Wim Hof: Do THIS 10-Minute Breathing Exercise And ACTUALLY Lower Your Risk of Disease And Calm Your Anxiety

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What if we could control the deep autonomic nervous system, the immune system?

Inflammation is the cause and effect of actually every disease.

I'm into healing, into bringing down inflammation.

And that is what I give to people.

within an hour.

So better control over the immune system, better control over the central nervous system.

And you learn to clean the biochemical residue, which is the result of our daily life, hactic modern life.

The number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty.

The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.

I am so grateful that you decided to tune in today.

Today's guest is truly an icon in this world, someone that has been able to share prolific lessons, life-changing habits and practices that have transformed millions of people's lives.

His personal journey is also remarkable.

I'm really excited to reintroduce because we've had him on the podcast once.

Please welcome Wim Hoff.

Wim, it is such a joy.

The last time I interviewed you, it was on Zoom during the pandemic.

Today we're finally meeting for the first time.

And as a fan of your work and as a deep believer in your work, I'm so excited to have you here.

So thank you so much.

It's great to meet you in physical presence.

I can feel your energy.

It's great.

You're really a good man with very important work.

And being here, I'm able to transmit something

new, organic, alive from the heart.

Yeah, thank you, Wim.

Thank you so much.

And the feeling is mutual.

And I want to start by asking you, because what I find amazing is people like like yourself who've dedicated their lives to certain work.

And I wanted to ask you, what do you believe in so deeply?

Why do you believe so deeply in your work and the impact that it's making that's allowed you to dedicate your whole life to it?

I think it was my mother at my birth who invocated is a naive, God-fearing mother.

and yet in fear that this baby was going to die.

There was the second baby.

And nobody knew there was a second one.

I was too deep in.

So I was too long in and almost suffocated.

I came through her

fear and pushing and invocating, oh God, let this child live.

I will make him a missionary.

So I don't think it is my drive, but it is invocated by my mother.

A naive mother, yet God-fearing, is a formula, is a powerful formula that is impregnated, it's tattooed on my soul while I was nothing more than a purple little nothing coming out there defenseless.

And yet, there, her invocation came right into me.

And how that all works?

It works because I've been talking to her.

And when I was 12, I told my friends, if the world thinks, that's the way it begins to reveal itself.

12 years, you start thinking about what is life.

If the world thinks that is hunger, abuse, pollution, disease, darkness, depression is normal, then I think it is sick.

And I'm going to do something about it.

And what I do not know, I just do it.

That is where it came from.

And since then, it starts.

And every moment is a drop.

After 40, 50 years,

all those drops have become a tsunami a way through the thick wall of ignorance because i think it is all

sickness disease darkness depression uh wars pollution etc is just based in ignorance so i have come up with a way looking in nature not in books something that works that makes that overrides my mind of all that has been filled up with and then the cold water came in and from the cold water you learn to breathe different

and with that deep breathing you go past the conditioning and then you see all what has been written for real here now and then because it is so close

it's so direct I had no need for looking in esoteric books anymore, traditions, languages, religions, anything like that.

No, God was so suddenly here and now.

This is it, was the first time my feeling when I went into the core order.

And I've been doing it since ever.

And you know what?

It was my mother's invocation.

She was God-fearing, Catholic and all.

And right now, the priests of the Catholic Church itself, the doctors, the theologists, they are coming and they are integrating the Wim Hof method in the deep religious esoteric disciplines of the church, which is equals mysticism of Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism.

It's all the same layer.

And that layer now is being hit and recognized by the best in the Catholic Church, the most learned of men.

And if they are able to recognize that, then i say i am not into uh abstracting uh knowledge and philosophies and esoteric disciplines making it all so difficult make god

where is he where is he if we go and it is recognized by the best of them to be a highly esoteric discipline then now the discipline is there for everybody accessible in a half hour that means god is back.

For someone who has no idea what the Wim Hoff method is, how would you break it down for them and introduce them to it?

It is simple.

It is scientifically endorsed.

And I'm inviting all the time.

I got big studies done recently.

They are into publishing.

And it all shows the effectivity to go past our normal control, willful control within our bodies.

What if we could control emotion?

What if we could control the deep autonomic nervous system, the immune system?

Those matters are now present and shown in science that we are able to control that.

So that is based through very simple techniques.

And what would change if we could control those before we know the techniques?

If we could control those systems, what does that mean for humans?

What are the benefits?

Oh, there is multiple benefits from inflammation.

Inflammation is the cause and effect of actually every disease.

And we showed that people injected with a bacteria could withstand the influence of the bacteria on the immune system.

Thus, the inflammation, which normally happens within that controlled experiment, this time it doesn't happen.

So people bring down the cause and effect of disease, which is inflammation.

And we showed that in science.

Now we see where we are in the world with the COVID.

When there was COVID, we had talks and medicines and pills.

It's all money.

Money, money, money, money.

So I'm into healing, into bringing down inflammation.

