My customized Wim Hof breathing method
ugjka.net
ugjka.net
A while ago I tried a few breathing techniques which were given in a nice book [0]. I really enjoyed the after-effects of the said techniques so I decided to mix and match some of them etc. The effects were awesome .. at first.
After a couple of weeks, I started feeling very low for no particular reason (no dietary changes or anything) and just downright weird. I eliminated one factor after another and checked if my energy levels were OK. I finally gave up the experiment on breathing techniques and restarted what was in the book. I am good, now.
So.. despite a sample size of one and a trial which wasn't random or controlled (:)) , my advice on this whole thing : Get a qualified teacher and do what is taught. YMMV otherwise.
[0] https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07WSBS5S4/ref=kinw_myk_ro_...
As OP states you should be careful. Alternate nostril breathing is a good general purpose one.
So is box breathing (aka Navy SEAL breathing).
Now, whether science has more to learn from things like pranayama is a different subject and I think there still certainly is much to learn. But that means IMO we must be very careful in what claims we make and how we back them up.
Edit: I'm not criticizing anyone or claiming anything does or doesn't work, I'm simply advocating for a scientific approach.
How do you know? Are you sure? There's a lot of that (dumb reflex skepticism). Seems that's what they're saying.
> It requires great care to sort
Care, a good teacher or information, experience, caution. All agree.
In general I think the Indians really know what they're doing in this space but in my experience a lot of Western teachings of it tries to teach it dislocated from the source of the knowledge and so it can be dangerous or not healthy like in your experience.
All in all breathing exercises are a pretty subtle practice and skill, and easy to do wrong, and surprising how powerful they can be. I think people do need to be careful when they press those buttons, because they have powerful effects and if not done right they may be doing the wrong things for that person: not a perfect analogy but to give people an idea of the respect needed analogous with taking the wrong prescription medicines.
But definitely I think people should do more because it's beneficial. But got to do it right.
What? I don't know. That's why I qualified the statement with "I don't think". Perhaps I misunderstood. But I agree with the rest of everything you said.
> but in my experience a lot of Western teachings of it tries to teach it dislocated from the source of the knowledge and so it can be dangerous or not healthy like in your experience
Sorry I think there's been some confusion, I made no claims either way about anyone's teachings and have said nothing about my own experience.
No that was the second part of my comment where I'm not responding to what you're saying specifically I'm just adding on my own information. Taking the thread as an opportunity, a jumping off point to share what I think.
Today we're living something of a renaissance for psychedelics, with promises of therapeutic benefits for myriad of mental issues. At the time they were forbidden, someone came up with a breathing technique to induce the same therapeutic effects (see Stanislav Grof, holotropic breathwork), which is pretty much an offshoot of the same original techniques Wim Hof expands from.
Connect those dots with critical thinking.
I’d say that about mindfulness and meditation today: https://neurosciencenews.com/mindfulness-problem-14196/
If you'd like to make your substantive points without those things, that would be great.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24799686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9071023/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpTG02x6w5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHRumILOOk
In short, the breathing increases epinephrine (adrenaline), which causes a spike in anti-inflammatory cytokines, and decreases inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-a.
It should be added that on the web I found several reports about increased tinnitus symptoms, which usually subside after the breathing is stopped, but for some it was permanent. This is why I am not doing it regularly, as I also get some ringing, but thankfully it was not permanent.
Nevertheless, I find this very method very exciting. I am glad Radboud took a look into it. However, I would love to see clinical trials on the method at last.
It really translates well to high-intensity sport exercises where at a certain exertion I was trying to breath too hard and too early with the mouth open in an attempt to take in as much air as possible and paradoxically feeling even more suffocated. Also great for a relaxed swimming experience.
I feel once I began to apply breathing techniques into various activities throughout the day that I now got a deeper connection/appreciation/understanding/confidence for modulating my breathing. And WHM can certainly jumpstart that experience. But I personally wouldn't recommend to just chase the next high.
https://www.wimhofmethod.com/breathing-exercises
“When we breathe in, we take up oxygen and release carbon dioxide from our blood. Our blood is usually already fully saturated with oxygen (about 99% saturation) and breathing deeply does not raise that saturation. Breathing deeply does, however, release a lot of carbon dioxide. This, in turn, lowers the “urge to breathe”.
The brain stem, specifically the pons and medulla oblongata, is sensitive to carbon dioxide. Having too much carbon dioxide in the blood will trigger your brain stem to breathe. By removing carbon dioxide from the blood through deep breathing, this impulse to breathe from the brain stem is lowered.
In short, the lower the level of carbon dioxide, the longer you can hold your breath. The impulse is just not triggered yet.“
If you intentionally breath deeply, greater than tidal volume, it means at the same breathing rate, you are exchanging more air in total and will be purging more CO2 than you produce which will lead to hypocapnia over time.
