Wim Hof has been studied, doubted, and believed. He has been written about in the prestigious science journal Nature. He has been followed by journalists looking to “expose” him as a fraud only to find themselves transformed into believers and promoters of his method. I’d only heard about Wim Hof occasionally in popular culture and in the occasional endorsement I’d hear among surfers looking to increase their ability to hold their breath underwater (an important skill if you plan to surf big[ger] waves).
I decided to take a closer look at Wim Hof given that he’s published a new book. In The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential, Hof reveals how he has managed to perform extraordinary human feats of cold exposure, like climbing Mount Everest in shorts and a t-shirt. The book is part-memoir, part workbook, offering readers exercises to help them become superhuman. I’m fascinated by people exploring the outer limits of human ability, and am especially fascinated by the methods these figures have used to achieve these heights. In many cases, the drive, passion, commitment, and obsession is similar in all feats of human excellence, but the specific activities differ. What’s unique about Wim Hof is that he claims that the preparation can be the same in all cases.
When you read an athlete’s memoir, rarely does the athlete claim to have the ability to teach you how to follow in his or her footsteps. Typical athletic memoirs recount the years of dedication, the early morning trainings, but they don’t propose to offer their readers a path to the sub-two-hour marathon or triathlon greatness. Hof is unique in that he claims he can show ordinary humans how to achieve extraordinary feats—if they are willing to put themselves up to the challenge and perform his exercises daily. He writes of ordinary people able to acclimatize to altitude to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, of ordinary people able to endure extraordinary cold without even a sweater.
Hof’s method is simple. It is based on “cold exposure, conscious breathing, and the power of the mind.”
As I read Hof’s book, I wondered whether it would be possible to apply some of his methods to my own practices to achieve results.
I have practiced many different types of meditation over the years. There are passive forms of meditation that require nothing more than for the person to sit still, focus on the free-flowing breath, and patiently wait for transcendence to arrive. For years I practiced this type of meditation. Attending Josh Korda’s Dharma Punx NYC meditations exposed me to body scanning techniques, loving-kindness practice, and others. While living in New York, I even tried breathwork, a much more active type of meditation (I felt euphoria and experienced mild hallucinations, a not-uncommon experience). I’ve been guided by Joe Dispenza on hypnotic journeys through my energy centers, where I have “opened up the field” and have had some of the deepest insights about my life and purpose in the process. I have practiced cold and hot exposure. Hiked barefoot. Stayed up for days on end. Sat under banyan trees that have been struck by lightning. Pushed my body to its limits. Some of it sounds woo-woo to write about, but experience and description are often different continents, and I’ll grant the skeptic his or her skepticism for finding some of this all too far afield.
Meditation, in all its forms, is powerful. Before I began regularly meditating, I was chronically depressed and angry. Bipolar disorder runs in my family. Meditation, however, is a slow-acting medicine. It took years before I began to see real results, but one day, I woke up and realized that I had indeed changed my mind and body, without medicine, but with patient attentive breathing. It was remarkable.
Since reading Wim Hof’s book, I’ve been using Hof’s breathing method for several weeks for my meditation practice. I was, indeed, able to achieve deeper levels of meditation and more immediately access calmness and inner peace. I could even feel the physiological changes in my body. Hof’s breathing method helped me fall asleep without sleeping pills. I used his breathing method in the morning before I got out of bed and found myself more prepared for the day, calmer, less quick to anger or frustration (an essential skill given the ongoing pandemic and quarantine). I often found that I entered states of “timelessness” that Hof writes about in the book.
Hof’s method is located somewhere in between the active intensity of “breathwork” which produces a (hyper oxygenated state in the body), mindful breathing with its ability to calm and reset the mind and body, and breathing techniques which produce a hypo-oxygenated state in the body. I found I sometimes experienced the transcendent and even hallucinatory effects of a breathwork session, without feeling the extreme exhaustion such sessions often brought on. I also found that the sessions, when extended, allowed me to tap into deeper levels of insight and inner wisdom.
