logic. It's based in neurological studies, immunological studies, and whatever studies. Yeah, it shows that we can do much more than we think. And one thing is to have trust back, confidence back, creativity, empathy the love of life itself. I say that it is composed by being happy, strong, and healthy. Yeah, the characteristics of our soul. Once that happens, a happy man doesn't go to war, right? A happy man is not into greed. He is unconditionally there. This is the way we can— if we show this neurologically, how that all works, and immunologically, how that all works, how to beat inflammation, how to improve your dopamine so there is no depression. And that is not the only thing. It is giving people the power back the way nature meant it to be, to live up to your purpose, to feel the depth and be driven by love for life every day.

Free and accessible. So for, for, for my audience who is just on on fire right now after watching this. Um, where do they find out more about you? Where do they go to take the next step?

Um, it's all for free in the end. If you want to see me, man, you gotta pay because you gotta take a plane, something like that. If you want to hear me talk and rant on stage, hey man, I'm good at it. Yeah, and I make good jokes.

You know, he is funny, I will give it to him. And he had rolling laughter 5 minutes after he walked in. But is there a place where I can send people to learn more about breathwork, to learn more about cold exposure, to follow your teachings, to read some of what you authored?

Absolutely. We say do it safely. Yes. Do it gradually because we got to decondition from the conditioned state where we are. Kind of trapped and we show the keys how to get out. Yeah. In the brain and in the body. And they just follow these steps. Go to the Wim Hof Method.

Wim Hof Method. All right, I'll link that for sure.

They gave me that method. People told me I'm the Iceman. No, I'm just an Iceman. So, but easy. It's okay. I like the name. I'm the Iceman.

People have been called way worse.

It's not Superman. It's the Iceman. Yeah, I'm not a Marvel, but marvelous. Yeah. So something like that. I love life. I want you to love life. Yes, that is what I want. So just get into it. I'm the only guy who has never been on his own website. That's me. But everything around me is being arranged. Hey, and there is a lot of information there by which you are able to go gradually into something unbelievable. And that is who you are.

That is so great. So Wim, I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. There's no right or wrong answer to this question, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Yes.

You reminded me to breathe.

Yeah. I just take in the life force to live to my purpose, to change the world, to bring about a world where my children are able to enter into a paradise. And that is this world. To stop the war, to stop disease, to stop darkness, to stop depression, to stop pollution is living in harmony with nature. That means the harmony of the inner nature with the omnipresence and feel God every day, every moment.

That's amazing. Amazing. That may be the best answer I've gotten on the ultimate human. Wim, I cannot thank you enough for giving me some of your precious time.

I think we only started because there's so much work to do spiritually. We got to stop these wars and inflammation and all. And you are the right man to bring it out. I thank you from the heart, but also from as a man. Yeah.

Thank you, my friend. Wow. Until next time, guys, that's just science.