The Wim Hof Method

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

Breathing is apparently all you need. It can cure anxiety, hangovers, MS, and much more. Also, Ice baths are good as well and the core temperature can be manipulated.

🎨 Impressions

Despite the hypeness, it felt like interesting things were taken up and I think there is something to increasing your antifragility by being exposed to extreme externalities. I thought the breathing exercises were interesting and I think I will work a bit on this and apply it.

✍️ My Top Quotes

• *Activating them also generates heat. Do as follows:

  • 1  Sit down.
  • 2  Inhale slowly and deeply five or six times, letting your breath go naturally each time.
  • 3  Inhale fully.
  • 4  Relax to exhale.
  • 5  Inhale fully.
  • 6  Hold your breath, for no more than five seconds.
  • 7  Tense your upper-back muscles and chest while you hold your breath — but don’t tense the head. Keep your jaw relaxed.
  • 8  Let go.

• With practice, you will feel the heat flowing down from your neck to your whole body. Everybody is different, but with practice, you will feel the heat coming from inside your body. This is what I did to maintain my core body temperature during the experiments at Wayne State — but please do not try such experiments at home!

• *STEP 1 Sit in a meditation posture, lying down, or whichever way is most comfortable for you, in a quiet and safe environment. Make sure you can expand your lungs freely without feeling any constriction.

• *STEP 2 Close your eyes and try to clear your mind. Be conscious about your breath and try to fully connect with it. Take thirty to forty deep breaths in through the nose or mouth. Fill up your belly, your chest, all the way up to your head. Don’t force the exhale. Just relax and let the air out. Fully in, letting go. STEP 3 At the end of the last breath, draw the breath in once more and fill the lungs to maximum capacity without using any force. Then relax to let the air out. Hold the breath until you feel the urge to breathe again. This is called the retention phase.

• STEP 4 When you feel the urge to breathe, take one deep breath in and hold it for ten to fifteen seconds. This is called the recovery breath.

• STEP 5 Let your breath go and start with a new round. Fully in, letting go. Repeat the full cycle three to four times. After having completed this breathing exercise, take your time to enjoy the feeling. With repeated practice, this protocol becomes more and more like a meditation.**

• In order to battle cold, you need combustion, which requires oxygen. But when oxygen is in short supply, in comes the mind.

• Professor Hopman’s study showed that my metabolic rate increased by 300 percent during the period of exposure, and this increased metabolic rate resulted in an increase in the heat production of my body.

• Cold, heat, and emotion are all stress. They’re all biochemical in the end, or at least they translate that way. These methods enable us to deal with that stress and so much more armed with nothing more than the power of our minds. We go into the cold, we breathe, and we overcome stress while remaining in complete control over our happiness, strength, and health. Who doesn’t want that?

• • 1  Sit down in a safe, comfortable place and clear your mind. 2  Start connecting to your breath. Let yourself breathe naturally. 3  Start counting your breaths. Each inhale and exhale is one count. Count your breaths up to seven, and then from seven back to one. If you find yourself suddenly thinking about your daily life and your to-do list, return to counting the breaths. You will eventually find yourself able to just count the breaths, up to seven and back down again. The blood flow will go into the deeper areas of your brain, awakening feeling, not thoughts. Let the feeling become stronger. Follow the feeling and go as deep as you want. As you go along, the counting will fade away, like a song fading out. Follow the feeling and go deep into yourself, deep into peace.*

• While seated or lying down, take 30 to 40 full conscious breaths: Breathe fully in to the belly and the chest, then letting go, without force. 2  On your final exhale, let the air out and hold it out for as long as you can without discomfort. Listen to your body and don’t force it! 3  When you feel the urge to breathe again, take a deep breath in, hold for 10 to 15 seconds. Then release and relax. 4  Repeat the steps above two or three more times, paying attention to how you feel and adjusting your breath as needed. 5  Rest in this elevated state until you are ready to move on with your day. Alternatively, use the energy you just generated for your morning workout or yoga practice. Experiment with what feels right for you.

• Your post-breathing practice state is the perfect time to program your mindset. Try this: 1  Before you get up from your breathing practice, bring up a thought in your mind like “Today I’m going to stay in the cold shower for 15 more seconds than yesterday,” or “I feel happy, healthy, and strong.” 2  Reflect on this thought and notice how your body feels. 3  If you identify any inner resistance to your intention, just keep breathing steadily until you feel an alignment between your body and mind.

• At the end of your warm shower, turn the water to cold. 2  If you like you can start by first putting your feet and legs, than your arms, then your full torso under the water. 3  Do NOT do the WHM Basic Breathing Exercise while standing in the shower. 4  Gradually extend your exposure every day until you can handle two minutes in the cold. 5  If you are shivering when you get out, try the horse stance exercise. Success!

• “Sharing happiness is double happiness, and sharing sorrow is half sorrow.”

• Before you begin an endurance exercise, such as long distance running or cycling, do three to four rounds of power breathing: 1  Breathe in deeply and relax to let your breath go sixty times. 2  On the last breath, inhale fully and then hold the breath for at least fifteen seconds (or as long as feels comfortable), squeeze your entire body toward the head by tensing your pelvic floor and allowing that pressurized feeling to move up your spine to the top of your head. 3  Relax to let your breath go and start a new round. 4  Start each new round with your regular WHM breathing rhythm, and then increase the speed and intensity of your breathing as the round proceeds. This increase is what makes this power breathing. 5  Wait a couple of minutes to ground yourself again and then begin your endurance exercise. 6  Breathe more than you feel is necessary and stay aware of your breath during the endurance exercise. You’ve got all the energy you need to do anything, to overcome any obstacle or disease in your body, life, path, or destiny.

• In babies, brown fat plays a key role in both thermoregulation and thermogenesis, creating heat when little babies become cold because they’re not able to move around as much as we do. Instead of depositing energy like white fat does, brown fat is capable of energy combustion. As we grow older, the amount of brown fat in our bodies decreases sharply.

• The sons of former Civil War–era prisoners of war were far more likely to die untimely deaths than the sons of soldiers who were not imprisoned, even though each subset of offspring was born after the conclusion of the war and, therefore, bore no direct impact of the imprisonment.

• Doctrines and gurus are for those still battling with the ego, while science — the truth of things — has no use for ego.

• Stress is the killer in our Western society — all that thinking, going into overdrive, making deadlines.