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Off-Topic Wim Hof

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Hello,

@Tarzan
Congrats for your times !

I think hypoxia alterates (to a certain extent) the brain work. That is why your environment perception was different.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
I was a bit concerned when I opened my eyes and saw the time on the stopwatch @pet' . I used to do a lot of free diving and spear fishing years ago & one guy I dived with had a 4 minute + breath. We used to call him "brain damage".

I could hold my breath for just under 3 minutes back then (nearly 30 years ago). So to go 4 minutes with no breath now is hard to believe. I'll have to try and replicate that 4 minutes and make sure I didn't forget to reset the stopwatch before the last cycle.

I just had my first cold shower (sort of) I started with lukewarm water and did the last minute cold but I didn't put my head in the cold water. It's going to take me a while to get used to that.
 
I have to confess to being a bit of a sissy with the cold. I've been doing the gradual cold exposure in the shower thing for a few months, after failed pathetic attempts sometime ago. Just the other day after basking in the cold water for a while, thought it was time to turn the tap to maximum coldness. It was already!! Been under it for a good few minutes without noticing! I've now reached the polar bear standard and despite my earlier aversion to the cold with a gradual introduction to gonad shrinking temperatures, I've got to quite enjoy it. De-sissyfied now and look forward to it. All very odd.
 
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I still need to work on getting a better handle on the breathing work, but I've been doing the cold showers for about 3 weeks. It really does get significantly easier the more you do it consistently. I skipped a few days (justifying it because the outside temps dropped suddenly and dramatically) and getting back into the shower groove was rough for a few days but it got easier again quickly.
 
Hello,

The contrast shower works pretty well too. You get the comfort of hot water for a while, and then, switching for 30s or 1 minute of cold water (let is say as cold as you can handle) also gives a good energy boost. Plus, nothing prevents you from staying longer than 1 minutes under cold water. The good thing about high contrast shower is that they oblige your body to adapt to a wider range of temperatures.

I did WHM for long time. Both options can be considered, even if they "work" on different topics.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
Update - getting much better at "breathe light to breathe right". Now at around 40-50 steps consistently that I can hold my breath for. Have not been good at disciplined daily practice, but still improving. BOLT score around 30 seconds.

Scott Carney's book on Wim Hof, which I had requested from my library ages ago, will finally be in my hands by early next week. Excited to read it.
 
I haven't been able to replicate the 4:13 breath hold I did the other day, my best over the last few days has been 3:47 on the 3rd cycle. So I'm not sure if that earlier one was a mistake on my part or some type of anomaly.

I"ve extended the cold showers to around 3 minutes after a cool shower to start. I haven't had the courage to dive straight into a cold shower yet. I couldn't handle the cold on my chest or my back very well at first but my head seemed to be OK with it, so I've been holding my head under and gradually letting the cold hit more & more of my torso.

I don't feel ready to plunge into an ice bath yet but the adaptations seem to happening faster than I expected.
 
Hello,

Plunging entirely and "fast" in an ice bath is far easier than the cold shower IMO ;) Plus, some factors can modify your results, such as what you eat (some foods are longer to be digested), your stress level (the more you are stress, the less time you can hold your breath), environment temperature, etc...

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
I'm about 4-5 weeks in to the program. My longest breathe hold has been around 3 minutes and that was done in the first week. Strangely, I have not come close to repeating it. I usually average around 2:30 after 2 or 3 breath holds and I am not progressing here. I do practice almost every day, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach after a cup of coffee and a number 2. I missed 2 days a couple weeks ago, so I repeated that week of the program. Cold showers are pretty easy now, however. I can walk in straight away.
 
Hello,

A thing I really like in WHM is that it makes you used to cold environment (winter, wet and windy, etc...)

I use several methods for that:
> slow breathing to calm me down
> hyper breathing to make the HR higher.

I found both techniques efficient.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
Well, I read Scott Carney's book. I was hoping it would have more about Wim, but was still an interesting read. What fascinated me, is before reading this book, I had no idea the WHM also utilized what the author described as "breath out" holds, which sounds to me very similar to the tenets of what Buteyko breathing, and the practices outlined in the Oxygen Advantage book recommend.

I felt the description of the science to the method was lacking - repeated references of hyperventilating to "radically increase O2 saturation "(page 53) when normal O2 sats are between 95-99. I actually didn't mind the deviations into anthropological discussion, as I find that sort of thing interesting (side note- Yuval Harari's book "Sapiens" is my gold mine for that sort of subject matter). Apparently, breath in holds work the parasympathetic system, while breath out holds work the sympathetic system. Direct line from the book - "breath in holds are better for getting to your absolute maximum number of pushups or retention duration, but are less efficient at cracking into you nervous system "(p56)
This made no sense to me and is a burning question I would love more info on. @Iron Tamer @Wesker11 could you provide any info from the course that would help me with that question?

