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Originally Posted by Russic
There's a book by a guy who basically followed Wim Hof around for a year or so ( What Doesn't Kill Us), and it's quite good. Basically the guy does all the Wim Hof stuff like running up mountains of snow and ice in his underwear and swimming in freezing water. He ends with his fair share of skeptical takeaways, so it's not a glowing review across the board. One thing of note though is that Wim and several people he's trained in his method to undergo a procedure that is supposed to give them a reaction (cold or flu symptoms), and a statistically significant percentage of them do not get the reaction.
Scientifically things fall apart a bit when we deal with sample sizes that low and we use people who are evangelists of his method (the pharmacy of the mind is insane), but you wouldn't be crazy for concluding that when it comes to cold exposure and our immune response, there's probably something there. |
Wim Hof's theory is that his method allows him to control his body temperature up and down easily like a thermostat. I think he claimed that at one point, all humanity had the ability to do this and do it significantly more than we have done so far. I guess to a certain extent it's possible. Clothing wasn't as good and dwellings not as insulative + less effective heating options and humans survived in the same areas... just not in the same survival rates.
I think some of the theory is that by doing this, the temperatures are going high enough to kill the germs, but not doing so in an uncontrolled way like a high fever. But also because he can sort of control this and do it more on the regular, I guess this is more effective than occasionally going up in temperature (ie: When we get sick) because the concept is a little closer to pasteurization (quick heat, then rapid cooling)? We know people can acclimatize to require less or more clothing, but typically it takes a while for someone to do that when they move from the equator to Canada per se (or vice versa). Wim is (pardon the pun) teaching people to do it on a whim.
I don't know if the science is correct, but I did tinker with his stuff for a bit and I did find that there were benefits. I agree though that it is possible the effects are not the reasons he is claiming. That being said, I was tinkering more with his rapid breathing technique stuff as a change of pace to Pranayama. It was a personal goal of mine to hold my breath over a minute and at least 30 seconds on the regular and I achieved it practicing with his app. This was especially useful during the pandemic when I wanted to avoid people who were in stores and hacking up a storm.
I tried the cold exposure stuff and I did feel a bit different. It's well known that many people do cold showers to kick off their day and they often claim to have that extra energy boost. These people aren't doing the Wim Hof method, but their anecdotes corroborates the claim there are health benefits to cold exposure... just not the immune system one.