In this TEDxBreda presentation, Wim Hof claims a historic scientific breakthrough: for the first time in 250 years, humans have been shown to voluntarily influence their autonomic nervous system and, consequently, their immune response. He describes a series of rapid training experiments where participants learned, within four days, breathwork and cold‑exposure techniques that enabled them to endure extreme temperatures (‑27 °C) and, after an injection of a bacterial endotoxin, completely suppress typical sickness symptoms. Hof reports that blood analyses revealed a 300 % increase in cellular metabolic activity driven solely by mental focus, and that participants produced controlled spikes of adrenaline and other hormones without external stressors. He cites publications in Nature and PNAS, upcoming Harvard studies, and the inclusion of a chapter about him (“the Iceman”) in U.S. university textbooks. Hof critiques the medical and food industries for prioritizing profit over health, argues that these conventional paradigms block human potential, and calls for a psychological shift toward love, happiness, and strength. He frames his method as a universally accessible tool that can prevent disease, regulate mood, and empower future generations, positioning breathwork and cold exposure as a form of self‑medicine that rivals pharmaceuticals.
Chapters
Thank you. Okay, okay. This is what they saw. First time in scientific history after after 250 years of data acknowledging scientifically, they saw for the first time that a man, human, the human physiology now is capable of influencing deeply into the autonomic nervous system. That related to the immune system means that we are going to look completely different to ward disease and to ward pain. And yes, I did it. I teach doctors nowadays and therapists, and I work with professors, and I only have a technical school. I learned to paint. But I believed. I believed we can do more than we think we can. And now, yes, we got these breakthroughs. And yes, I believe now it's time to change our psychology. In the third year of the university books in the USA, all the universities, they have included a chapter calling the Iceman. It's about me. But meanwhile, they explain a comparative study, as you saw, these young people just trained in 4 days' time to be able to influence deeply into the autonomic nervous system, and the bacteria injected therefore had no chance. Within a quarter of an hour, compared to thousands of test subjects before who had no significant influence into the process of this bacteria on the immune system. They became sick, uncontrolled shivering, headaches, and it was not nice to be there 3 to 6 hours sick in the bed because you couldn't do anything into your system to block the reaction of this bacteria on your immune system. And now, these persons I trained in 4 days. In 4 days they were very capable to endure, say, the cold, to -27°C on top of a big mountain in shorts dancing the Harlem Shake. All of them, eh? When we went down the slopes, it was on the Czech-Polish border, we walked up and it was -10°C when we began. After 1.5 hours, we came to the ridge, which is the border at the same time. Then these Czech soldiers came, these military people, and they looked like ninjas, completely covered because it was -17°C. They came over the ridge, and then they saw a group of persons in shorts coming up. Couldn't understand, but we made nice selfies. And we went on to the top. And yes, at the top it was -27°C. And we danced the Harlem Shake together. And yes, then I knew, I was convinced, "Hey, these guys, they are back and have tapped into their deeper potential the way nature meant it to be in every person." But they did it and awakened it in 4 days of time. And 4 days later they were in the hospital, and yes, they were injected and they had 100% score. Everybody had control over the immune system in the deepest levels, not recognized by science up till then to be possibly influenced, and they did it all. And so I did it also with 26 people ranging to 65 years, from 22 years, having all kinds of diseases like Crohn's, rheuma, MS, cancer, asthma, coronary disease, bypasses and all that, doing 65 years old and going to 6,000 meters in 3 days. In 3 days? And all the physiologists and experts, they told us, "It's not possible to do that. We don't want to link our name with your expedition. The people are going to die. Humanly, physiologically, this is not possible to be done." And yes, maybe they are right. We didn't do it in 3 days, we did it in 2 days. I don't hear these experts anymore. They thought it to be that way. We got these old ways of thinking, patterns, and they are laying it upon us, upon our children. You cannot do this, you cannot do it, you got to do this, you got to do this. Industries who gain a lot of money because And I don't want to be political, but this is the old way of thinking. The food industry and the medicine industry, they are really not here to feed us or to heal us. They are here to make money. That's the old way of thinking, possibly originated from being insecure, having, you know, fear, and I have to take care of my thing, this narrowing consciousness. And I think right now, and has been proven, that we are able to tap into the endocrine systems, the immune systems, deeply, up till the autonomic nervous system level. And it's in the books everywhere in the world now.