That is what I give to people.

within an hour.

The techniques come within an hour before they thought,

Whim, how much time does it take for people to learn what you can do, bringing down the inflammation after an injection of a bacteria?

Does it take a year, one and a half years?

I said 10 days.

And then it became four days.

And now it's a

half hour.

So better control over the immune system, better control over the central nervous system, which includes our emotions.

So our emotions become much more pacified by

doing this.

And you learn to clean the biochemical residue, which is the result of our daily life, hectic daily modern life.

So we bring our emotion, learn to regulate our emotions.

We get a lot more energy because of the cardiovascular fitness workout, a cold shower.

It's so easy also.

It's remarkable.

There was just last week, I was in Poland with 500 people in the mountains, and there was one guy saying, Oh, women, I'm doing the cold, and I'm doing this, but my results get lower.

I said, Come forward, come here on stage.

So, how many push-ups can you do?

And he said, 15.

Now, breathe this way for 30 times, fully, and

let it go,

fully, and be with your mind in one thing you give the best you got that's it that's all follow your breath fully and fully and 30 times 30 times last time he fully in let it go on empty lungs he did 40 push-ups you see the breath is power if you know how to manipulate the nervous system then you are able to generate a much greater power And you're breathing in through your nose and out.

Yeah, that does not change

so much.

It doesn't matter whether you breathe out through your mouth or out through your nose.

Yeah, it matters a little.

They say the nitrogen and through the nose.

But if you do it such a short period of time,

you go just into the depth of the whole body.

You cleanse the body of its biochemical residue, which is caused by stress of daily life.

And therefore, just breathe.

Don't think about nasal breathing.

You know, Surya Beda Tatva and Chandra Beda Tattva and Kumbakas and all that.

No, don't be no difficulties.

If we go back to Patanjali, Patanjali says in the beginning,

or the yoga is the silencing of the modifications of the thinking brain.

Then the seer appears.

That unconditional power, that is where I am aiming at.

I just want to go through the conditioned mind and body.

And we are doing the studies with psychiatrists, neuroscientists, immunologists.

And it shows that we go where in science was stated, this is not possible for humans, etc.

And now it is.

And that's my aim.

Within a half hour, I want people to feel their real power.

So the first step is 30 breaths, full breaths in and out.

Yes.

And do you recommend this doing this first thing in the morning?

Or is there a

empty stomach is, of course,

the best.

Where you take a shower, take also a cold shower.

And try it out once.

How many push-ups can you do?

If you look to this podcast and you do only this biohacking great trick

30 times fully in, relax on a chair or you sit on the ground and you know how many push-ups you can do.

You want to see how you can influence the neuromuscular mechanisms in the body for power.

Just use your breath.

It's so simple.

It's really interesting because if you look at boxers, they all know the value of breath.

If you look at athletes, they all know the value of the breath.

If you look at musicians who play wind instruments, they know the value of the breath.

If you look at singers, they know the value of the breath.

So this is something that we've known, but for some reason, we haven't applied it to normal life.

Because we all are athletes in our own way in an everyday life.

And I think we've lost connection with that.

I remember when the first day I went to join the monastery in India, I saw a young monk teaching younger monks.

And I went up to that young monk, he was like 10 or 11 years old, and I said, what did you teach them?

And he said, it's their first day of school.

And I said, oh, well, what did you teach them?

And he said, what did you learn on your first day of school?

And I said, maybe ABC one, two, three.

I can't remember.

And he said, well, I just taught them how to breathe.

And I said, what do you mean you taught them how to breathe?

Oh, but this is important, Jay.

Here in America with the shootings in the school, to simplify, a monkey has difficulties learning how to swim and a fish has difficulties learning how to climb.

Our minds and every person is different.

Some fit into the system and some don't.

They get a conflict with their identity.

And so much when the stress comes in and they still have to perform and give results and cognitively keep on and they feel not good compared to others, and all that

might jeopardize the identity.

And that goes in many cases

to where they lose it.

Then they shoot their father, their mother, their siblings, and then the people because they are completely lost.

We should bring regulation of emotions done by breathing.

As you say,

he was totally right, this man, that was probably the best lesson you got.

The inquisitive nature always brings about answers.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he was saying the same thing as you're saying.

He said that your breath is the only thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die.

He said, you'll change your country, you'll change your family, you'll change your friends, like things change, but your breath is always with you.

And he said, what changes when you're happy?

your breath what changes when you're sad your breath what changes when you're angry your breath and so he said to me if you learn to manage your breath you'll be able to manage any emotion in life exactly like what you're saying yes so you have these three pillars breathing exercises commitment and then you have the cold yes what is commitment what do you mean by that with commitment

just do it

just do it regardless and and stay in that discipline in the end if you go into an ice bath, you learn to control your thoughts because you learn to shut up.

If you want it, yes or no.

You learn to surrender.

Let the body do what the body is capable of.

Once you get that, you get a control.

Like in the beginning, you said intention.

