FoundMyFitness - #017 Wim Hof (the Iceman) on Defeating Extreme Cold & Attenuating the Immune Response

Episode Date: October 22, 2015

Wim Hof Wim Hof, also known as "the Iceman", holds the world record for the longest ice bath (1 hour and 53 minutes and 12 seconds), just to name one of his many impressive feats. Dr. Patrick and Wim talk a bit about Wim's back story that culminated in him trying out cold water immersion, the relatively recent 2014 scientific publication of the "Wim Hof Method" which includes cold exposure during training, exposure to bacterial endotoxin, Wim's breathing techniques, and meditation. In this episode, we discuss...  (00:00) Introduction (02:08) Wim Hof tells the story of how he fell in love with the cold (08:35) Activating the sympathetic nervous system to lower inflammation  (14:37) Hyperventilation changes blood pH enough to inactivate pain receptors (16:24) Just four days of breathing exercises decreased inflammation (28:06) How much of the effects of meditation are due to breathing technique? (36:45) Cold exposure increases norepinephrine two- to three-fold (44:05) Treating depression with cold therapy If you're interested in learning more, you can read the full show notes here. Join over 300,000 people and get the latest distilled information straight to your inbox weekly: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor

Hello, everyone. I'm here in, well, I guess it's not really Amsterdam. It's somewhere close to Amsterdam. What's the name? It's a strung. Stru. And I'm sitting here with someone I'm very excited to be having a conversation with, not only because he's extremely charismatic and passionate, but also because he's into the cold. And as you guys all know, that I'm very interested in changes in temperature on human physiology, on human physiology, on. brain function. His name is Wim Hof. You may have heard of him through the Tim Ferriss interview recently or through the Vice documentary. He holds 26 different world records. Maybe you can tell us more about that. Yeah, 26. Different disciplines, like climbing Mount Everest in your shorts or climbing Kilimanjaro in record terms or hanging by one finger in the air or one hour, 53 minutes in the direct contact with the ice or swimming beneath thick ice cap under the ice, or running marathons, not been trained to do so, but then run a marathon because, and Rondo

is going to tell you about breathing techniques, very, very revolutionary. But tell. Well, so I want to ask you, Wem, I mean, I've been very interested in. in the effects of changing temperature on human physiology. Specifically, I've been interested in the sauna for a while, mostly because I sort of serendipitously started using the sauna when I was in graduate school, which is a very stressful time for me. And there's a sauna across the street from where I lived,

and so I started using the sauna every morning before I would go into the lab and do my experiments. And I noticed that I felt really good after, and I was able to handle stress. better. So I started to figure out why is this? So I started diving into the science and I'm trying to understand how it affects the brain. But how did you become interested in sitting in the ice or taking ice baths? I thought there was more than meets the eye. There is more into all the system. And I was like a grown up in a big family. But my, you know, schooler. results were not so big. So, and everybody was into, hey, you have to become a doctor, you have to

become this, you have to become that. Otherwise, you are lower in the system. And I thought, no, what I feel is okay. What I feel is, it's not what really I want. So I began to, wonder, I began to look, hundreds of books in psychology, philosophy, do I was by a school system narrowed down as being, yeah, you can be a carpenter, you can be a painter, and I said, no, I knew there was something different. So I went into books at my age of 12, I began to read about psychology already, going into Hinduism and Buddhism and all these religions and traditions and cultures and began to learn languages, different languages, by my own, not by the school system.

By your own interest, your own passion for it. And when I reached the age of 17, then my head was full up with all these philosophies and philosophifying about it, all the traditions and the cultures and the languages and everything. And all I did was karate and kung fu and yoga. I could do it all. But it still did not satisfy the depth of which I wanted to reach inside which my mind was in the start.

was looking for and at a Sunday Sunday morning I was wandering throughout the park and I saw this thin layer of ice on the water and it attracted me and I thought I go I go in was looking around nobody was there because Sunday morning everybody is working you know they have their tranquillity, tranquillidad in Spanish. And they have to, you know, they want to have easy time in bed or something. So I could take off my clothes. I went in and it just in one minute I felt the sense I'm really going deep in. This is really responding to the soul searching I did for. many years before, and about that, what I think is there is more than meets the eye. I found it at that moment.

