The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Potential, Transcend Your Limits

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After teaching specialized breathing techniques to SEALs for years, helping them focus, stay warm in the cold ocean and get centered in combat, I can attest to the authenticity and power of Wim Hof's methods. Wim Hof is providing a great service with his new book The Way of The Iceman by bringing breath training and simple, powerful health practices into mainstream consciousness.” — Mark Divine , US Navy SEAL (ret), Founder SEALFIT, Best selling author of Unbeatable Mind and Way of the SEAL My hope is to inspire you to retake control of your body and life by unleashing the immense power of the mind. A cold shower a day keeps the doctor away. When you take a cold shower, all of those little muscles in your vascular system are activated and exercised. Within ten days of taking these showers, you will notice that your heart rate has decreased significantly, which translates to a lot less stress. Here is a link that talks about some of the benefits of cold showers. The only definitive book authored by Wim Hof on his powerful method for realizing our physical and spiritual potential.

The Wim Hof Method: Own Your Mind, Master Your Biology, and Activate Your Full Human Potential is, perhaps not suprisingly, repetitive and peppered with all kinds of mysticism and pseudo-science.

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I would recommend the audiobook as Wim can be a bit repetitive at times (not read by him tho, but hey, Apolo Ohno is great too).

On a completely separate note, while I do understand this is Wim's book and Wim's way of thinking, I can imagine quite a lot of people getting at least slightly annoyed at how he sometimes describes women and mothers - loads of stereotypes there. Nothing too terrible, but still. Let this be a small trigger warning for readers who keep feminist matters as close to their heart as I do. Breathing exercises can activate brown fat tissue (or brown adipose tissue — BAT), which is capable of energy combustion, and your intercostal muscles. This can help your body produce heat by burning fat. Hof met his first wife, Olaya, from the Basque country in Spain, while living in a squat in Amsterdam. Enahm was born, they became a family and got by on very little money. They had three more children and spent time living in a Basque village. Does the book convey a well balanced, considered argument for the ability of spiritual well being to transcend modern health care (like a Sam Harris would)? Others in the book have similar experiences and you can too. In addition to the immediate benefits, there are additional benefits if you practice consistently. Your health, performance, mood, and overall well-being can improve.So, first off I like this book mostly. I do think that there's legitimacy to the results seen, observed and claimed. However, the scientific explanations are a little off. I read the PNAS paper, some stuff Wim Hof claims is right but some is really off. The oxygen levels are not really different; the CO2 is very different. Also, 7 pH neutral, pH 7.4 is normal for blood is already slightly alkaline. The increase to pH 7.6 is more alkaline, however, is this really what the difference is? This pH change is from the decrease in CO2 not an increase in O2. Also, the air being charged with negative ions is ridiculous. Air is "78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide" (Wiki). Nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are all neutral molecules, and air is an insulator. I do think that the other benefits of walking barefoot are correct, but the grounding/earthing can't be right. Please show me a source/reference/study if I'm wrong about any of the science. Again, the method seems really good and effective, just the justifications need work. Wim found answers in nature. This is an innate power we all possess. It’s been conditioned out of us and reinforced by an education system that isn’t focused on happiness, strength, health, or a deeper control of ourselves. If you can say yes to freezing water each day, it may help you say yes to an all-nighter in the office to get a project done. 6 ACTIONS YOU SHOULD TAKE The penultimate chapter suggests what the WHM might do for people in various classes, including: healthy people, athletes, and people suffering from various physical and mental ailments. With respect to the latter, there is discussion of exemplary cases as well as the possible means by which the training might act. A stressful exposure can have harmful effects at high doses, but at low doses, it can actually create changes in our bodies that make us healthier and stronger. This is called “hormetic stress.” Acute short-term stress can lead to powerful positive changes in our cells.

The Wim Hof Method is so simple that anyone can get started right away. And the results are so palpable that once you start, you'll almost certainly want to keep going.” — Al Kavadlo , author of Street Workout and Pushing The Limits! This book is the missing link for most of us: the discussion of breathing is so simple, yet so doable; coaches and athletes will understand a newer and simpler means of recovery.There’s a lot of front matter in this book (two forwards, a prologue, and an introduction), but the book more-or-less consists of seven chapters. The first of these is a mini-bio of Hof. It describes a fascinating event in Hof’s youth in which he was exposed to cold, as well as his travels to India in an attempt to find a yoga teacher. [As is the case with most people who come to India seeking to find that quintessential guru—i.e. a half-naked, weather-beaten, and forehead paint-streaked classical guru—he found that he had to wade through a sea of charlatans and shysters while never finding the true masters who are likely hidden away in caves in the Himalayas. Note: this is not to say that one can’t find excellent yoga instruction in India but it’ll likely be by someone fully-clothed and not someone smoking pot on a ghat in Varanasi.] This resulted in Hof taking an experimental approach in which he studied the effects of various activities on himself (and such experimentation is what he advocates for others as well.) It should be noted that Hof didn’t invent this method from scratch—e.g. the breath component is based on Tibetan Tummo meditation. Chapter 5 dives more deeply into the science than does the preceding chapters, and focuses on the studies in which Hof has participated in his attempt to facilitate a better understanding of his method. Inspiration inspires. What I like most about Wim and his book is how he taught me to trust my body, overcome fear and give me the best opportunity for success. He mixes personal experience and science—which becomes truly motivating. Wim provides the tools you need to master self-discipline, gain courage and live a vibrant life. He is Aquaman and Tony Robbins rolled into one. He is The Iceman!” — Jesse Itzler, author of Living With A SEAL The author believes that we should all experience happiness, strength, and health. One way of helping individuals achieve this is shining light on human consciousness, potential, and “the truth of nature.”