So what is the Wim Hof method? You may have heard about it in relation to popping your warm body into very cold water for its bracing health effects. Hof became famous in the early 2000s by running a half marathon in the Arctic Circle barefoot and in nothing but a pair of shorts. The multiple marathoner submerged himself in a bath of ice for an hour and 52 minutes without suffering from hypothermia or frostbite.
The method is nothing other than an ancient Buddhist monk breathing technique called tummo, a Tibetan word meaning “inner fire”. Inner fire meditation was developed in the 10th century by a 28-year-old Indian man named Naropa who divorced his wife and went to Tibet to seek enlightenment at the Buddhist university, Nalanda.
Part of his practice involved a long period spent in a very cold cave in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal. To bolster his system against the cold he harnessed the power of his inner fire — his breath.
Research at Harvard University on Tibetan monks practising the technique showed that their body temperatures rose consistently by just over 8°C. In the early 1900s a Belgian adventurer who visited Tibet to explore Buddhism, Alexandra David-Neel, first wrote about the technique in the West.
“Tummo was a way devised by the Tibetan hermits to enable themselves to live without endangering their health on the high hills. It has nothing to do with religion and so it can be used for ordinary purposes without lack of reverence,” she wrote.
Using it as Hof does as — and as mixed martial arts fighters, Navy Seals and professional surfers do before an operation or competition — enables them to get into the zone. It's also effective in speeding up the metabolism and helping with stress. In the famous Hof experiments, it also staved off infection when he was deliberately infected with E coli in a lab at the Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.
Scientist are studying how breathing activates the autonomic system and stimulates the vagus nerve and the vagal network that controls all the organs in the body. Very slow, conscious breathing relaxes us into a parasympathetic state. Very fast and heavy breathing, such as tummo, will purposefully create a stressed state by releasing adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine. This, paradoxically, works to give an immunity boost to the body, preventing short-term infection, prolonging life and diminishing stress in the long run.
TO PRACTISE THE WIM HOF METHOD
Start by finding a quiet place and lying flat on your back with a pillow under your head. Relax the shoulders, chest and legs. Take a very deep breath into the pit of your stomach and let it back out just as quickly. Keep breathing this way for 30 cycles. If possible, breathe through the nose. If the nose feels obstructed, try pursed lips. Each breath should look like a wave, with the inhale inflating the stomach, then the chest. You should exhale all the air out in the same order.
At the end of 30 breaths, exhale to the natural conclusion, leaving about a quarter of the air in the lungs. Then hold that breath for as long as possible. Once you’ve reached your breath-hold limit, take one huge inhale and hold it for another 15 seconds.
Very gently move that fresh breath of air around the chest and to the shoulders. Exhale and start the heavy breathing again. Repeat the whole pattern for three or four rounds and add in some cold exposure (cold showers, ice baths) a few times a week
— James Nestor
