Wim Hof Documentary on Breathing Techniques, His Method, Ice Baths, Science, Meditation & the Cold!

I'm a normal guy, simple guy, but I'm gonna change the world. I lost my wife in '95, was alone with 4 children, no money. The only thing I found relieving was in cold water and breathing exercises. I'm the messenger, by the way. I'm a man on a mission. I don't stop until we have no war anymore, no disease, no depression. Yes!

What's up, Believe Nation? I am at the Evergreen Brickworks here in Toronto, Canada. I'm about to go do Wim Hof's full-day seminar on breathing and ice baths. I'm excited and I'm nervous for it. We're going to hopefully have a chance to talk to Wim as well. And learn about his story. It's May 20th when I'm recording this, my birthday, and so we're going to see what Wim has to offer and hopefully have fun in the cold bath.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hey, Evan. Hello, Wim.

We are ready for a great day. That's the ice pool.

That's the ice pool. This is the pool. Wow. Just get going. Good energy, get everywhere.

I love it.

Yes, yes, let's make it a good story.

We live in a world where there's all kinds of false healers and fake alternative medicine programs you can sign up for. It's a rare moment in history when someone comes along who can perform real miracles with real evidence to back them up. Wim Hof has defied logic time and time again, and always under scientific scrutiny. He holds the world record for being able to be submerged in ice for almost 2 hours without his core body temperature changing. He's climbed Mount Everest in nothing but a pair of shorts and ran a marathon in the desert without drinking any water. He's even proven in a laboratory setting that he can withstand illnesses using the power of his mind. But he's not a freak of nature. According to Wim, anyone can do what he can do. They just have to learn his method, the Wim Hof Method. Using a combination of cold immersion, breathing techniques, and mental focus, anyone can accomplish feats that were previously thought to be impossible.

So before getting into it, I want to tell you how I found you. So I used to always get sick. Always, always. And I always believed that if you were sick, don't come close to me because I'm gonna get sick. So on my team, if people are sick, like, stay home, don't come to me, you're gonna get sick. Then in January, I got really, really sick. 5 days just straight hiccups, constantly hiccups, hiccups. And then I decided I'm never gonna get sick again. I had to figure out a way never to get sick. And then I stumbled across your work and what you were doing. Said, I'm gonna give it a shot. And since then, I haven't gotten sick.

Since January. Hey, right on, man! Way to go, way to go, way to go, way to go! That's cool.

Explain the mission. Why are you doing this? Why it's so important to you? It's not just about setting the world records, but why do you do this?

