Study Reveals Brain Mechanisms That Allow “Iceman” Unusual Resistance to Cold | Hacker News Reader

Study Reveals Brain Mechanisms That Allow “Iceman” Unusual Resistance to Cold

wayne.edu

66 pointsavonmach41 comments

I have trained with him for 7 days. The WHM only works for me when I am alone and do not have a casual conversation or when I am in a group all focused on beating the cold. It turns out that you cannot control your breath when you talk!

The extra freedom in not wearing a coat or worrying about the weather increased my happiness a bit. I live in Amsterdam, so the weather can be meh, but not anymore! :D

Reading the article I notice it says that you release opioids. I figured something like this was happening because the WHM is my go to 'drug' for DnB parties.

What kind of practice do you do? I did an afternoon seminar with him and there the breathing exercises had great effect and the ice batch was no problem. Now that I am practicing home I am having trouble getting the same effect from the breathing. I also did cold showers over the summer but now that it's colder it's getting really hard. I just don't seem to get used to it.

I was in an experiment with him for the Radboud University back then. It was kind of like a swim or die moment, almost literally since we had to swim in ice water. The first two days swimming in ice water were not pleasant. The 4th day we were walking on a mountain with -7 degrees celsius, only shoes and shorts.

For me, I got the idea of the breathing on day 2 and really integrated it on day 3 and day 4. I think what also really helped is being in a group who's commited for more than one day. If you happen to live in The Netherlands, I would be willing to train with you for 2 days. I haven't done it seriously for a long time (other than DnB parties, don't ask).

Edit: oh wait, it was 4 days (can't edit my parent comment). Memory got the better of me, it was like 5 years ago or something (or 4 or 6, definitely not 8).

" I haven't done it seriously for a long time"

Are you saying the effects lasted without practicing?

Also, how did you do with cold before the training? My preferred temperature is 30C or more. Below I feel cold. Makes me wonder if some people have more talent/predisposition for the method than others.

Funny, I'm going in the opposite direction. For a long time I omitted hats, gloves, and insulation for my legs on cold days, wearing mostly just a big jacket.

I eventually figured out it was silently making me miserable, as my core temperature would slowly drop as I lose heat from my legs & head, and my glycogen stores deplete.

I could slowly & silently endure subzero temperatures, for many hours or even days. Or I could take the time to remember to put on long johns, and be warm and happy.

I can also handle cold by will power but doing this saps my energy. I think the point of the Wim Hof method is you don't have to tough out anything or endure the cold. You should embrace the cold.

I am glad that they are trying to get some scientific data on extreme people like him. I have seen some yogis do stuff that are generally believed to be impossible so it's good to take a scientific look at these things.

I have personally tried the Wim Hof method but I can't get used to cold showers during winter.

If anyone reading these comments hasn't seen the Vice documentary they did on him, it's quite interesting. http://www.icemanwimhof.com/vice-documentary Don't recall if it's in that video or I read it elsewhere, but I recall them doing a test with him and around a dozen of the people he has successfully trained in this technique. The scientists injected them all with a virus that should have made all of them temporarily very ill but not one of them got sick. This was another one of Hof's claims that turned out to be validated by science.

Why would scientists intentionally inject subjects with virii that should make them very sick? What kind of paperwork did they have to file with the IRB to be permitted to do that?

Here's a different video with a more in depth look at the injection test. Also, it was "dead bacteria", not a virus, as I previously stated. Nonetheless, even dead bacteria should make people feverish and vomit, as explained in the video. This video does not include the tests with some of his students. That must have come later. They mentioned it at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nRsNh0eB-Io

Perhaps a bit of a non sequitur, but it's a bit strange that WSU here means Wayne State University. I had assumed it meant Washington State University, and indeed that's the first result on Google when you search WSU. Wayne is not even on the first page of results.

There is also Wichita State University who is playing in the NCAA tournament this weekend. Having WSU in the title is certainly confusing.

Had to wordsmith the title to fit the character limit (:

Lots of universities use similar or identical acronyms. UM can refer to a few different universities for example depending on where you are regionally

Also for the record WSU in Google brings up Wayne State as the first thing for me, but perhaps that's because I'm in Michigan.

Yeah the results I mentioned were with incognito mode on the browser for that reason, but it's possible something still contaminated my results (not my location since I'm out of the country).

For those looking for the ultimate life & health hack, read all you can on Pranism (also known as Breatharianism), the method that lets you live healthily without eating (although it's better to keep drinking at least water).

https://raymaor.com/ for initiation weeks. He's proven the method under TV surveillance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVXxEaYRhrI and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSlM8PYih7o

Plus, the movie "IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS LIGHT" features other protagonists such as Yogi Prahlad Jani who have proven the method under full medical surveillance.

Yea, that really does not work.

It's a fairly easy test, and these people lose weight in controlled conditions.

