Since humans instinctively look to remove the source of pain or alleviate any sensation of cold, feeling hurt can help us survive.īut the pain mechanism isn’t always useful. Pain, and the feeling of cold, are basically your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. “Your brain has the power to modify your pain perception,” he says, adding that this mechanism is particularly important for human survival. The result, Musik says, is a kind of euphoric effect on the body that lasts for several minutes. These components can inhibit the signals responsible for telling your body you are feeling pain or cold, and trigger the release of dopamine and serotonin. Musik found that, when exposed to cold, Hof activates a part of the brain that releases opioids and cannabinoids into the body. Some previous research has shown that this exercise makes Hof’s blood more alkaline, since it becomes saturated with oxygen. After Hof went through his preparation exercises to induce this effect, Musik put the Iceman into the MRI machine in a special suit they shot through with shot cold water and hot water in five minute intervals. To a degree, Musik’s research supports Hof’s hypothesis. “That’s what nature meant us to do, breathe deep when we are stressed,” Hof says.
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Then he begins a series of deep breathing exercises for several minutes, often prompting a kind of tingling in parts of his body-a sign of hypocapnia, or low carbon dioxide in his blood. The technique first requires relaxation Hof says he must find a comfortable place to lie down like a sofa or bed.
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Rather than by luck or accident, Hof says he learned his technique by trial and error while going out into nature: “I had to find the interconnection of my brain together with my physiology.” Hof attributes his success to what he has dubbed the Wim Hof Method, a type of conditioning that involves a series of breathing exercises he says anyone can replicate. Wayne State University School of Medicine Otto Musik of Wayne State University's School of Medicine recently tested his ability to withstand cold and other extreme conditions. Wim Hof, better known as "The Iceman," entering an MRI machine. When he heard about a man who sits in buckets of ice cubes for hours at a time and walks up the Himalayas like it was a summer stroll through a wine vineyard, he was intrigued. The pediatrician had conducted other research on the way the human body reacts to extreme temperatures. The researchers tested Hof’s responses alongside around 30 control subjects. He adds that this “hack” allows Hof to feel euphoric while in a freezing cold environment that would be unpleasant in normal circumstances. “By accident or by luck he found a hack into the physiological system,” Musik says.
Musik frames it as a case of “brain over body,” in which Hof activates an internal painkiller function by conducting breathing exercises, then exposing himself to a threat like extreme, sudden cold. The results, published recently in a study in the journal NeuroImage, might at first sound more like mumbo jumbo than fact: Researchers found that Hof is able to use his mind to artificially induce a stress response in his body that helps him resist the effects of cold. Otto Musik, a pediatrician in Wayne State University’s School of Medicine and his coauthors recently put Hof into a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine while exposing him to cold water and analyzed what happened inside his body. Now doctors have put the Iceman’s brain-and body- on ice in an effort to better understand the mental and physical mechanisms that allow Hof to seemingly defy the laws of nature. He holds the Guinness World Record for longest swim under ice, and has also endured the extremes of dry heat, running a half marathon through the Namib Desert without drinking any water.Īthletes aren’t the only ones interested in these feats. “I’ve done about anything I can fantasize about in the cold,” Hof said in an interview. The 59-old Dutchman has climbed Mount Everest in Nepal and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania-Africa’s tallest peak-wearing shorts. But from the moment his bare toes hit the snow, he began to feel “surprisingly good.” “What did I get myself into?” he recalls thinking.
Yet even he was understandably nervous the night before his 26-mile jaunt at -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Hof, better known as "The Iceman," has attained roughly two dozen world records by completing marvellous feats of physical endurance in conditions that would kill others. Note: Wim Hof not pictured.įinland’s Arctic circle might not seem like a great place to run a marathon barefoot and in shorts-unless you’re Wim Hof.
For most humans, meditating in the snow would be highly uncomfortable.
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