Intention is interoception.

And now we found in Detroit top-down regulated interoception, which is interoceptive focus.

And that is the will able to enter into the body and to readjust what needs to be, what is out of balance, to reconnect with the body.

That is what the cult learns: to shut up and to connect with the body.

Let the body do what the body is capable of.

And then you become aware that you subtly, willfully, are able to control, to make stronger your body without moving.

And that is top yoga, like dharana, dhyana, samadhi.

Those things are now here.

And we have seen that it activates the corona radiata and the corona radiata, the nerve endings in the human brain, which is the crown chakra.

The crown endings, the corona radiata, the radiant crown, it now is able to be activated by us because we learn to surrender.

That means we learn to let go.

And then we are able to full bloom activate our brain capacity like a hundred percent

willfully that's where we are in India in the in Bangalore I am going to receive this prize award for excellence in yoga what is excellence in yoga yoga means connecting

that's what I bring about And make it simple.

Breathing is so much more important and we can cover within this hour.

Yeah, within this podcast.

Just try it out once.

Embrace the full power, partially conditioned mind and body through breathing.

And we have simplified these techniques now and made it so accessible that the esoteric disciplines of all the religions, they come knocking at our door.

They say, this is highly esoteric.

this is mystical

and this is here awaiting for any person because god or what is mystical should be there for everybody absolutely every time absolutely all the time so you recommend that if ideally people do this on an empty stomach first thing in the morning it's going to allow them to have more clarity, it's going to allow them to have more energy, it's going to allow them to focus better.

Yes, it cleanses completely the glymphatic system.

All our daily habits, activities result in stress, biochemical residue.

It accumulates in our bodies and if we don't clean it, then it obstructs our quality of life.

How does breathing clean it?

If we do these breathing sessions

within four

rounds, you will be able to get into the deepest of all systems, to the deepest, to the bone marrow, to the deepest of your brain and learn to connect willfully.

How does it work?

If we do this breathing, we blow off the carbon dioxide and then the alkalinity in the blood goes away up.

When it goes way up you can exhale and be without the need to breathe because breathing is because you become acidic.

Now the acid is out of the body and you are very alkaline.

So you able to stay one and a half minutes, two minutes without breathing after exhalation.

Now what happens in the brainstem, the reptilian, the crocodile brain, it says, you are not breathing.

This is dangerous.

It doesn't look to pH levels in the blood.

Is it alkaline or no?

It looks to oxygen and oxygen is completely depleted.

And when that happens, then the brainstem, which is connected to the adrenal axis, that is the third eye, pituitary gland, hypothalamus, and the adrenal glands, then it activates the adrenal axis just to spike once in the body with twice as much adrenaline than a person who goes for the first time into a bungee jump in fear.

Wow.

They have measured the blood of the people going into a bungee jump with fear for vertical.

They took their blood and they took the blood of the people doing this breathing technique.

And then they saw twice as much adrenal spike in the blood for people doing this breathing technique.

Now, what happens with that double dose of adrenaline?

It goes like hormones into the spinal fluid.

And this is where we manipulate this breathing techniques, manipulation of the Qi, the Qi, the Pluma, the Prana.

There's 10 kinds, but hey, Prana, we call it Prana.

So we get it sublimed.

But

we make it simple.

We say, fully in, 30 times breathing, and then exhale and stop.

And you don't feel the need to breathe.

Now, after one and a half minutes, what happens?

If you don't breathe, five times more blood flows into the brain.

Five times more blood flows into the heart.

Nobody knew until they did cardio films on this.

And they say this is the future.

This diagnostic cardiology, this is for the future, breathing techniques.

Because it flushes like a battery, the heart if it functions too less.

And that's terrible.

If you got a heart that is not strong enough, you can make it stronger just through doing this.

And five times more fluid into the brain is flushing it.

And now, because there's twice as much adrenaline hormonally in it, it cleanses everything.

Anything that should not be there, that is inflammatory markers, but also PFAS.

Also, microplastics, also mRNA techniques, technology,

whatever the shit is, and radio waves, biochemical residue therefrom.

All that has influence, and we don't know how to clean it.

Through doing this, you just clean it.

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Thanks for taking a moment for that.

Now back to the discussion.

It's such an interesting prospect that we've been given the technology.

in how we've been created in order to cleanse, to survive, to live, to heal.

But obviously, you know today, so many people are struggling with anxiety.

And a lot of people listening today, people may have anxiety about meeting new people.

People have anxiety about their work.

People have anxiety about relationships.

There's so much anxiety in the world.

How can this help someone who's struggling with anxiety?

Is there a different breathing practice or is it the same one?

Exactly the same one.

The simplicity is the power.

So just try it out.

You will be able to cleanse that, what obstructs you, the quality of your life under performance.

When you need to perform, it really could be a relationship, could be having a new job interview, could be a presentation on stage, or whatever is important to you that you want to feel more than normal in functional power.

That one needs cleaning.

And this one does it.

