I’ve been doing the Wim Hof breathing as a daily practice now for about 2 months and I have to tell you, it’s life changing.I work as an acupuncturist. A colleague once described how I work as “surfing the Chi”. I make my living based on my ability to sense and influence energetic changes in the human energy field and I wanted to lend that perspective to describe the effects of the Wim Hoff breathing technique.My hope is that you feel inspired to give it a go.
If you’re not familiar with Wim Hof, he’s called the “Iceman”, a name he earned by performing incredible feats of cold endurance. He holds the world record for being immersed in ice for almost 2 hours. That’s an impressive feat but what’s truly astounding is that he’s been able to teach others his methods which have been clinically proven to enhance the immune response.
In a clinical trial, 10 out of 10 of the participants who trained with Wim were able to negate the effects of the E.coli Bacteria upon injection using his breathing techniques, which would typically cause food poisoning symptoms.Online there is plenty of information if you want to learn more. The short description of the technique I’ve been practicing is cyclic hyperventilation followed by breath retention. Importantly, the breath is held at the end of the out-breath.
Here’s my take on how this brings benefit. When you hyperventilate you charge up the body with oxygen. You then hold the breath. The important thing to realise is that the body will not be evenly oxygenated throughout. In the same way that in a house, some rooms get used more than others, in the body some areas get more oxygen than others. Areas where we hold stress, tension and fear will be low in oxygen simply because there’s no room. Try fitting an apple into the palm of a closed fist. As you hold your breath, guess which parts are going to start screaming for oxygen. Yep, the tense, stressed and fearful parts. Holding the breath beyond comfort becomes like stretching a rubber band, between these areas and the breath gateway. The longer you can hold the breath the more powerfully the oxygen floods these low oxygen areas when the breath arrives, because by this stage the body has prioritised them as the most critical. The oxygen becomes like aid work supplies being air-lifted to those most in need in a crisis.
Clinical trials have revealed the ability of this technique to influence the autonomic nervous system and the innate immune response, which were hitherto thought to be beyond the realm of conscious control. The technique of breath holding on the out breath is known in some yogic traditions as the death breath. At a certain point when holding the breath, in a relatively short period of time, one encounters the reptilian mind whose primary concern is survival. We don’t usually approach our reptile because it contains some unpleasant truths about our drive to survive. It’s the one that lifesavers protect themselves from when rescuing a drowning person. They know the predictable response of a drowning person is to pull the rescuer under in order to get a breath. The reptilian mind’s priority is to stay alive at any cost.
According to Wim, after 30 big breaths, the body has enough oxygen to last well beyond 2 minutes of breath deprivation, so it is more indicative of the habit patterns of the reptilian mind to want to breath than it is necessity.
When you feel how powerfully the reptilian mind grips the body insisting that you finally breath you understand how capable it is to overwhelm our rational mind. When the human directs his/her will towards training the reptile our unexamined drives can start to be shaped rather than given free range.This offers multiple benefits.
Personally, I have started to find I have more courage to share my perspectives in ways such as this essay, on social media and in person than I previously did. I feel more robust, less reactive and overly sensitive. I think I’m becoming more dependable and my fitness and stamina has improved, I assume because of increased lung capacity. I’ve experienced both physical and psychological benefits. I’ve observed that the thoughts I have influence how long I’m able to hold my breath. As a rule, the more fearful I am the less time I can hold. From this I can observe which thoughts and attitudes empower me. I can also look to practice my equanimity to thoughts that scare me.
This method is a great tool for mental and physical wellbeing. In the current crisis, tools that can empower us to take more responsibility for our own health are a valuable thing indeed.
In the current stage 4 lockdown, acupuncture is permitted for emergency care and in stage 3 is permitted as usual. It can be extremely helpful in helping you find your feet in these uncertain times.
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