An insider peek to undertaking the icemans (Tim hoff’s) livelihood
The iceman and your guide to a healthy and strong livelihood
Sorry to disappoint, but if you clicked on this article with the expectation to find a whole new breed of humans covered in ice out of a fictional movie, this may not be the best use of our time. But if you are interested in living a long, peaceful and fulfilling life without the fuss of monitoring your every move then this is your perfect read. The iceman or Tim Hof is inescapable on any social media platform over the past 2 years. Tim hof is famous for making a brand surrounding ice like events, setting world records over and over. Most unique and well known for his the ability to endure near-naked through freezing temperatures often staying in these temperatures for hours. Crediting his world records to that of the Wim hof method which he has been credited to as the key to keeping young at 60 and consistently challenging his body. Apart from constantly breaking records, he has also been very popular on social media for keeping an upbeat and positive spirit in which he claims one can possess through his techniques.
Fundamentally Tim Hoff has a well structured three principled rule whereas he claims and proves hits the idea of a healthy and long-lived life. However, most importantly it is not that these procedures draft up some form of magic and immediately begs god for you to live an extra year or month. The procedure from meditation to hopeful thinking to the bath works as a collective whole inducing a chain effect, that systematically and repeatedly as a whole become a force able to live to your 100’s not in despair or sadness but in good and a happy condition.
Procedure:
The Tim hoff procedure is basically founded on three fundamental qualities and areas in which to follow in order to recreate or potentially reap the rewards from Tim Hoff’s famous ideas. The first instruction in which he lays as a vital step towards revitalising your body’s full potential. IS to stay with mediation that most ideally can span from 5–15 mins. Doing breathing exercises, in hopes to activate key vital areas of your brain important to experiencing the key and most rudimentary powers of a cold ice shower. Once down, it is important that you within 1 minute head to the shower. As recommended you are to keep up your breathing techniques, starting off with a quick warm rinse, before the cold shower. In which we expect the time in the shower to increase as the week's progress, building our strength against the cold.
What science and Tim Hof says
Cold therapy itself.
Wim’s famous quote “the cold is your friend,” is not all false nor pure science fiction. Researchers at the “European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology” in fact carried out an experiment in interest of his claims. As they have found that the cold stimulus has triggered the body’s flight or fight response, usually triggered when threatened or afraid. This fight or flight response during the ice baths has been detected to elicit a reaction from the immune response releasing lymphocytes. The body’s white blood cells which are usually at the front lines. Furthermore, participation in this event has significant improvement in terms of fat loss as cold weather has been proven to improve your body’s absorption of sugar and carbohydrates. While it has not been proven this proven fact has been thought to be related to the idea that brown fats are activated or increased. “Believed to improve our ability to process sugar-rich foods and since Wim’s brown fat cells have been shown to be 5 times more active than a healthy male half is age, it probably explains why he can attack bowls of pasta without the fat repercussions.”
Immune system and stress
Wim’s Hof superhuman like abilities not only allow Wim to control his cardiovascular system and experience a more fulfilling life. However, it has also opened a door of immunity against some viruses. Explaining that in the flu season your fate lies in the mercy or readiness of your immune system. That can only be better prepared with the help of nutrition and a proper diet. However it is ultimately down to one’s readiness. This state of readiness to fight viruses is called homeostasis, a balance where the body has adequate defenses to fight off any diseases. As to survive, human beings thrive in this state to be stable, not to be destroyed or disintegrated. That can only happen to a response by a stimulus sent by the brains or organs in distress, usually coming from external stimulus, unreliable and only set as a distraction or as a way to start a civil war within your own body. With Wim Hof’s technique and everyday practices, studies have discovered that his homeostasis is far more adaptable than any recorded. Flexible to adjust to the stimulation, preventing any course of action by the virus that may deem harmful.
Breathing
Robert Field is the leading expert in science related to breathing as he explains that breathing and the prominent role it plays in any relaxation practices is to induce a ‘hypometabolic state,’ which is a state that decreases the role of the autonomic nervous system. Bringing everything under your breath or under your supervision. Creating a resting state that counters anxiety and the body stress response as “induced by using the breathing that goes with relaxation to trigger a similar muscle response in the body,” Due to its ability to slow down stress-related damages to our body.
Field has also discovered that breathing exercise hugely benefits the physical body however is rather limited in its long term effects as opposed to its mental benefits. As he explains the Valsalva manoeuvre, one of Tim’s recommended breathing techniques defined as the exhaling while closing the throat, has been found to blood pressure now often used to “stabilize patients suffering from heart arrhythmias.” Additionally, The Lamaze breathing is popular among those pregnant as to reduce the pain, which will be practised to shield the cold pain from the bath.
