Accusations that he is simply a freak of nature were quashed when he taught a group of volunteers his methods and they, too, showed the same remarkable results. In another he was injected with an E coli endotoxin that would ordinarily induce sickness, yet he showed no major symptoms. In one logic-defying experiment, he was able to maintain his core body temperature while encased in ice. Assuming there is a beneficial effect, my guess would be that the effects would not last longer than a day Prof Peter Pickkers Scientists have begun to pore over his theories. What’s more, he claims he can regulate his immune response to stress – a feat previously considered impossible because the immune system is autonomic. Hof claims his method activates the body’s “fight or flight” adrenal response, which in turn reduces chronic inflammation. If it doesn’t get stimulated it becomes weaker, like a muscle that’s not being used any more.”
But you have to know you have a depth within yourself which needs to be stimulated. “Instead, we are controlling nature with air pollution, heating, technology. “We are estranged from our own deeper physiology because we are no longer in contact with nature,” he explains.
The tragedy of his first wife’s suicide in 1995, as a consequence of her schizophrenia, fomented his belief that cold-water swimming – and his breathing techniques – are a panacea for inflammatory diseases. “They stood there smoking, saying, ‘Look at him, he’s crazy’,” he says. “Sometimes you don’t know why but you feel attracted to do something,” he explains.įor many years thereafter, Hof was a local oddity known as the “Ice Man”, a guy who would walk his children to school barefoot and do handstands and splits in the snow while the other parents looked at him perplexed. Aged 17 and wandering alongside a frozen canal in Amsterdam, he felt a sudden urge to jump in. True to Hof’s eccentric character, the 60-year-old’s first experience of cold water was spontaneous. “It seemed like there was no end.” Fight or flight “I just wanted to cry, to sob, but I couldn’t let it out,” says Karren Probyn. It was completely amazing.”īut not everyone is euphoric.
“I’m a physician and if somebody told me this would happen today I would think they’re crazy. “My wife gave birth to two children not long ago and I can really say I felt the birthing process in my gut,” he says. It felt like a huge healing.”Īnother participant, Nick, is similarly delirious. It was a complete loss of control, death, I don’t know. “I had this intense feeling I did a somersault over or through myself. “I left my body,” Sequoia tells me afterwards, his speech slow and slurred. Who are you? What are you?” urges Hof, before stepping off-stage to attend to Wayne Sequoia, whose limbs are jerking so violently it rouses me from my stupor. Around me, people are writhing on their mats, some weeping or howling like wolves. Soon the effect is so intoxicating that the muscles in my forearms contract, my arms raise involuntarily from my chest and my fingers curl into claws. Nick (above) reacts during the breathing exercise at the Wim Hof Method event. It was a complete loss of control, death, I don’t know Wayne Sequoia I did a somersault over or through myself. The idea is to mimic the natural gasping reflex we experience when we enter cold environments, thereby decreasing the amount of CO 2 in our bodies. Every so often we hold our breath for as long as we can. Over a period of 30 minutes, Hof instructs us to fill our lungs rapidly before emptying them passively, in a fashion developed from an ancient Tibetan technique, Tummo. “To me it was like being an ordinary person and suddenly realising that I can be a superhero, too.”īreathing is one of the three main pillars of the Wim Hof Method, alongside cold exposure and commitment. “I first saw Wim on YouTube and he said, ‘anything inside us is within our reach’ and ‘whatever limitations we set ourselves, it’s all bullshit’,” Radecki recalls. Among them are yoga teachers, life coaches, cold-water swimmers, medical professionals and those, such as Tomasz Radecki from Poland, who have simply been inspired by Hof’s message of hope. Fully in, fully out,” cries Hof from the stage, as more than 700 people hyperventilate in unison. It’s 24 hours earlier, and I am lying on a yoga mat at the nearby Roundhouse under a haze of purple lights, breathing intently. “No, no, it’s still cold,” he assures me.
“Is this cheating?” I ask Hof, who is already topless. I sheepishly turn towards the lifeguard’s hut to see today’s temperature scrawled on the chalkboard: “7C,” it says. I was told by one enthusiast that between 0 and 5C is considered cold, “but if it gets up to six you’re not ice swimming”. As I stand on the jetty looking out across the pond – the bright spring sunshine flaring off the water’s surface – I’m concerned about the water temperature.