And I came out, and I felt great. And from there, it all started to whenever you feel great, you come back. So the other day I came back. And then once again, once again. And I noticed that the pattern of the breathing changed. It changed and it brought me more oxygen inside the body, being able to withstand the cold, say, for 20 minutes, ice cold, ice water, and then stay for five to seven minutes under the water.

And it brought me a sense of tremendous, power within. A control. I was looking for that. That's the way it all began. And from there, I began to do my own study of life itself. And yes, it brought me to all kinds of challenges. Staying in shorts, no t-shirt, no nothing, just in freezing temperatures all night out.

the human potential of this physiology is far beyond that we exercise right now. And because of this comfort zone, we have thinking, we think we can control nature, but we do not control the inner power anymore, which is a physiology which goes far deeper than we exercise right now, which causes all these diseases, all the depressions, all the lack of oxygen, the right chemistry in the body is not there, causing all these ailments and we have no control. And yeah, right now we have found the techniques and we brought it back to the laboratory setting,

showed that everybody is able just to tap in to their deepest levels of their physiology, which is the autonomic nervous system, related to the immune system, related to the endocrine system, which means the immune system is the health. The layers of the immune system after millions of years are really perfect. But if you do not tap in, you're not making use of these. immune systems. Another one is the endocrine system about the glands, the hormones. If you don't feel good, if you don't feel happy, make some happy hormones working. If you don't feel strong, you feel weak and make some strong hormones working.

We have shown people lying in bed producing, it's all science now, producing within a half hour, more adrenaline than somebody in fear going for a bongy jump. Comparative study of blood results. So the endocrine system, the immune system, just in a couple of days, we are able to access every individual in the world therein. And we got to spread this news because it makes us happy, strong, and healthy. And that's what we want. And now you come and you interview me and you're a bright girl, you're a bright woman, help me to bring this to the world.

That's what we do. It's good. It's for everybody. That's what we do it. Yes. So you're talking about these couple of studies that were published, but before jumping into that, you've got this technique that you're referring to where you're getting in the cold, and you mentioned that your breathing, you noticed when you first were doing that, your breathing

changed. Yes. I'm just curious, is that how you decided to harness the breathing techniques? Was it something that you noticed you did automatically when you were in the cold? Or how did you couple those two together? In the cold, if you go in the cold and it feels good, because you feel there's no thinking involved. just feel and just feeling is tremendous nice is okay is strong is a strong feeling that that that that that is what the reaction is of the cold okay but then your breathing will change because it's naturally already there

and to withstand cold impact which is a force coming in it needs us oxygen, combustion. It needs oxygen to go around. So you need oxygen in a natural way in every cell. But as we breathe shallow in our conditioned minds and in the comfort zone, etc., it doesn't get in all the cells the right amount of oxygen. But the cold really forces you to breathe the natural way, which is very much more profound, bringing in oxygen in all these cells, taking up the pH level, and then you don't feel the pain, you don't feel the cold, you get control over the other. The neurotransmitters in the body, they go fast and they listen to your will. They listen to what you have to say.

That's the way nature builds us to be. So I learned it in the cold by feeling. Not because I knew. There was no book. The book was me. The book was the interaction with the nature. No, it's really cool. I was speaking with our mutual friend of ours yesterday, Peter Capelle,

who was explaining some of the science behind how the breathing techniques that you're just referring to that you use where you're doing this hyperventilation? Yes, you want to explain it? Hyperventilation is over, it gets to you. What we do, we go controlled to the level where hyperventilation occurs, but we do it controlled. So there is a neural activity contact with the brain and the way we get in oxygen to right pH levels

And then that's a hyperventilation is a sort of limited indication for now. But we are not suffering from hyperventilation. We make use of whatever goes on in hyperventilation to get a degree of mastery over or a certain level of trends within our physiology, within our chemistry. And we do it right. Okay. Yeah. So your controlled breathing technique, what it ends up doing at the physiological level is it is

decreasing the carbon dioxide level in the blood, which then, as you mentioned, has a response in raising the pH, which is usually very hard to do. You know, normal blood pH is around 7.35, 7.4. If that's the case, 7.34, then everybody is okay, but everybody is actually suffering from lower degrees of pH. That's our problem in this society because we built up a lack of oxygen throughout the daily life. And that's why we get lower pH levels. And from there, all the problems of autoimmune diseases and probably cancer, etc., I don't want to mention all these words, but it's logical.