Wishful thinking and hijacking stress
Wishful thinking is a crucial component in the Tim Hoff method the third component he states to reaching potentially his level of life and well-being. Proactive and still ongoing at the age of 60. As he explains that the cold must be embraced not shunned for the experiment to work. Explaining that our body has not been built for the 24/7 action of simply sitting slumped on a chair and typing. Pinning this origin from the want to settle, wanting to settle within comfort not exploring what makes us human. As we refrain from testing the limit that keeps the body strong. Claiming that your actions are causing a degraded body with medicine keeps us alive however leading ourselves with more depressing choices settled with the idea to confine yourself within comfort. In order to break free and meet your body’s needs and health, he explains turning to the cold as a spiritual leader and guidance. Usually, most take this route, carrying out the meditation and breathing exercise to ensure the optimal state that one could be, however people often forget the key idea to be positive and embrace the experience. According to him, this equates to basically not taking a cold shower at all, as shielding your body from the treatment, not letting the cold take its full therapy.
This idea of wishful thinking is very valid and supported by scientific research. Most famously demonstrated by neurobiologist Huberman, a professor at Stanford University. Studying the brain activity of those who undergo Wim’s of wishful thinking and cold theory and normal citizens, seeing how they behave in light of stress or fear. Wishful thinking and staying calm in the light of a terrifying bath wash, with the help of regulated breathing. Huberman, also a fan of Wim hof, studies the effects explaining what most practitioners of Wim’s hof technique explain as a calming and mildly euphoric sensation, through their breathing as an exercise set to improve one’s wishful thinking, maximising the results. This is a rather intriguing finding as the practice of breathing activities in the fields such as yoga and lazma as they may not benefit but instead harm our bodies. As the act of controlled breathing is usually part of a larger picture and finding the right particles to mix it with as Wim did is often very difficult.
As he has explained the key to this was immunity against stress, as the wim of practice acted like a vaccine against any levels of stress and fear.
He explains that “Normally, when adrenaline goes up cortisol goes up too … and the hypothesis that we’re testing is that when you do this method, what ends up happening is you get an increase in adrenaline, but that cortisol, because you’re in conscious control of your state, you’re remaining calm, cortisol stays relatively low,”
This relative hijacking of the nerve response and acting as the seat of the pilot is often reflected by a bigger and stronger left cortex, the area of positive thinking.
As to summarise it up, “From his own experiences, Huberman thinks that the use of hyperventilation and controlled breath-holding maximizes the beneficial effects of our innate stress response while suppressing the negative long-term effects of stress.”
Ultimately the benefits of wishful thinking and the ability to hijack stress is enormous in terms of benefiting our happiness. Allowing us to commit to more long term and fulfilling goals that we have previously perceived as too tiresome to complete or to start.
Happiness
The idea of “happiness’ has been rather subjective making it a very intriguing study for philosophers and scholars to study. As there is not one definite answer, until our knowledge on happiness is completely drained. The perks of being subjective. However due to its subjective and rather abstract nature, something known to economists. They have invented the idea of utility in translation which basically means satisfaction not happiness, using a quantitative scale. This is so important as measuring our satisfaction can both measure our happiness but most importantly what we feel about some general specific doing. Our choice to measure our satisfaction on his quantitative scale. Many recall self-recollection after a period of time to be inaccurate, muddled with the bais and mixed with stronger recalled memory, due to how information is placed. However due to feelings being a subjective state, the short period in which we will record our emotions, bias will not be of concern.
So how do we measure so-called happiness? Well in order to measure this I have chosen a scale, known as the Panas gen. Panas gen is a questionnaire determined to measure your happiness through your answers. In which you would place a tick on whether you believe you are a little depressed, moderately, very happy and so on. Where in the questions will change but the boxes to tick will keep constant. If still confused you can reference the picture below. Where very slightly is equivalent to a score of 1, a little has a score of 2 and so on. The numbers will remain positive and such as in the graph if the question asked is positive such as, if asked do you believe you are “strong.” While if it is a negative question such as are you depressed the values become negative. Add up all the scores and then add the negative and positives together.
Eldon Tse — Hong Kong 🇭🇰 | Instagram
Always open to listen to new opinion and ground breaking ideas, to reach me please feel free to contact me through Instagram.