In I Did The Thing, Rachel Sugar sacrifices her time and her sanity in the name of wellness “research.” Up next: a day of ice baths at a Wim Hof Method class.
I’m sitting in a blow-up birthing pool filled with bags of bodega ice on an industrial street in Brooklyn, trying very hard to regulate my breath, because this is the method of Wim Hof, a.k.a., the Iceman.
If I sit here for 90 seconds, I’ve been told, I will be on the path to reclaiming an earlier, better version of myself: me, but with the vitality of a prehistoric caveperson. The comforts of modernity have made us weak and sad and sick, but we can heal ourselves, the Iceman says. By getting in synch with the elements we can reclaim our inner power. We can become stronger and happier and healthier; thinner and better at sleeping. In fact, there seems to be no ailment Wim Hof’s method—the Wim Hof Method—does not claim to at least partially address: stress, arthritis, cancer, migraines, canker sores, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s Disease, ALS, MS, and HIV. Coincidentally, these are also the exact benefits I would advertise if I were running a scam.
The thing about the method, though, reported not just by acolytes but by some number of actual research physicians, is that it appears to work.
The Wim Hof Method (WHM) has attracted what is now a veritable army of followers, fans, and trained disciples dedicated to maximizing their own potential via breath and controlled suffering. One of them is kneeling in front of me as I sit in the ice bath, setting the pace of my breath by example. Like the Iceman, he is ferally handsome, blue-eyed and wild-bearded. We breathe in. We breathe out.
We are breathing at a CrossFit gym, which is directly across from an axe-throwing bar, which is next to a fencing studio, and down the street from a bouldering gym. It is a street that specializes in recreational violence. A few days earlier I’d been sent a waiver for the “Wim Hof Method Fundamentals Workshop” that read: “I acknowledge and understand that by participating … I may be injured, physically or mentally, or may die.” I agreed. Yes, that sounded fine.
This workshop, presented by Innerfire, the organization that handles the business of the WFM, is designed to introduce us to the Iceman’s ways. First, we will learn breathing. By using a pattern of deep and rapid inhales—controlled hyperventilation—paired with extended periods of no breathing at all, we can trick our minds into the stress response that will allow us to endure unfavorable temperatures, like extreme cold. Then, we will learn cold exposure, which is supposed to challenge the cardiovascular system, boost energy levels, and bolster the immune system. Technically, the third prong of the method is “commitment,” but it’s hard to practice that in a four-hour workshop, so we don’t. With these three principles, Hof says, you can hack your body in ways that are theoretically not possible.
He is his own best evidence. Hof has a resume of superhuman achievements that should have killed him. He climbed to 20,000 feet on Mount Everest naked, except for shorts and shoes. He ran a marathon in the Arctic Circle barefoot. He holds the world record for longest ice bath (almost two hours). He holds the world record for fastest half marathon barefoot in the snow (two hours, 16 minutes).. He holds so many world records, who can count them all? Mostly they have to do with ice.
In the last few years, Hof’s work has transitioned from high-profile stunts to peer-reviewed science. The stunts may have made him famous, but they also suggested he was special, and the whole point is that he’s not. He’s simply proof of what the human body was meant to do.
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This article was originally posted at https://www.bonappetit.com/story/wim-hof-method
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