Yes, as I said, I did a lot of stuff outside in nature because I felt this disconnection from nature inside, from the soul itself. Soul is not able to express, and you can see it in the world full of depression and autoimmune diseases cancer, all those things, and anxiety. So nobody knows actually, it's because of the disconnection of nature. So resulted in me in an awkward feeling. I don't know what there is, but there is more than meets the eye. We're going to show all those things native spirits had to subdue a couple of hundred years here, and now they are coming back through us. Through the love, making sense that Mother Nature is back. I'm going into a soul search, and that brought me to all kinds of traditions, esoteric disciplines, languages, religions, debates about philosophies, cultures, anything, you know. But in the end, it didn't connect itself me. That's what the cold water came in, and the cold water is merciless but righteous. Okay, so boom, hey, you gotta be there, right? But little by little, you begin to wake up to that what you feel inside. It's beginning to wake up. A real primordial disconnection is beginning to connect to your consciousness, brain-body connection. Because in the books it was not there. And now we changed the books in the university and all, but the story began just in fucking freezing water. And that after a lot of esoteric disciplines, philosophies, traditions, languages, religions, doctrines, yoga, kung fu, anything I could get my hands upon and do it. I did it! But that, it could not bring that connection which I was looking for. I wanted to know the purpose of the soul itself. So I went finally I came in contact with nature and I felt attracted to ice water. Severe, aggressive impact on you, but I felt just beautiful, great when I got inside the water and began to breathe. And I felt without words, this is it. The first time I went under the ice, the water is as sharp as needles. I saw this as a big, huge, sharp diamond. At 35 meters, I lost sight because the retina, it froze. I couldn't see nothing. I couldn't breathe, of course. And then my consciousness succumbed into a lower consciousness. This is survival. So the story begins with a feeling, and I want you to feel with me. So let's breathe. Let it go. Fully in. Don't ask yourself how, just always say, use any hole you got. Get it in and let it go. Ice water. It's freshy here. Take a full inhale. Hold and swim with me. Swim, come on, move your arms. It's the home. This is Mother Nature. Swimming into a rebirth, awakening the deepest within ourselves. I do not fear death. I fear not to live fully. If I live fully, I'm not into death. I'm living. The thing is, I lost over there the fear of death, and that's where I found it. The fear of death no longer. And that made me able to do very strange stuff like climbing Mount Everest, in shorts to the death zone, Kilimanjaro, in record times, swimming under the ice, standing for 2 hours in the ice, hanging by one finger in the midwinter, 1 mile, climbing all kinds of mountains barefoot in the snow, staying outside a whole night in freezing temperatures in nothing but shorts, because you learn to deal with the elements of nature. And then you find out that the inner power of the physiology, both through the brain-body connection, is so much more than we ever thought possible. It's about confronting yourself with the cold. The cold is a natural element able to bring you right down to the core, the depth of the mystery itself called life. Loving it. So there I was, Mount Everest. This is about 7,000, 60 meters there. There I was sitting around, but there I was in the middle of it. I didn't know where I was at 6,000 so much meters. I was lost. I was lost, but not lost inside. This connection was there. I felt light. I felt not paranoid or anxiety. I felt okay. It's where I found— had found, not in the books once again— confidence and belief. It really opened me up. I could climb Mount Everest. I just had a good time for the rest of the days I was there. And now, after doing 26 of those world records, about numerous more challenges, I got in contact with scientists, and then it came about that I was awakening, stimulating, influencing systems within the body they thought of not being able to be influenced. Or connected with for humans. They thought, hey, humans cannot tap in. It's an autonomic nervous system, it's an autonomic process outside of our will. But brain-body connection, remember connection? Yeah, there it is. And now I'm able to connect, enter, and make the difference. And that's what I did in the studies.

Wim's mission is to use his body as a laboratory to revolutionize our understanding of physiology. In 2011, he was injected with a bacterial endotoxin in an experiment that challenged our understanding of the nervous system. In normal humans, the injection should cause a strong immune response leading to fever, chills, and headaches, but not in Wim. It appeared that he was somehow able to suppress his immune response by making his body secrete adrenaline, suggesting that his method can allow us to influence our immune system at will. Scientists thought he might just be a freak of nature, so to further prove this theory, they performed the same experiment on 12 subjects Wim had trained in Poland, and the same thing happened.

Proof you only get after comparative study with groups. So I took on a full group. I trained them 4 days to get into the autonomic nervous system and all those things. And they got administered with the bacteria, and as well, all within a quarter of an hour entering into those systems. And now we are getting somewhere. Power of the mind. Yeah, we are dealing in modern-day society. We can go to the moon, we can go to Mars and everywhere, but we cannot tap into the depths of ourselves and make the difference with depression, anxiety, fear, trauma, PTSD, anything. We don't control our mind. We are not able to embrace the power of the mind while the mind is ongoing, going, going. Doesn't let us feel completely. It is there all the time. Now we turned the wheels.

Normally it's very difficult to increase your adrenaline levels by your own will. Adrenaline is released by the autonomic nervous system, and autonomic means that you cannot voluntarily influence it. So if you walk outside and you are robbed on the street, you will have a heart rate of 160 and your blood pressure will be sky-high within seconds. But if I ask you now to increase increase your heart rate, you cannot do that. You cannot voluntarily modulate that. And with the techniques of Wim Hof, we showed that he was able to increase his adrenaline levels to very high concentrations, even higher than people that go bungee jumping for the first time.