Hypocapnia doesn't inherently need to result from deep breathing if you offset the greater-than-tidal volume with less-than-normal breath rate — if you are breathing very slow or 'skip' breathing with pauses in between, but that balance can be pretty hard to reach
Are we talking about the same numbers as a (calibrated) O2 optical saturation monitor reports or something else?
Blood O2 and CO2 percentages don't sum to 100%. O2 saturation refers to the percentage of hemoglobin molecules which have oxygen bound. Only some CO2 is transported bound to hemoglobin.
This is in contrast with other breathing exercises to do cause an actual build up of CO2 to levels well above what feel normal. Freedivers call these CO2 tables and they’re used to build CO2 resistance and increase breath-hold times.
Breathing in through my nose completely removed the ringing noise for me.
It is not a good proxy for O2 levels in healthy individuals, but may be in people with COPD or other chronic breathing problems.
edit: so if you think Wim Hof is just getting recreational high then you should continue taking whatever drug you are on such as lead.
You must be fun at parties.
If you have never experienced your own body responding to your selective input (other than Mt. Dew) you are missing out... Ever hear of a "runner's high"? Dangerous indeed!
Why don't you try it out and see what happens, you have to breathe anyway
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/psychopathology-tinnit...
Basically, position yourself so that a deep breath in lifts your chest up and a breath out lets your chest sink. You can adjust so you basically breathe along with the resonant frequency of your body rising up and down in the tub. You get into a flow that is driven by natural mechanics and it can really take the mind to different places. Combines well with cannabis.
Safety note: don’t drown.
I've not done weekend / afternoon type workshops. My guess is this is going to give you a bit more than what you've done on your own. Group breath work has a whole different flare to it (in a really good way, and I'm not an overly social person). So, it may just be an upsell into the longer courses, but I will tell you learning breath work in a group setting has an energy you don't get on your own. Plus you may pick up a few trips to help you hone in on control. Just my $0.02.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tX0M6EveGY
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ
30 mins. Everyday after brush.
I also practice Surya Namaskar[1] + 2 minute push-ups[2] + 2 minute mountain climbing after the 30 mins breathing.
I have just been practicing Sudarshan Kriya[1] + Wim Hof[2] + Surya Namaskar[3] (no push-ups and mountain climbing) for the past month.
~1 hour a day.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tX0M6EveGY
My dad gets out his jacket when it’s 50° and dry, I’m still trying to decide if short sleeves were a bad idea. When I was a kid I was essentially nonfunctional if I was cold and we argued about that numerous times.
Capillary structure in the skin plays a role, but there’s a lot of mind over matter there as well. I have some strong doubts whether random people can learn to be like Wim Hof, but I don’t doubt that random people can learn to be more like Wim Hof.
Do not do this.
Your blood oxygen saturation is generally 98% or more. You can't increase that several fold.
What?!
How do you "push the breath in the brain"?
It would have been nice if this step had been expanded with explicit instructions.
I updated my blog just now accordingly
That makes more sense to me. An Open glottis definitely is more stimulating to the vagus nerve if nothing else so they are different.
> What the fuck is wrong with people these days?
horrible advice aside, you could benefit from becoming more mindful and self-aware. clearly this crowd could use a lot of that. empathy helps too if you were shown a lot of it growing up.
Pranayama is an ancient Indian science passed down from saints who received these teachings as divine visions. It didn't materialize as a result of experimentation as many would assume.
Even practices like Sudarshan kriya (which makes use of breathing) were passed down to Shri Shri as a divine teaching.
So my advice is to not experiment with your breathing unless you have proper guidance and knowledge.
> Pranayama is an ancient Indian science passed down from saints who received these teachings as divine visions
I don't meant to offend, but that doesn't sound like any kind of science to me.
I am sure it has helped a lot of people and a lot of people believe in it. But if it doesn't come from hypothesis, experimentation, and, in the case of medical treatments, clinical trials, it simply isn't science. Or "ancient science".
There's another kind of belief system which accepts axioms coming from divine visions and divine teachings, though. It rhymes with "pigeon".
Way I see it is, we humans are the most sophisticated creatures on our planet. Our birth onto earth is a natural process by all means. By natural, I mean we are a product of nature after all. We humans try to understand the nature around us including ourselves, which is what we termed as science. Our scientific thought itself is a product of nature, and they translate to our endeavors and curiosity to unravel the secrets of reality.
These visions that I spoke about are nothing but the universe speaking to these great rishis. By universe, I mean nature itself. Nature is bestowing knowledge upon its own creations to aid them in understanding itself! The same nature that has imbued life into our bodies when we are born. The same body which will eventually turn to soil after it has run its course.
Now, you might wonder, why nature is not bestowing these sort of gifts upon you? Frankly, I do not know myself. It is what it is. On the bright side, nature has bestowed the most fortunate gift of being born as a human being which almost as a law of nature makes the heights you can go to limitless. No other creature has the same benefits as human beings. We are born with both curiosity to ask questions and intelligence to analyze and infer profound meanings from their answers.