While scientists have only begun to explore how Hof’s methods actually benefit the human body (a few studies have produced positive results, but they remain small and subject to various confounds, including the “guru effect” Hof creates, just by teaching his method), Hof provides ample anecdotal evidence of clients who have healed themselves and excelled using his methods. Doctor Elissa Epel, in the introduction to the book, writes that Hof’s method works by putting the body into a state known as “hormetic stress:” “Theoretically, a stressful exposure can have harmful effects at high doses, but at low doses it can actually create changes in our body that make us healthier and stronger.”
Hof believes that comfort is what makes the human body and mind stagnate. Ancient humans faced discomfort on a daily basis, and pushed their bodies past these discomforts. The human body, according to Hof, is designed to handle discomfort, optimal in its operation when pushed to experience occasional passing pain.
Doctor Epel, who studies Hof’s methods, writes: “The cold and the breath haven’t changed. Humans have battled the cold since the very first winter, and Tibetan monks have been practicing conscious breathing techniques for more than a thousand years.” There is indeed a difference between passive meditation that focuses solely on the breath, and meditation meant to induce a slight state of discomfort in the body. Epel writes: “The unique dialectical state of relaxing into physical discomfort and pain—of ice, of cold water, of breath-holding—I find this to be a remarkable state…I believe it is an especially interesting state from which to observe the mind.”
Hof believes that we are disconnected from nature, and this disconnection weakens us. He urges readers to immerse themselves in nature and its elements completely. I agree with him. There’s something to be said for the immediate effect nature can have on the body and mind. There’s something more to be said for the effect that extremes can have on the body and mind.
When I lived in New York City, I spent the winters surfing the cold water of the North Atlantic. I know it sounds awful, the idea of diving into ice-cold ocean water, but the experience was transcendent and invigorating. Yes, I dreaded the first shock that took my breath away. But every time, I left the ocean feeling high. I still remember the instant euphoria, my beating heart, the sense of pure wildness in all that dark water and fog. I found something true out there in the cold water.
“When this neurological channeling is reestablished, it enables us to endure pain by releasing the natural opioids—endocannabinoids—in our brain. These natural chemicals deliver a feeling of euphoria to the body, even under stress…”
You don’t need to jump into the North Atlantic to achieve the same feeling. According to Hof, a cold shower will do. He notes: “We have to sit still and meditate for hours to get the blood flowing into those deeper realms. Or, conversely, we can take a cold shower.”
Hof privileges experience over book learning. He urges his readers to go out into nature to gain experience and to delve deeper within themselves for the answers. Perhaps we’d all be a little better off if we took this advice.
In The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential, we learn about how Hof discovered his methods during his time of “opting out” of society, when he was living as a squatter, spending his days soaking in the cold water near his hometown in the Netherlands. He writes of the sacred early morning hours, “a very different dimension of the day, when nobody is around and you are there in sync with…the elements of nature.” He urges his readers to opt out of society, arguing that “it’s time to awaken to a mind that is not vulnerable to manipulation or corruption, that is 100 percent yours. How do you achieve that? By breathing, going into the cold, becoming conscious, reflecting the soul.” He critiques the capitalist system that “serves greed and ignorance.” A system that Hof calls “polluting, exploitative, and insensitive.”
Will cold showers and deep breathing heal the ills of capitalism and globalization? I doubt it. But I do believe that stepping out of one’s comfort zone and becoming more mindful can lead to realizations and awakenings that can put one on a different path, one that maybe doesn’t privilege consumerism so centrally in the equation.
Hof’s story is not without its tragedy. He writes of his wife’s suicide and the challenges of raising his children on his own. He writes about the people who called him “crazy” for years, doubting him. Ultimately, Hof’s story is about hope, about potential, about the inner power we each hold inside of us. Hof writes: “It’s amazing what can happen within your core if you get there, if you meet the light within yourself.” He writes about finding “natural wisdom” and the “sacred spot” within.
Great athletes, meditators, artists, lovers, and seekers are ever-searching for the moment of alignment, when mind and body perform in perfect synchronicity. We are all perhaps, in our way, searching for transcendence.
We stand in the darkest hour of a pandemic that may take many more lives before it is over, now may be a time to reassess what we find most important, most sacred. Hof wants his readers to find clarity and insight. I wish the same for all of you.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.