If you go with a car and you got petrol, diesel or gas, and you put in sugar, you change the chemistry and you are not able to drive anymore. The same works with the body. If we get too much, too long a time to low a pH degree, the auto, which is Greek for self, our physiology is not working anymore. And then we get these chronic diseases and autoimmune diseases. It's logic, is it. So what's interesting to me is that there's the pain receptor,

the acid sensing receptor that is coupled to the pain signaling pathway. And so when you are able to raise your pH by this breathing technique and lowering the carbon dioxide to 7.75 or 7.8. A average last study. Eight. It's still not published, but I can say... Well, in the published study, it was about 7.75 or 7.8, which is still high. Yeah.

And that's too high, it's not... That's a high enough pH to deactivate the receptor that senses the acidity, and therefore it is unable to send signals to the other pain receptors. Wow. Great size. I love this shit. If you get it to 7.6, the trimarization goes into monomer. So the pain signal is composed by three receptors.

Receptors. And then two get away because there is just no signal. Right. I love you. And that's why you can sit in the cold. And then it goes away and there is no pain. That's the way we master our own body again. that's the way nature built us to be able to do.

Well, so that's just one interesting point about your, you know, breathing and cold. Yeah, whatever the method. I didn't got it out of books. I got it out of nature. No, it's so cool. I brought it back to the laboratory. And in the books right now, in American books even, the third year of biology and medical students,

it's a full chapter, testing the other. Iceman, it's cold, and it's not anymore about me. It's about a competitive study with 12 people who did the method just within four days. And it wasn't even really a Puritan training, which I did with them, to make them able to go and tap into the autonomic nervous system and the immune system and get enderoxine injected. and have it control within a quarter of hour. That's amazing. 100%.

100%. Within four days, all these yoghists, oh, so many years and this and that, and all these, you know, people who are very puretile, take our years about acidic, alkaline, what we've got to do, and always minding about it. Just in four days.

And in the nights, in the evening, evenings we drank beer and we had guitar playing and we had some relaxation going on and during the day they were fully committed and the fourth day they were with me without prior experience in the cold at minus 10 Celsius. I mean that's below freezing point Celsius, Fahrenheit, you know. It's really below freezing point. They began at the foot of a moment. mountain and like hours it took to get to the summit in Poland, Czechia border in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the wintertime and all in chores and like three hours or three and a half hours and it was minus 27 at the top and they were still we were doing

the Harlem shake on top then I knew these guys after four days of training without prior experience in the cold, having a real good time in the night, but during the day, go again. Four days later, and I knew it at the summit, these people are ready. These people are back in their natural state of their physiology. They have control by the mind over their body, the way an endotoxine experiment or a bacteria gets injected and within a quarter of an hour

they will have a complete dominion of the bacteria and that in spite of the others who had no instructions they suffered from three to six hours uncontrolled breathing a shivering headaches and overall agony and all that. So we've got to go back to nature. Our nature, the inner nature, the inner mechanisms, and it's not so difficult. It's very easy, actually. So I want to dive a little more into the science, but I have a question. So after the four days of training, these 12 individuals were completely untrained, they did

the four days of training. How soon after that did they have the endotoxin injected? Four days later. Four days later. So they were training for four days and then they had the end of it. So they weren't, were they doing any of the breathing techniques or anything right before the endotoxin? Right before the endotoxin, they did this breathing. The breathing.

And that made them able to go into the brain stamp, which is the cause of adrenaline, direct adrenaline. And in a way, comparatively, they compared it. With studies wherein people go into a in fear, first time going into a boggy job. And these guys were just laying in bed and producing more adrenaline. That means control within, you know, controlled stress hormone like adrenaline, penifrin, and all this. That means it works like medicine. It ignites the immune system.

Go and reset and do what you got to do. And what we are able to do is to fend ourselves off from disease, like animals, like mammals. I don't see any psychiatric asylums in nature. I don't see pharmacies in nature, nor hospitals. But they still live and they run and they are fast and they go and they live. and they enjoy life, even though there are predators and everything, it's a beautiful cycle. But we thought we are better. We dominate nature, but we don't.