This takes it away because your body knows exactly what you are up against.

But it is saying, hey, you are anxious because you cannot function the way you actually want because there's shit inside.

And we need to get it out.

And that's what it is saying.

So anxiety actually is a neurosignal, say, Telly, hey, clean up before you go up.

And you will see that these simple breathing techniques will lead to suddenly, oh, it's easy on stage.

All these, the aha, lateness comes by itself.

Is it true that this can also help us get less sick less often?

Absolutely.

It has been shown in a scientific comparative study.

People injected with the bacteria causing inflammation, that means fever,

headaches, vomiting, nausea, muscle aches, back aches.

But really, three to six hours is a controlled experiment.

16,000 became very sick, and the 12 I trained

not sick.

And we already showed this in 2014:

bacteria, E.

coli, virus, it's all the same.

We have, like you said, we got the mechanisms, but we don't make use of our inner nature anymore to take down what should not be in there.

Like sickness, like anxiety, depression inflammation or of any kind and it is preventative as well the thing is if you do this in the morning preemptively then you your day you are able to accumulate a lot of stress without feeling that you are cannot deal with it yeah yeah

Right.

It's almost like we could actually deal with more stress than we believe

if we were able to be in a state.

And there you come into this emotional, spiritual state to take on challenges because you feel suddenly, ugh,

you don't feel that awkward anxiety, fear.

You don't feel it anymore.

And that makes you able to go into the challenges of life.

You're saying something really important here, but I think the challenge that people have is we've become seekers of an even more comfortable life.

If you look at everything we're creating around us, it's so we can be more comfortable, be more safe.

And I mean, even physically comfortable.

And we don't want to do something too challenging.

We don't want to do something that's uncomfortable.

We don't seek discomfort.

So, how do we encourage people to transform our mind to realize that discomfort is what creates goodness in life?

And comfort is what creates more problems later down the line.

Exactly that.

So, comfort is a false feeling.

It is in the long term, it's really getting to you and it will cause psychosomatic disturbances in the body.

It will heap up, accumulate.

The body needs cleaning.

And for that, we need to go into a certain kind of stress.

If we stress our bodies up consciously, we learn to connect with the stress mechanisms in the brain and body.

And with that, the stress in daily life, because if you're escaping into comfort behavior, will not make you strong for

the shit that is going to happen anyway.

So better be ready before it.

And we provide with these simple techniques, not only

the ability to tackle stress in life

effectively, but also directly when you did it, when you take a cold show, you feel good.

Yeah, for sure.

You give a little, you get so much more back.

And for people who are not motivated to do this, don't wait until the shit comes to you.

You go to the shit.

I say always, if you don't go to the cold, the cold will come to you.

And then you don't like it.

So too much disease, too much anxiety, too much depression, too much darkness, all is happening.

Too much stress.

It's all happening.

We know this and we found a way to deal with it.

We found a key and we just want to hand over out of love and respect to the person this key.

When I first started, I think, I mean, I took cold showers when I was in the monastery.

It was very normal.

But the first time I did a cold plunge was probably around four or five years ago as well.

And I can honestly say that as someone who has tried to get massages to like feel relaxed and de-stressed, and they probably get me to like a 70-80%.

But sitting in the cold and doing the contrast therapy of maybe 10 or 15 minutes in a sauna and maybe three to five minutes in the cold and then doing it three times over, I have never felt that level of relaxation or slept better than when I've done the cold, whether it's in the morning or the evening that day.

The whole body just feels loose in a way that I've never felt.

You'd assume it feels tight.

Like you think when you get in the cold that your body's just going to like hold on, but it doesn't.

It does the opposite.

And when you get out, you almost feel so much looser, calmer, less stressed.

But that's not what the mind thinks.

The mind thinks it's probably going to be really hard.

It is challenging in the beginning, for sure.

The first time I did it, I was in there for four minutes because I was doing it with a friend and we were trying to encourage each other.

But for someone who gets in there and just wants to get out in the first 10 seconds, how did they

get more comfortable with that discomfort?

What should they do if they're in there for 10 seconds and they're like, I need to get out?

Like, how do you get over that hunch?

I just know that this really will bring about a much greater control over stress in your daily life.

You only have to go through this, say, a minute.

Once you are a minute in, and anybody can do it.

Last weekend, I had people of 80 years who never had been in an iceberg.

They went in for 10 minutes.

10 minutes.

And they loved it.

I mean,

young people should not be in the mind thinking.

Learn to be in the body.

and then know that you are able to enter into the body, into the depth, and that will be yours for 10 seconds.

Yes, that is your reaction of a body that never has been in the court but you are very able

let me be very clear about it you as a young person i'm talking to the a person who's watching this

you are very capable of staying one minute and what happens then your body is adapted what that means is that your inner power is on and it's connecting to your will

and with that you learn to take on stress of daily life, which you don't need to escape anymore.

You are able to confront yourself with difficult situations in all the other areas.