— and so maybe still has to come here, you know, substantially in the books here in the Netherlands, but USA already is doing this, and soon we have new studies with Harvard. It's all in there. And it shows that we are actually very capable of preventing from disease, very capable of influencing into our energy management, on cell level, very capable to get in our DNA, very capable thus to intervene and direct our happiness, strength, and health. We all got the tools now, and we have shown this with thousands of results. This time we will change The psychology to become happy, strong, and healthy. It's like love. What do you want for your kid? Do you want it to be healthy, strong, and healthy, strong, and a lot of energy, powerful, you know? I think so. I think that's love. And now chemically it has been shown that we are able to intervene into the endocrine systems, the hormones, etc. If you want to be happy and you translate it into chemistry, you see oxytocin, melatonin, serotonin, dimethyltryptamine, all those hormones. When you see power, energy, you see adrenaline, epinephrine, cortisol, and all that. We have shown in the hospital, lying in bed, doing certain kinds of breathing exercises, and using the mind— the mind later, still have 9 minutes, I see, OK— lying in bed and producing more adrenaline, controlled stress hormone, than somebody looking into an abyss. An abyss, you know, deep down, like 500 meters, something like that. And having fear and needing to jump, making a big bungee jump. They compared the blood results and they saw these people lying in bed without a trigger, without a truck coming toward them at 100 kilometers, no danger whatsoever, completely controlled, completely still, to be able to tap into the deepest part of our brain, the brainstem. The reptilian brain, the reactionary brain, which reacts, it doesn't think, it reacts. And we are able to tap in. Bam! So, influencing into the brainstem, as deep as that one, producing adrenaline, control, bam! It's a control, it's a medicine. We don't need all these medicines. We have our own. And then injected with this bacteria, in 50 minutes, all 100% score, everybody had control. And then the immune systems, the immune systems. It was not possible to intervene in the workings of the immune systems, in the physiology of it, and now they saw it is. Yes, it is. Last year when it was published, I thought, "I'm going to get the Nobel Prize or something." Why? Because for the first time, scientifically shown that the autonomic nervous system in relationship to the immune system can be deeply influenced. It's going to change our vision towards disease, and everybody doesn't want no disease. We want to be healthy and strong and have control over our mood, no depression, be happy, be nice, here, right now. And it came out on television, in the best of medical magazines like Nature and PNAS. It came out, and then, yes, the song festival, the man with the beard who appeared with a dress was more important. I thought, "What world is this?" "What are we fighting for?" The way I mind-setted these guys to go to Poland with me and train in the cold in just a couple of days, I told them, "Listen guys, you know about mindset?" No NLP, no this, no believing, just one thing: We are going to win the greatest war ever. That war which caused so much misery, so much pain, so much hopelessness. The war of the bacteria, the virus, and the vaccine. And they were on, they understood, they felt it is time, we are Passover. Possibly dare to be able to change. And they changed psychologically. And yes, in 4 days they were not only dancing the Harlem Shake on top of it, and they drank like, you know, Templars in the night, but during the day, and we had a lot of fun, and music and all that. So it's not about being Puritan all the time. There is a big 'Vast space, but for freedom, you know, for your free choice. We are not going to be like dogmatic onto it.' These guys, yes, in 4 days of time they were very able to change the history of science by doing it, by believing it. Changing the psychology, the belief. Standing here, you have an ice cube right now, maybe yes or no, doesn't matter. I got a tank over here, I'm at the university, I need to go in there. People are drawing blood from my veins to test it later on in laboratory setting. 'And yes, they do it, I'm just standing there.' I need to go into the tank for 80 minutes. Ice cubes up till here, and they melt, and they are refilled. This is the way it's going to be. So I just say to myself, 'I'm going to be over there, OK, I'm ready.' Then they took the blood, And they sent it for analysis to a laboratory setting, and they saw in the blood cells, without moving, that the thought signal was responsible for producing 300% more metabolic activity in the cell. Just a thought. What is your belief? Do you believe that you are able to intervene within your psychology to become happy, strong, and healthy? And just 4 days it took me to bring these 18 people to this point where they were very able to tap in with their mind into their body and resist a bacteria, not only also the pain, minus 27. They did not feel the pain. Therefore, they had an immense connection with this internal, natural power within, and it made them happy, strong. And we danced the Harlem Shake up there. So, even in the extremes, we are able to go up to those extremes and deal with it, neutralize the power of the impact. And we are able— 2 minutes and a half— we are able to go to the moon and make these iPhones which have now, 50 years, almost 50 years after Apollo 13 went to the moon, and one step for a man and a huge step for human mankind, etc. And the fruits of our mind went on, and we got iPhones who have more intelligence than the whole project of NASA with Apollo 13 together. It's all in a little iPhone. The technology is beautiful. Actually, we don't need so much technology anymore. But it's time that we not only develop beautiful technology, amazing technology, but become this time happy, strong, and healthy. And we got the data to prove that it is possible for every person in this world, very accessible, just in a couple of days. If I had a little bit more time, I would do an exercise with you guys, and you would be astounded of your physical and psychic ability. We have to go back to the inner nature, the way nature has meant it to be. We alienated therefrom, and now we've got to go back. That means going back to love, strength, health, and happiness. That's my story. And we keep on proving this scientifically all over the world. I just got back from Hollywood, 46, 45, 44, like the rocket, you know, new rocket. This time, explode into expanded consciousness. Yeah, that's our goal. We don't need to go to Mars, we live on the most beautiful place of all the universe called the Earth. And in the Bible it says, "Hey, we are made by the appearance of God." And any scripture tells compassion and love, that's the message. They've only fight. This time we are going to show scientifically that we are able to make happen our own happiness strength and health for our children and for the Earth. Thank you.