We have to go back and then this mammalistic brain, the limbic system, the brain stem. If it is an order, once again, we become happy, strong and healthy. So it's what you're saying is so interesting. interesting because the breathing techniques you're talking about does increase the epinephrine, which has been shown, and the adrenaline, which has been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect. So that is able to secrete these anti-inflammatory cytokines that prevent the immune system from going crazy. So in the study where these 12 individuals did your method, I found it very interesting that they were injected with endotoxin, which is like, by the way, it's

something that humans are constantly exposed to small amounts of because we have it in our debt. And it's a driver of the inflammation. It's a driver of aging. It's a driver of cardiovascular disease. Everything aging-related, all age-related diseases come back to end of oxygen. No, it's a big thing. So it's... Yeah.

And so what happened, you know, physiologically, what's happening with the breathing technique specifically, which I'm calling it hyperventilation. It's controlled, but just for simplistic reasons, when you hyperventilate, you increase the adrenaline and the epinephrine. And that has a profound effect on anti-inflammatory. And so these individuals that were doing your method versus the control when they were injected with the endotoxin, their immune response was activated, but immediately they had this anti-inflammatory cytokines coming out and quieting in the immune system for

not going crazy. And that's why they were not experiencing all the negative effects of when you have your immune system going overactive, it's inflammation. And then you get the pain, you get nausea and things that you were describing. That didn't happen. We got so many cases with rheumatic arthritis, atrosis. We are doing, it's going to come the studies and the disease of Lyme and the disease of Crohn, colias, and asthma, all kinds of, and it's all the same cause.

And we are now very able to tap into that very direct. But we have to show this scientifically. And I got so many cases of people using medicine for like 20 years and not using them anymore. There's no need anymore. in all these autoimmune diseases about the inflammation, the cytokin production and all that, they control it. They control their pain. They control all the symptoms and they don't need the medicines anymore.

And we want to prove this by science because I think there is a big industry behind who wants us to take medicine. So how much is the interest to look at it? to look into a method which is natural, doesn't cost anything, anybody is able to do. And yeah, that's what we do. So that's what we do right now. Maybe it's not so smart of me to say this or to mention this. But I have no fear.

I have no fear. I think this scientific discovery that we are able to tap into the autonomy. nervous system related to the immune system and the end of green system brings back to the maybe the belief that we to every person in the world that we are able to do so much more within our bodies and we lost this belief that we are unable to become happy strong and healthy because we got lost in a sort of a system and we got confused because of then then you get dependency and And now we turn around the dependency and the disbelief and the discomfort into the ability by natural method to bring about, hey, this consciousness of being happy, strong and healthy.

Oh, that's my own thing. And we bring it about by scientific-based evidence. So there is no speculation gone. on. I love your study. I love your way of seeing things. That's good. So all what we do, I think it's good. Because what do we want for our children? That's love. And love, I think, is composed of what do you want for your child? Happiness, strength, and health. That's what I want for my child. Is that love? Yes, that's love. But now we will determine that. by scientific scrutiny, by scientific results, evidence, and that's it.

And I call it crazy monkeys sometimes. We are making a song about it. And the crazy monkey is the brainstem. The brainstem, the primitive brain is very able to direct, it's about the fight, the flight, the food, the fuck, and the freeze. very primitive, but it's like a reptilemon. It only reacts. It doesn't think. But we are, because of our thinking, we are so dominated by our thinking. It doesn't get the right blood flow. So in that area, in the brainstem, also resides the pineal gland, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, amygdala,

which is the emotion. And it's all there and doesn't get sufficient blood flow. So if we, Something happens to trauma or disease or danger. We don't know how to deal because there's not sufficient blood flow because this crazy monkey is all the time going around and actually wants to get and tap in, back into its roots, feeling okay. That's it. There, the crazy monkey? Yeah. Wow, it's nice. Yeah.

Just that. Do you think that part of the effects of meditation in general, because a lot of meditation has focuses on breathing and, you know, breathing. Do you think that the breathing itself maybe also have, you know, maybe responsible for some of those positive effects, that meditation has been shown? If you go in very Capelle, Professor Capel is also talking about it. about the neocortex and the hypothalamus,

which is the surface of the brain and the hypothalamus is the brain's down, more or less. And we lose the contact, but if it's all the time the neocortex going on with the world, like, hey, I got to do this, I can't do this. Then the blood flow will go to this, and it creates a sympathetic nervous system activity all the time. But to create new energy, it happens only like a cow. It's going to sit down. It's going to chew on this grass. And this chemical processes are able.