So that little bit of cold you're going to endure is going to give you so much more back.

It's funny how the mind, when you're not, when you're in it and you finish it, you have a great experience.

And then the mind's like, oh, I don't want to do it again.

It's really hard, like whatever.

And then you have to keep reminding yourself.

And I've, I've learned over time that things that are good for you feel good after.

And things that are bad for you feel good before.

Right.

Anything that's bad for you feels good before.

You want to eat badly.

You want to drink badly.

Yes.

You want to do anything.

It feels amazing before.

And then afterwards, it's like poison.

It's like pain.

But anything that's good for you before you do it, you're stressed, you're nervous, but then after you do it, you feel the benefits and you have to keep reminding yourself of that value because it's so easy to lose.

Wim, how did you even discover the power of breath work and the power of cold?

How did you even come to this for yourself?

Yes, I was a young kid and very much in the head.

What were you worried about as a young kid?

Because I feel like now

what were you worried about?

I'm intrigued because I.

My career, my this, my dad, what I'm going to do now.

Yeah, the same stuff as anybody.

So I read a lot and I was philosophying a lot, debate

running in my head, crazy.

And then one day I found this irrational attraction intuitively to go into cold water.

And when I did that,

this circling, this romantic

rominating, yes,

stopped right there.

This is it.

I was looking in philosophies and religions.

What is it?

What is love?

It's in you.

It's there.

It's alive.

It's past thinking.

And it's here now.

And the cold has opened that up to me past my conditioning.

Whatever I had learned, those are patterns.

They keep you

running in the same conditioning and can be very stubborn.

But the cold was there and it went just straight through by which i started i never stopped that when i was 17.

so for you it was almost the cold became the pathway to enlightenment to yourself yes that that was the pathway because it just stopped the chatter you can't hear the noise because the noise becomes well initially the noise becomes oh god it's so cold Then what happens?

Walk us through what that journey was.

I think I was ready to take on that challenge within me to get rid of the chatter what what is that what makes me connect instead of chattering i can say uh oh i meditate and i do this and i do yogic postures and i'm very good at it at all and philosophy that one i was looking for i found it and right now Right now, it shows in a big study we did.

It's submitted at Nature.

It's a big

scientific paper with 500 people, and it says they compared it to meditation and mindfulness.

So, that the stress result has stress tools, mindfulness and meditation, stress tools in the corporate world.

So, we took people out of the corporate world from the corporate world with a lot of stress, and we took them and we went through and doing this called practice and the breathing.

And it shows that it is able to make this

ruminating through the stress of daily life and having to perform and compete constantly very high up the price house water coopers people they are not into yoga or into gala whatever exercise they they need to perform with numbers accountancy and it's very strenuous and arduous and and all that they did this and they compared thus the meditation and the mindfulness with this.

And it showed that this is generating much more stress resilience, much higher cognitive awareness, and less stress experience.

And beyond all,

much more trust in each other, in their reception, interoceptive being.

They just had these feelings and they expressed it.

500 people.

What I want to say with that, this

running, which I had,

a lot of people have, and it is not just thinking, it is related to the central nervous system.

And the stress accumulates in biochemistry that is wrong, by which we have no control over it, and that is anxiety.

And now we have the ability to make it go away.

The cold did it for me.

Then I started to do the breathing because I found out in the cold, if I do a slower breathing deeply I'm able to stay longer in icy water.

Yes.

And those were the findings.

This is almost 50 years ago.

And then I started to cultivate, hey, if that happens in the water, what happens when I do it out of the water at home?

And I did it.

And then I saw, oh, the chakras, all

what I have been reading for the first time, I saw it all.

But But that's not the goal.

The goal is the soul.

Goal is God's providence to be direct here past the chatterbox and how to surrender, how to let go, how to

not think,

but be.

And they automatically, naturally, from there, you come into your purpose.

And this podcast is on purpose.

The purpose of life itself.

Everybody is different, but everybody has a purpose from the heart, not thinking, from the mind.

The heart is able to give confidence and trust and that power that goes and takes on the challenges of life because the soul is indestructible.

And there is no fear, not even for death.

Because you are doing exactly what you are here for.

And you feel it.

because God is at your side, is here.

And that made me first break through with the cold, then the breathing, and then I learned to control, which I showed in Sydney lately in a brain scan.

Nine and a half thousand brain scans showed more or less the bandwidth of what the brain activity is in humans.

I did nothing in the brain scan, and I was within the bandwidth of the brain activity of of these people.

And then I did my, what you did in the beginning, intention.

I went out for half hour, did some breathing exercises, but very strong intention and let it be.

Your body knows when you talk to it.

That's a pure interoception.

And you know how to move it.

If you just have that faith, that power, that interoception.

And that's what I did.

And then I went back in to the same brain scan.

And then the professor saw what he never had seen before.

Such an activity of the subcortical

higher functioning of the brain.

That is confidence, fantasy, creativity, trust, empathy, all those areas now willfully, completely activated.