While "we", the ordinary humans live for about a 100 years before forsaking our bodies, however there are people who live for 1000s of years. It's a realm of possibility not yet uncovered by modern science.
> There's another kind of belief system which accepts axioms coming from divine visions and divine teachings, though. It rhymes with "pigeon".
That only came into picture recently during the last ~2000 years. The ancient knowledge I am referring comes from way before.
https://www.unexplainable.net/info-theories/mahavatar-babaji...
But really, you might think living a 1000 years is extraordinary, however, the soul (or the life we have in each of us, including you and me) is immortal. When we die, it's simply the body that is discarded. But life itself never perishes. The soul takes multiple births in new bodies and this process of life and death goes on and on until the soul merges with the supreme conciousness. So what's the proof for all this? Well, there's nothing to prove it as false either.
Modern science disregards things that it cannot experience and "see the proof of" for itself. But that's like a person who lacks sensual perceptions saying stimuli that interacts with their senses does not exist. For example, if a blind person says light does not exist or a deaf person says sound does not exist. They might even deny its existence despite you telling them otherwise, that's because they cannot experience it for themselves. So who's to blame them?
Similarly, we are kept from higher understanding due to our inability to experience. That does not mean it does not exist. It simply means we are incapable.
There are many fantastic things in this universe that science knows it cannot understand and even more things that science does not even know exist.
Science keeps taking over more and more of what used to be “attributed to the gods”. Religion keeps losing ground. It’s only natural that religious people feel the need to attack (with logic platitudes- science has never claimed to be able to explain everything)
There will always be people who say that the gods talk to them. It’s a trick as old as the world. A way to gain power, notoriety, or a sense of importance.
The way I see it, when someone makes a discovery in a laboratory (a real discovery, the kind that takes years to produce) then that’s a real manifestation of the Universe understanding itself.
Modern science stays away from this space for whatever reason, but isn't this just another kind of science like the study of cosmos or microbes? It is a very important facet of life, which dwells into questions such as the meaning of life, what happens after death, when does life enter into a mother's womb, etc. All these questions are of scientific nature.
However, to address these questions we cannot simply break open or dissect things to understand how they work. Naturally, because these questions do not deal with the material world. To understand such phenomenon, one should first understand the subtlety of the soul.
The breathing techniques or pranayama that this thread was originally about deals with yoga. Pranayama is a part of yogic teachings. Yoga is a sanskrit word which means the union of mind and body. The union that the word yoga is referring to is that of uniting individual consciousness (our individual experience of reality) with Divine consciousness (the essence of truth as perceived when we quiet our five senses and reconnect with the Supreme Self within)[1].
So it's not just breathing, or stretching your muscles as it is usually portrayed as. There's a far deeper subtlety in it which is better kept undisturbed from experimentation without having knowledge of the subtler entities.
> ...when someone makes a discovery in a laboratory (a real discovery, the kind that takes years to produce) then that’s a real manifestation of the Universe understanding itself.
That's true as well, but there are yet discoveries to be made by understanding the nature of the "self". Something that involves looking within rather than outside in the material world.
[1]: https://www.yogapedia.com/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-yoga/2...
> Here's one:
> https://www.unexplainable.net/info-theories/mahavatar-babaji...
Sorry but that blogpost doesn't qualify as "evidence" to me. There's no verifiable facts. All that it offers is "someone said they have seen them" and at the end it mentions "some people have seen a weird man on the Himalayas". No pictures, not even a real name.
That puts this immortal yogi on the same evidence level of as the Yeti (also believed to live somewhere in the Himalayas), the Bigfoot, or the Rip van Winkle (a guy who allegedly slept for 20 years, although his original story is definitively a made-up story).
Its like if you were drinking that stale water thats been there mingling with all the bacteria all day.
My close friend (oterwise perfectly healthy and fit) got really nasty breathing issues along with infection and fever. He couldn't get rid of it for weeks thinking it's COVID related. Turns out it was his high end humidifier he has for plants. Once he turned it off it was gone in a day never to come back. He swapped for some evaporator one and never had single issue.
Turns out you can find many articles about this if you search for it. Some countries are even thinking about banning them.
Question to ugjka: How many rounds of your customized method do you recommend? I usually feel the most high after 3rd round, do you think I need the same, less, or more?
[1] on the phone right bow but it is in the PNAS article about the WHM suppressing the immune system
It is hilarious reading all these armchair scientists warning against a harmless breathing exercises that is proven to be beneficial.
If not, it will help you gain mindfulness. So many comments on here I feel like could benefit from that horrible danger of growing aware
Go to the source: http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1903sciencebreath....
But then again, I’m a “stupid westerner”. The scientific method isn’t a western creation or anything like that…