Welcome back to the Official FNDN Blog!

I'm super pumped about this week's blog post about my master guru; Wim Hof. This may seem counter intuitive, but this is a guy who would never use our heated gear; he's also known as the Iceman.

You might remember a few years ago some guy on TV sitting in a clear box of ice for hours without his core body temperature changing, or that crazy Vice documentary about this Iceman. That's him.

This guy is famous for extraordinary feats such as climbing Everest shirtless in shorts, running a half marathon in the snow north of the arctic circle barefoot in shorts and no shirt, and swimming 50 kilometers under the ice water.

Seeing as we suffer in the cold, I thought it would be awesome to educate you on the man who thrives in it, and teaches others to thrive too.

Wim Hof is from the Netherlands, and experienced a tragedy when his wife committed suicide. The only place he found peace was in the freezing cold. He would meditate in ice water and claimed that it calmed his mind more than anything.

He then brought this to science, who mocked him for 30 years, calling him a freak and saying he was a one-in-a-million outlier. 

Until, one day, a University took him seriously. They began to run tests on Wim's blood, and found that all of his claims were true; he could control his autonomic nervous system through his breathing, meditation, and cold exposure techniques. This included his endocrine system, his immune system, his cardiovascular system, and metabolism.

Just like any theory, the University told him that in order to be an accurate experiment, he needed reproduceable results with himself and others. So, he taught others his method in just a few days, and did exactly that.

Wim Hof single handedly changed how we understand human physiology. Up until his experiments, it was thought that we can not control our autonomic nervous system, and we were slaves to our genetic disposition. Wim proved this wrong!

What's now dubbed as, "The Wim Hof Method (WHM)" has now exploded in popularity due to its simplicity and effectiveness. It's as simple as follows:

1. Cold Exposure
2. Breathing Exercise
3. Mindset/Commitment

You can watch this videoexplaining the breathing exercise seeing as ti's better explained by him than me. 

When we expose ourselves to cold temperatures, our primal thermoregulatory systems are activated; our body immediately shunts blood from our extremities to our vital organs.

Through repeated cold exposure, we can train our blood vessels like muscles to become stronger and pump blood to our extremities when exposed to cold, keeping up warm.

Some benefits include improvement of the immune system, strengthening of the brain, increase of the metabolism, and relief from pain due to it's anti-inflammatory nature.

When implementing this specific breathing exercise, you are making the blood very alkaline. (You are basically just inhaling more than you are exhaling.) Disease or inflammation can not exist in alkaline environments, so any disease or pain simply goes away; it's that simple.

The benefits of daily implementation of the breathing exercise if increasing our vital lung capacity, increased cardiovascular strength, increased energy and therefore efficiency, and clarity of the mind.

Mindset is defined as the collection of your thoughts and beliefs. It steers risk as well as effort. The correct mindset will instill integrity, facilitate growth, provide freedom, and enhance focus. 

Committing to the WHM increases your commitment to any other positive habits in your life. When repeatedly exposing yourself to such extreme situations, your mind becomes antifragile, and therefore becomes better equipped to deal with other challenges presented to you.

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That's my man Wim in a nutshell! He is a spectacular being full of energy and life. I'll leave you with his trademark slogan;

Stay warm out there,
Dan
Author / Iceman / Yoga Instructor / Plant-Based Wildman