He saw this.

And this,

people say, hey, but you are the Iceman.

You can do that.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

No excuse.

I only show what we all can do.

And then places like here, a podcast, a platform, which you made available, which is great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For the whole white world.

They say, make America healthy.

I say, let's make the whole white world healthy.

And it happens through these things.

Absolutely.

Faith.

Something you said just really stood out to me in a way that it hasn't before.

And you just said that when we talk to our body, it hears us.

Yes.

And I was just thinking in a really simple way.

When I think to myself, oh, I'm going to take a glass of water.

That is me talking to my body.

Yes.

And my body just did that.

And then I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to drink some water.

And then I drink.

And it's like, I am talking to my body, even in the simplest of tasks.

that I do every day because when we hear oh what you can talk to your body and it hears you think it's some mystical thing But the truth is, we're all doing it right now.

Like even me lifting my hand, I'm first thinking it and I'm talking to myself.

I'm about to lift my hand.

I'm going to shake Wim's hand.

I'm going to meet him.

I'm going to greet him.

I'm already doing that.

But then we forget that we can also code our mind and our body.

with emotion, with intention, with feelings, with states.

With a purpose.

With a purpose.

Yeah.

And getting there and make the impossible happening past our conditioned mind and body.

That now is on the threshold.

Where I'm working with these universities and showing, for example, 26 people, emotional distress.

They cannot get out of it.

They got PTSD, people dying within their family, divorces, and they are really victims in that.

I mean, they cannot get out of these loops.

It keeps anxiety, pure anxiety, is very tiring.

They are exhausted.

They went into this study.

It took only one afternoon to break those patterns.

Wow.

And that's the way.

And you know what happens?

The next thing is that they got the feeling that they got the steering wheel.

Their confidence suddenly is there.

And suddenly they feel

their purpose of life that they can take on the challenges.

26 people, we just did the study scientifically and all.

That shows that we are not only here to drink a glass of water, we are here to drink the full cup of life and to pass it on to our kids fully in confidence and trust and in love and beauty and power and energy and flow make a paradise.

I'm here to scientifically that autonomy is ours, that we have a control far deeper than in science was thought possible, but now it's here.

And through the pharmaceutical industry and the whole industry and the governments, they are quite ignorant.

Let me tell you that.

So we need to stand up like podcasts like this.

We need to become autonomous, not believe in governments, but govern ourselves.

Because we are good people, all.

All the soil, where we got our soil is goodness deriving from.

And we should be able to have faith in the goodness of ourselves.

And we bring through these tools autonomy to the people.

So they feel confident that they have control over these subcortical areas of the brain, called the subconscious and all.

They told us that there's only 16% that we can control.

It's 100.

Sorry, it's 100.

And I'm showing that in brain scans.

And now we are showing with cannabinoid receptors how we are able to create flow in the body, which is a natural state of ours.

We only got conditioned.

And if we look at society, too many wars, too many depression, too many inflammation, too many anxiety and all.

We can shoot people to the moon.

Let's become happy, strong, and healthy.

I made a song on that, by the way.

It's called Satchit Ananda.

Oh, wow.

Satchit Ananda Vigraha, Jairada, Radha Om.

My roots are in India.

Do you practice mantra meditation as well?

Like as you were just singing and chanting, right?

I did a lot of that.

Now,

mantras, the

repetitive citing words, sounds, I'm singing.

All day should be meditating.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah.

It's the culture of India.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not even just repetition of word, it's singing, it's dancing, it's chanting, it's really beautiful.

Meditation should be your natural joyful, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's almost like it's a soundtrack to your life.

That's how I think about it when I think about mantra meditation.

It's almost like you're listening to a soundtrack, but the the soundtrack's within your own heart and consciousness.

And that repeated is kind of creating the rhythm of your life.

Yeah,

if you sing, you love it.

You can yell out your heart.

You let your heart breathe.

It feels great.

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This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

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Can you define for us what willpower is in your opinion?

Willpower is the ability to have control within

it's the six cents, seven cents and eight cents willpower, dharana, concentration.

If I stay one hour in icy water, I need dharana.

I need concentration.

I need to control my core body temperature, to control the nervous system while while I'm in this very stressful environment.

And stay there.

This is willfully connecting and that makes my body strong.

So anytime I need to concentrate using that connection with my central nervous system, which I exercised in cold water,

and it doesn't need an hour.

It only needs you adapting.

Adapting is two, three minutes.

Then you are naturally connected with your central nervous system, which is the instrument of the willpower.

You just need to learn to connect.

Don't make it too complicated in yourself because it

hasn't got to do anything with your thinking.

It's taken on the challenge and your body adapts.

Doesn't matter what it is, heat, cold, stress on the stage, it doesn't matter.

You learn to take on instead of ruminating about it,

you go into it because you have control of the central nervous system, which is a connection of the prefrontal cortex.

And the central nervous system is everywhere and it adapts.

How far do you want to go?

I tell people.