No, it does work. How do I know? I've been doing it for a couple of weeks now and my weight has been fully stable. I live a normal life, two gym sessions a week. All without food.

You might be delusional, but no this really has been tested and everyone failed.

PS: As recently as 1996 - 2015 there was a million dollar bounty for demonstrating this could work. It was not collected.

> this really has been tested and everyone failed.

Source?

> As recently as 1996 - 2015 there was a million dollar bounty for demonstrating this could work. It was not collected.

Source? (I am willing to take a plane tomorrow to demonstrate that right away, just tell me who to contact.)

We should collect some money. I would be willing to chip in $1000 if someone could demonstrate that.

Sure, I can toss in 1,000$. But, the prize is not as hard as simply running tests like this.

Just ask an MD what test would be required. Then talk to some SV VC and/or set up a Kickstarter campaign. Then contact me.

If you are willing to sit inside a metabolic chamber then feel free. https://www.pbrc.edu/news/making-an-impact/?ArticleID=344

The problem is not incentive, if you can demonstrate this that's not going to be a problem. People have spent 100 billion+ trying to break physics demonstrate it's wrong and money would be plentiful.

Ok, that looks a bit like solitary confinement. But ultimately, it just pushes the prize money up. I remain open for suggestions.

I'm ready to demonstrate that if the money is right and the funding is credible.

Here's my suggestion for the approximate conditions:

1 week on water only, no food. Full medical and 24-hour video surveillance, and all kinds of tests (blood, urine, you name it) to show that nothing is wrong with my body. If I win, I collect the prize.

If you make serious progress in raising money, you can contact me at john_999 at gmx dot net

One week is not enough. I have fasted for a week myself. That's easy. You mentioned "couple of weeks" so six or 8 weeks would be more appropriate.

Ok, it's really only a matter of the amount of the prize to collect. I remain open for suggestions.

If this "method" makes it possible to live "a healthy life without food" and is, according to you "the ultimate life & health hack"...

...then why are you so adamant about collecting funds to do it? Don't you want to live a healthy life? Are you not interested in the ultimate life and health hack?

> why are you so adamant about collecting funds to do it? Don't you want to live a healthy life? Are you not interested in the ultimate life and health hack?

I already apply the method for a couple of weeks now. The money would be needed to cover all expenses but most of all to motivate me enough to take the time off and live a couple of weeks in what amounts to "medical solitary confinement" conditions in some medical institution.

One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge ended in 2015 when James Randi retired. But, it should not be that hard to get something similar setup if you really want.

I am not going to dig that far into this but read https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/breatharians/ as a starting point.

As I've said before, I'm willing to take the challenge, if I'm paid enough. The mentioned metabolic chamber is doable. Try me.

Somebody really should've told these folks about pranic energy. Guess they didn't get enough sunlight, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

It's plenty sunny in South Sudan and they're starving right now. Maybe they're not doing it right.

As I have said before: I'm willing to take the challenge to prove it (people here say that money is not the problem).

So just start collecting funds and make a suggestion for a protocol/contract. Let's put our actions where our mouths are. Let's do this. My email is in this thread and should be in my profile as well. I'm waiting...

Well, I don't know about others, but personally I wouldn't get much out of spending my effort disproving obvious quackery. It certainly wouldn't be effective at stopping future claims of the same nature, since the practitioners could always claim their method wasn't tested. It probably wouldn't even be effective at stopping you from thinking it works, because you gotta have a screw loose to believe this stuff in the first place.

It's enough evidence for me that billions of people have died from starvation, including people from all nations, religions, and races. Pretty much all of them were strongly opposed to dying and would've loved to learn one weird trick to remain living.

Thankfully, there's no money in peddling such garbage to people who actually struggle to obtain enough food. That would be truly evil. Selling $2000+ "Pranic Living Workshops" to new-agey first worlders is mostly harmless old-fashioned scamming, though the occasional mark does starve themselves to death now and then.

As I've said before, I'm willing to take the challenge, if I'm paid enough. 8 weeks in the mentioned metabolic chamber is doable. Try me.

That's what I appreciate about Wim Hof. He makes himself available for investigation whereas a lot of Yogis don't.

Are you serious?

Absolutely. Although current science can not cover it yet, enough empirical proof exists now.

Science covers it if and only if enough empirical proof exists.

I've seen this account (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1729Nv6pc) of someone after a 40 day fast that I think is 100% legitimate, judging by the amount of fat it looks like he's lost since posting this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX75osEh6MI) forty days prior.

At 9000kcal/kg, each kg of fat will feed you for 3-5 days, depending on your metabolism. This means you only need 8-13kg of fat and an admirable dose of willpower to last this long.

A minimal test of pranism as described would need to be of similar length so weight loss is visible, without showing weight loss. A true test would need to be 2-3 times as long.

The fact that you've done it a week or so proves nothing. You'd hardly notice the weight loss.

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