They saw me doing all kinds of strange stuff because what I was doing was not possible by the physiologists. And I did it. They said, let's give him a shot. And they gave me the shot. So there I was, I proved it, and then I told, listen, I'm not the only one. Everybody is able to do this. Everybody here is able to do this. What? How much training these people need? A year, a year and a half before they are able to do a little bit what you are able to do, what you showed? I said, 10 days. It just shook like this, 10 days. It only became 4 days. And these guys I took to my place in Poland, in the mountains, in the shadow side. It's really cold out there, but very warm in the heart. Day 4, without prior experience experience in the cold, they were able to go in shorts up the mountain, -10 to begin with, up to the top, -27. And there we danced the Harlem Shake. So I knew then these guys are ready. They got the mindset, they got the way nature meant it to be. -27, that's powerful. No, that's you. That's your power inside realigned. That's your mind being able to believe you're able to conquer by connection the way Mother Nature meant it to be inside with about any system we got. Now people who suffer suffer from depression, anxiety, fear, from all those, PTSD, trauma. They are living under constant stress and they are not able to break the loop. Now I showed how to break the loop. I'm the messenger, by the way. I'm a man on a mission and I don't stop until we have no war anymore. No disease and no depression. Because the most valuable— yes!

For the people who are coming, for the people coming, for the people watching this video, what's, what's the message that you hope that they take away from experiencing some Wim Hof today?

Insights and confidence that we are very capable of bringing back the inner power realized to become happy, strong, and healthy. Far more than ever before thought possible. So that's it. Feeling is understanding. So once this sense gets to the minds, then it's going to open up this thing called hope. And that hope this time is going to pay off. It's just a matter of a little practice that I'm going to show how to change the chemistry inside and then to battle one of the most severe, aggressive impacts on the body— ice cold water— and feel well. And not only feel well, feel a little bit depressed because there is no bathing dock inside. Have a time.

All right, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for the time. I'm looking forward to the session.

Hey, cool, cool, cool. School in the game. Loves me. I love this. We move the hands to make a circular movement. A, a, a, du. We use the voice like they used it in You have to karate your empty hand. Come on! No! Innovation! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, nice, nice going. Okay, let's begin and start the breathing. Lie down, sit down, stand on your head, doesn't matter what you do, just breathe Relax the body. Fully in. Belly, chest, into your head, and let it go. Belly, chest, head, letting it go. That feeling, as simple as it is, we lost. Too much neurology going on. We think We think better. But yes, there is nothing more than life itself descending, and it's happening anyway. And there we go, fully in, letting go. You become lightheaded, loose in the body, tingling. It's all alright. Getting in, letting go. Your belly, chest, and even into your head, you are able to store up oxygen and letting it go. Here comes the last one. Pulling, pulling air, letting go. After the exhalation, stop. When you feel the urge to breathe, it's no competition. You take them in fully. Let's do it all fully in. Hold 10 seconds and squeeze it, push it to the head to bring in more oxygen in the brainstem. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and we let it go. Okay, breathing exercise number 2 is the— they call it power breathing. Fully breathe, come on, fully go, fully go, fully go, fully Go! Fully in, go! Fully in, go! Fully in, go! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Fully in, fully out, and now fully in and block. Contract abdomen, chest, neck. Now your head. Squeeze. 3, 2, 1, let it go. We're gonna do a push-up exercise for those, for those, for those who have an inflammatory condition like arthritis or, or MS or anything like that. Could be croats, anything. And you do it after inhalation. Push-ups after inhalation brings down the inflammatory markers. Zoom! This one brings you, resets you in 4 minutes. So 4-minute exercise, you can do it any time of the day. Oh yeah, let it go. Fully in, letting go. Fully in, letting go. 3, 2, 1. Here it comes. Fully in, letting go. Stop after exhalation. Push-ups, no breathing. Just go. Stun yourself. This is what I do with people who could not even do 1 push-up. Suddenly they are able to do 20. Amazing. This is the magic, and that's you. That's you guys. It's good luck. Yeah, yeah, man, we can climb any mountain. Okay, so we're going to take a little break. We're going to have some wraps, uh, for lunch. There's going to be some more snacks coming out soon too, so, uh, feel free to meet some new friends. Enjoy Enjoy yourselves and we'll let you know when we're going to start the second half, okay? Great, Wim Hof!