If I get people motivated,

last time I went on the Kilimanjaro, in short,

was with a man who was 76 years old, 76.

He had no experience in climbing.

He was suffering from Lyme's disease.

It's a debilitating condition.

And he had to go in shorts.

And he wanted to do this in record time, what young people cannot do.

So, and I looked in his eyes and I saw connection.

I saw motivation.

Motivation is the right connection with your central nervous system.

You really want it because you really are there.

And I went with him, and this is a mountain you can do between five and nine days, fully dressed, because it's very cold up there, and it's half the oxygen and less.

And you need oxygen to combust for energy.

And it's not there.

So

five to nine days, and then 40% only summit.

Fully dressed.

this man did it in 31 hours

in his shorts what you know what happened his Lyme's disease was also gone at the same time that what is willpower it's there

do you got it do you really want it it's there and it's not complicated Wow.

And you can test it that it is able to go way past what you think you can do.

And it takes a half hour.

Just try this out.

We simplify these techniques.

So to make it a usable tools,

then it's only a matter of choice.

What do you want with it?

Because you will be able, as you should, owning your own mind and body in its full splendor.

Wim, you've done so many difficult, challenging things.

You encourage people to do them with you as well.

What's the hardest thing you believe you've ever overcome?

Wow.

At a certain moment, I could do a world record every day.

You know, you get your body ready,

and the connection is

in the flow.

Every day you can run a marathon barefoot outside in the snow or stay two hours in icy water,

do crazy stuff.

And at a certain moment, I was thinking to myself,

actually, I don't want some ridiculous new challenge doing, showing.

I showed enough.

And what I want right now,

and that might be the most difficult, is to settle down

and to let hundreds of millions of people are doing what I'm doing now.

This is real.

with or without my name, doesn't matter.

I started this.

This is my mission.

My mother told me to do this and to be the missionary.

I did it.

I got to the Catholic Church itself, to the esoteric departments of the Catholic Church, the best of them, they came to me.

My mother is in peace.

So right now,

I want to go on.

I want to go on on my own.

And the challenge is I want to reach billions of people, which is happening.

That is the power of faith that keeps on going when actually I thought I did my mission.

I will be keeping on going because I

actually

normal life is a bit boring.

I want to change the world and that it can be difficult.

I don't care.

I love.

Well, Wim, I think it's very clear that you have no doubt been the modern.

greatest proponent of breath work,

of spending time in the cold and cold exposure.

I don't think there's anyone else who has not only popularized but taught those principles and made them as big and as famous and popular as they are now.

And honestly, all that credit goes to you for sure.

I don't think those conversations were being had in the modern world.

And so I thank you for doing that because it's such a...

it's such a great unlock for the world to recognize the power that can be there for free, right?

It's like you don't have to pay for breath work.

You don't have to pay to have a cold shower every day.

Freedom is for free.

Exactly.

Autonomy is there.

And we want to bring, that is love.

We want to bring love to the people.

We want them to be able to feel good

whenever they feel bad.

You do that.

I do that.

That's why we are here talking to each other.

Five years ago, we talked, and it's the same.

Right there.

That's the war we're going to win.

Absolutely.

General.

Yes.

Your energy is infectious i love it it's such a like and my team was telling me just just to let everyone know my team was telling me you walked here today to my house how long was that journey an hour and a quarter is that all it was yeah yeah okay yeah it's pretty impressive i think it might have taken people a bit longer than that yeah

it was a nice walk it was a nice i i was way too early here but i enjoyed it you were

you live you live you live everything like it was hot today it was a hotter day in la LA.

You walked here from your hotel or wherever you're staying.

Like it's amazing because you live and breathe this.

Like this is who you are.

And some of my friends, Louis Howes is a good friend of mine.

And he brought a lot of friends to you a few years ago in Poland.

They had the best time.

And everyone came out of that just saying they couldn't believe how much time they spent in the cold.

And I think that's...

My favorite thing about what you unlock for people beyond the breath, beyond the cold, is we don't know what we're capable of exactly we have no idea what this body and this mind is capable of doing and if everyone listening and watching can remember that you are so much more capable than you believe you are you're able to do so much more than you think you can your mind and body are so much stronger than you believe they are if you walk away with that message from today

that will change your life because in your head you think you're a lot more limited than you actually are.

People take one message.

love is where you are able to make that what is going bad within good.

And that

love we want to share, and it's not complicated.

Just try it out once, and then you will see for yourself because feeling is understanding.

Wim, a couple of last questions.

We've talked about the like mental and physical health benefits.

What benefits do you see for society at large if they practice your method?

I think it is the soul itself.

We are now being approached.

I was in the Middle East

with the Catholic Church, with the highest esoteric departments about providence or God's providence and mortification about

deep religious practices.

They are taking this all on and see that God's presence itself

comes much better toward the moment again.

And that is unconditional love to me.

And that is now accessible also for anybody else.

