My First 7-Days Practicing the Wim Hof Method
And Why I’m Sticking With It
I learned about the Wim Hof Method a few years ago from this Vice documentary. But I was drawn back to it after wanting to explore some alternate methods of meditation. There are plenty of resources available on YouTube but if you’re someone who struggles to integrate habits like myself, I found using the app to be the easiest way to stick with it.
The Method as a whole includes breathing, cognitive exercises and the infamous cold exposure. In my first 7-days I’ve worked primarily on the breathing with some cold exposure but I haven’t fully committed to the cold shower thing just yet. There’s a 20-day cold challenge on the app that I’ll be participating in and I’ll be sure to share my experience from that in the future.
My Routine
The breathing exercise consists of several rounds of 30 -40 circular breaths, a timed, post-exhale breath hold (the app uses the term ‘retention’), then a deep inhale and hold for 15 seconds. Included in the app is the Guided Breathing Bubble to help pace your breaths and a stopwatch to help you track how long you hold your breath for. Here’s a list from my first 7-days showing my Average Retention Time (how long I retained my breath over the course of several rounds).
Day 1: 2 minutes 3 seconds, over 4 rounds
Day 2: 2 minutes 39 seconds, over 5 rounds
Day 3: 2 minutes 10 seconds, over 4 rounds
Day 4: 2 minutes 30 seconds, over 4 rounds
Day 5: 2 minutes 23 seconds, over 3 rounds
Day 6: 2 minutes 44 seconds, over 4 rounds
Day 7: 2 minutes 6 seconds, over 5 rounds
I was surprised with how long I was comfortable in retention. As a control, if I do just a normal inhale and hold my breath, I can hold it for…
1 minute and 9 seconds.
My retention numbers by rounds were wild to experience. Taking my 4th round as an example. Here are my times for each round:
It took me a few rounds to adjust to the fact that I wasn’t breathing for periods deep into two and three minutes. Once I was comfortable with the process I was able to settle into the moment. In these retentions I definitely found what I was looking for in terms of an new and unique method for meditation.
There’s also the option to do push-ups during the retention. My fitness focus is on cycling so push-ups don’t really factor into my normal routine but I can manage a reasonable 15 on any normal day with these spaghetti arms. When I did them during retention I was able to do 25 at a comfortable pace, and not too shabby form if I don’t mind saying so.
I can’t attest to any of the health benefits yet but overall I do feel better physically and mentally in just these last seven days. There are thousands of hours of people more qualified to talk about what’s happening to your body during the exercises and all of the benefits of the method as a whole. I can recommend starting here and here, then just follow your curiosity down whichever tangent of the method looks interesting.
Why I’m Sticking With It
I was sold on the immediate effect it had on my mood and ability to focus overall during the day. Meditation as a whole has been helpful for that, as well as my anxiety and depression, but these breath exercises specifically have helped with flushing a lot of that brain noise out, and have made it easier to help me pause and process difficult thoughts and situations.
There seems to be a lot of science around the health benefits of it, and I know my practice is very much in it’s infancy, but my mind and body feel good after doing it. I’m really interested to learn more and to see how the cold therapy affects me. Conveniently, winter is coming so I’ll have plenty of opportunities for cold exposure.
And lastly, Wim is such a rad dude. His delivery and presentation style is unique and might not be for everyone, but he makes it a positive and fun experience and I found him easy to get used to.
If you’re curious at all to try this I highly encourage you to commit to a week and give it a shot. As always, make sure to check with your doctor before trying any exercise. Through the app you can sign up for the virtual courses and they’re currently running (as of Nov. 11, 2020) 35% off with the code CORONA35. That gets you the Classic 10-Week course for example, normally $199 for $129. If I stick with it for 30-days, I think I’m going to invest in the 10-week course. If you’ve tried the method I’m definitely curious in hearing about your experience, if you struggled at all in the beginning and how you worked through it.