So that was pretty epic, guys. I've never had a lot of success meditating. It's actually something I complained about or just was worried about. Never got a good chance to meditate and never felt it. But this, for the first time, I was in a different zone. My fingers are still tingling from doing it, and I've been practicing at home but never to that extent. So I got a really I got a really good tool. The speech was awesome, but just that last however long that was, I kind of spaced out, was worth the price of admission. And so I'm really pumped to get in the water. I was kind of doubting, but after that I'm feeling pretty good and also continuing the habit. So we're going to have some lunch and then get back to it.

I'm a normal guy, simple guy, but I'm going to change the world. I lost my wife in '95, was alone with 4 children, no money. The only thing I found relieving was in cold water and breathing at just a hunch, and they did it. Just to reconnect with their body and use your mind to become happy, strong, and healthy. And those are the most essential in life, then the rest will subdue. Just think about it, let it sink, and if you come up with any difficulty or this or that, know from now on that you are able to tackle it. And they told me, he's crazy, he's an idiot, he is this, he is that, but he is not sane, he is not okay, and you don't believe it. Now it's science. What was the difference? Just keep at it. Keep on believing that happiness, strength, and health is natural instead of cancer and autoimmune diseases and depression. And they're thinking that that is normal. I think it is sick, and it should not be here with us no longer. From here we part ways. We become sane, strong, and happy, and rest out of the way. Where it belongs. Not inside, outside. Gone. That's love to each other. That's love. Yes, good. So the eyes is there. I can see that with my eyes. Yeah, right on. Cut that. It's my job. Hello. Oh, say in English.

Well, the ice is melting, normally I would say.

Okay, okay, okay. Let's go up and then everybody is going to, you know, we are going to the ice. It's like this, you stand around the pool at least just Follow the breath. You go in, then you sit down, you lay down up till your neck, put your hands on the thighs tight to induce the warmth, and then relax controlled. Okay, thank you, thank you. Good. So yeah, so I just want to say thank you on behalf of myself and everyone here in Canada —someone who's got a fierce compassion to change the world, breaks down any doors, never says no, sacrifices himself. So guys, please give a big Toronto warm round of applause for Wim Hof. Thank you so much.

So we are done. It is— what time is it? 5 o'clock? It is 4:35. The dog's trying to get away. It's been an all-day thing. They cleaned up pretty quickly. What did you take away from this? What did you learn? Um, I learned that I'm stronger than I think. High five for that! Good, good job, Nina. I, I, I, I will never imagine myself to sit in that cold bath, ice bath, for that long. So now, now when the air conditioning is on at night, we're going to sleep, say, oh, that's nothing, we should turn the air conditioning up even, even higher. I don't like the air blowing on my face. But you look what you just sat in. That's different. That's ice water. I like a colder room than even that. So I had a really good time. I met a lot of fans here, which is good. Probably about a dozen different fans, some from entrepreneurial content, and also some people watched the two other videos we did on Wim and his techniques. Some people, uh, actually a number of people said that the first video that we did that has a million views now, was their first introduction to Wim and the reason why they came here. So that was really cool, really cool to see. Lots of fun people, lots of good wisdom. We're gonna breathe, we're gonna breathe daily. Yeah, we're gonna breathe daily. Can you promise? We're gonna have our morning ritual. To involve the breathing? Yeah. Okay, good. Well, thank you guys for watching. Hope you enjoyed our journey with us, and go check out the Wim Hof Method. I highly recommend it. And it's already allowed me not to be sick for almost 6 months. And looking forward to what happens now that Nina and I are going to do it together. Good couple therapy too. Thank you guys for watching.

Continue to believe. You have to say, we believe in you.

We believe in you and continue to believe.

We'll see you soon.

And whatever your one word is. Much love. We'll see you soon.