I did like that fact that although the author appreciates Wim's work and what he does, there are numerous comments about how Wim has a tendency to be low on the science part and high on the love and compassion when he talks. He even mentions an argument between the two while climbing Kilimanjaro that almost resulted in a mutiny of the group from Wim. However, he does have a chapter that interviews several people who all claim Wim and the breathing method saved their lives from differing chronic conditions.

All in all, interesting read but still leaves me with lots of questions as noted above.
 
I haven't read the book or bought the course. I have read the free pdf and it doesn't seem to suggest an increase in oxygen sats, it seems to be suggesting that breathing exercises modify the Co2 to oxygen ratio and accelerates oxygen consumption.
http://www.icemanwimhof.com/files/2016wimhofmethod-revealed.pdf

There are some scant details of the physiological processes in that PDF but it is quite limited in technical details.

I recently read a redit thread about the WHM where Wim was being asked a lot of tough questions he didn't seem to want to answer and some of the posts in that thread were very negative. Apparently several people had to be rescued on one of the group climbs and Wim had to retire because of foot injuries. There were some people who were quite hostile towards Wim because of the way he was offering false hope to cancer patients.

Anyway, I'm still practicing every day. My longest breath hold since the 4:13 on an early attempt has been 3:52 and I normally get over 3:30 on the last cycle.

I thought I was getting tougher by plunging into a "cold" shower and staying there for 10 minutes but it felt way too comfortable and I was wondering if my water wasn't cold enough. I put a thermometer in a jug & filled it with "cold" water and it was only 21 deg C, so I think I've been having myself on there. Maybe by the time winter gets here the cold water will actually be cold.
 
I think it helps to separate out the parts here. Buteyko validates breath holds and breathing less. Lots of sources validate cold tempering. I don't find much to support the hyperventilation aspect of what I know of his method for health purposes; I suspect it may help performance but that's different than helping health.

JMO, YMMV.

-S-
 
I thought I was getting tougher by plunging into a "cold" shower and staying there for 10 minutes but it felt way too comfortable and I was wondering if my water wasn't cold enough. I put a thermometer in a jug & filled it with "cold" water and it was only 21 deg C, so I think I've been having myself on there. Maybe by the time winter gets here the cold water will actually be cold.

We have an early spring here, outside temp is about 5 deg C, and cold cold water is 16 deg C. It is already better than in January when we had outside temp in -5 to -10 deg range. Maybe I've got used to it but right know 5min is kinda easy, 2 months ago 30s was shocking expierence :)
 
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Hello,

Hyperventilation increases CO2 tolerance in blood (so in muscle) by decreasing partial pression of CO2, but it does not increase O2 concentration. This can be dangerous because this O2 / CO2 ratio is a body signal to get to a normal breathing pace. This is mainly performance related in free diving.

Cold increases O2 sensitivity. I guess this is why breath holding are longer using WHM for instance.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
Pardon me for my ignorance and lack of reading capabilities, but could someone tell me if there are specific breathing exercises or such that can markedly help increase the oxygen saturation of a person?

This question asked by someone suffering from sleep apnea.
 
@Antti, the Buteyko techniques discussed in the book referenced above are for improved utilization of the oxygen already in your bloodstream. If Buteyko breathing helps, it will help through secondary means, e.g., it can help people lose excess weight and that, in turn, does help many with sleep apnea. Insufficient oxygen in your bloodstream due to sleep apnea is a medical condition that should be treated by a doctor.

-S-
 
Thank you for your replies.

My sleep apnea is already in some kind of control through me sleeping with a cpap machine. I am afraid that it is all that can be done to alleviate the effects.

Oxygen saturation is one of the measurements done when diagnosing the illness. If I understood correctly, it has a correlation with the severity of the disease. I had hoped that I could help increase the oxygen saturation through some breathing practises, but if it can not be done, it can not be done.
 
Antti, if you have someone to watch you or can otherwise experiment, you could try changing your sleeping position. I was diagnosed with mild-to-moderate sleep apnea, and it turned out that just changing to a thinner pillow relieved my symptoms. (G-d, I _hated_ having sleep studies ...)

If you haven't tried losing weight, that's a thing to try.

And, although no doctor ever told me this, I did a little research and found out that premature infants who show signs of sleep apnea are sometimes treated with caffeine. In my own case, I find that I need to be the right amount of tired to go sleep and not have apnea - if I'm over-tired, I drink coffee before I go to bed and it does help. And I make it a point to really mind my sleep schedule and not get over-tired.

My case is, obviously, not relevant to you except anecdotally - you might run some of these ideas by your doctor and see what he/she has to say. For me, my wife was a very valuable part of the process because she really noticed when I had apnea and when I was better, so it was through her feedback that I realized a thinner pillow and a cup of coffee could help me. And my doctors are OK with me showing symptoms once in a great while so long as it's only that, and it's only that in my case.

-S-
 
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