So we made God accessible,

the unconditional love accessible just by learning how to surrender.

and to show scientifically that we are capable of controlling this deep autonomic nervous system, central nervous system, much better than we have learned in our schools to battle inflammation, depression, and energy itself.

It's all there, and it's not complicated.

If you take something away, just do it once.

How can people understand that breathing and being in the cold and surrendering ultimately leads you to God?

Because I think a lot of people are doing it, they do it for the health benefits.

They do it for the physical benefits.

They may not even understand the concept of surrender, which is what's actually happening when you're in the water.

You have to.

How do you connect that dot for people, or is it just something people have to do and they'll get there?

During this conversation, we already actually talked about it.

It's your purpose.

Yes, yes, yes.

Once you are driven by your purpose, it's like if you love somebody,

you just, there's nothing that can stop you.

If you get your purpose by learning to control fear to have a deeper control over the central nervous system inside, which we showed within a half hour, then suddenly fear doesn't block you anymore.

The quality of life doesn't, you take on the challenges.

Suddenly, our nature is to take on challenges, to take away blockages, to live up to our purpose.

And our purpose is rooted in goodness.

And that once we are in that power, power, we are stronger than what we think.

Because love is stronger than what you think.

That is happening.

I'm not going to go into philosophies because this is not about philosophies.

But the best philosophers come now saying they are recognizing that the real core principle of

the best of philosophy is being

done by doing this.

this.

So I take that,

but this is not my starting point, yet I take it as, hey, these people, they are experts in those fields of what is God, how to behave there, how to do, how to practice and all.

They are coming and they say

that this, and it makes sense to me.

But I say feeling is understanding.

If you do this, then God will be there.

I have no doubt, God's presence is a goodness that is rooted within every person in the world.

And this makes all the blockages go away.

You connect and your purpose is like a flower, it's like a strong power that goes past your thinking.

Wim, last question.

You've talked before about this, but you talked about losing your wife and how that was such a transformative moment in your life, even though it was tragic.

And you've talked today about the definition of love is being able to transform something that felt like pain into something good or purposeful.

What helped you grieve and what helped you walk through that grief?

Yeah, grief.

And we did lately a grief study.

And that shows in within one afternoon, people are able to get out of these patterns.

Through breathwork and yes, because neurologically you are connected with the love of your life.

She was the mother of my four children and she still is.

And we got a completely honored.

She is here, the afterlife, but that is another discussion.

She is here.

She's with us.

And I'm with her children.

And we have a very successful enterprise in the whole world on breathing,

a mission to bring love and how to de-block.

So when I went grieving about

losing her in a suicide, the mother of my children, the love of my life,

nothing could help me except for going into cold water.

Cold water makes your mind shut up.

Different areas of the brain suddenly start to be activated.

The sense of life, the brainstem

is about survival, just to live.

What is the purpose of life?

To be alive, fully.

So it started over there.

It opened a little bit my grief.

It stopped my grief in those moments by which I opened up to myself.

And there the healing started.

I became a person missing my wife, missing the mother, but I made my family, for my family, my kids, with very little money, a warm nest, and a lot of energy.

And that's because I could heal within.

And we still have her in all our honor, and we can still think about all the emotions.

But here we are.

From there, from that negative story, this movement now

is evolving

so I've learned of the grief I've learned of my negativity inside my darkness inside

and come out and so can anybody else this is what we are showing now in scientific studies people who also have loss of family members or divorces can be very strong inside or PTSD the the gruelsome situations of war inside and you can't change your behavior anymore.

You're in despair.

This breaks it.

So it broke me back then and I had to find it.

It signs and it works for millions of people.

Wim, I thank you for your work.

I'm grateful to have spoken to you twice.

I'm hoping that everyone who's listening and watching downloads the Wim Hoff method to actually practice it, to breathe every morning.

What I really wish for you is that for the next seven days, just seven days, if you can start your day with the Wim Hoff method on an empty stomach, just watch how your life changes.

Just seven days of either the breath work or the cold shower, whichever one you can.

If you do both, amazing, but just either one of them.

And just watch how your life changes because this is all about testing.

It's all about practicing.

It's all about building it.

And I don't want you to think that you've got to learn a new technique or whatever it may be.

This is really, really simple.

Wim's made it absolutely accessible for each and every one of us.

And

I think one of the things that I'm going to do based off of this is just constantly remind myself that whenever you think you've reached a limit, to realize that.

That's actually not the limit.

Your mind and body can do so much more.

So thank you so much, Wim.

Please read the Wim Hoff method, download the Wim Hoff method, follow Wim on social media across platforms.

And, Wim, I'm sure we're going to meet again and continue this mission together.

I love your work.

I love yours.

I respect it.

And thank you so much.

I came yesterday all the way out of Europe, and tonight I fly on.

Maybe not so good for the ecological footprint, but I had to see you.

I had to be with you.

And it's worthwhile all.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this conversation.

If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential.

If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months, and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.

There's no sense of meaning and purpose.

You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen.

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