If she runs, these chemical processes to make milk are not able to happen. So we got the same process. We are mammals too. So in the cell, it needs peas. We need to sit down, relax, and to make new energy in the cell. But as we are always going on in the brain, the sympathetic nervous system is going on, and it only takes energy. And because we do not know how to get into the parasympathetic nervous system,

which enables the cell production to make new energy. we are not able to disconnect that from therefore we get no new energy and that's why life is so depressing or too much going on and you got to go all the time so now to get into this part

by breathing for example meditation and all that the Vipassana and all that these studies, I worked them out. I wrote a manuscript on yoga as a technique, but so long a time it takes to get into it. And now we are doing a study with the psychiatric, psychiatric research we are doing to compare it with mindfulness. Mindfulness is actually a Western answer on the Asian meditation forms of

the East and it's called mindfulness but still it takes such a long time to tap into the brain the right way to disconnect from the sympathetic nervous system activity caused by the neocortex to get into the limbic system

which is connected to the parasympathetic nervous system which creates energy which gives space which doesn't give anxiety and all that. So if you go into this breathing, profoundly, then there is no, hey, there's no danger. There's no danger. You don't need to be. And if it takes just four minutes or five minutes, then it will disconnect from the neocortex, which is a sympathetic nervous system activity. It shuts down. There's no blood flow anymore going toward it.

and it goes down and you feel relaxed. Okay, nice, nice. Now, it takes time because some people are so stubborn within the sympathetic nervous system related to the neocortex. It goes on and it doesn't stop. So what we do now with this breathing technique, bring a cut down, disconnect completely. the conditioned breathing pattern, which is providing the oxygen, the blood flow to the neocortex,

we cut it down, and you know what they saw? After one half minute of retention, retention, that's refraining from breath, after acceleration, after acceleration, no air in the lungs. that means oh Khami I want oxygen no oxygen

and and we got the pH degree we got them completely up so nothing happens the body

is completely provided but then we fool the brain we fool the brain and it takes one

a half minute for the brain to get back because we oxygen-energize the body so much. We get the carbon dioxide out, but the pH level we get up. Oxygen, you get so much freely. Now, for the first time, deep breathing, it gets to work. The older cells. And then, after one-a-half minute, it gets down 200%. Because what I know, size doesn't yet know

we are able to oxygenize the body more than 100%. These are the devices. They took up an abstract device and say, this is 100%, this is 30% people die. You know what I show?

I took the device. I took it. With this finger. One of the strongest fingers ever, I was hanging in the wintertime. at one finger between two balloons for 23 50.4 seconds. Yes, that's that.

They got these oxymetis. And it's showing your heartbeat and your saturation in your blood. After one, everybody, it will show in the physiology of everybody. After one half minute, it does. it begins again. 100%, 90%, 80, 70, 70, 60, 50. Where people normally die, 40, 30, and the dandy vice goes 8, 0, 0, 0. There's no measuring anymore. On you. No, not on me, I'm only anymore. Everybody who took part in the study in four days. I saw the oxygen saturation went down by 50% in everyone, right?

Yes, yes. That's the average. But some guys went out here completely of the big guys. So the individual variation between the people. Yeah, a little bit. But everybody goes down like normally, it's mortal. You are dying. If you would be acidic, you would die at that moment.

So that's the way we trick the mind because the reptilian mode is just reactive to call to freeze, to fuck, to flight and to food. That's what a reptilian does. That's not us. We got a mind. But we don't know how to tap into this mode. Now we know. And this brings about the connection between all the powers of the brain,

which also concerns disease. Absolutely. And depression. The glands, the pylial gland, the pituitary gland, and the hypothalamens, and we got it. So, it's so simple and so effective. Yeah, for the relevance for diseases. So if you just think about the cold itself increases noropenephrine, which is used to treat ADHD. It's used to treat depression.

They're giving noraphenephtain re-uptake inhibitors to treat that, which have all sorts of side effects. And then the breathing increases the epinephrine, which then, causes all the anti-inflammatory response. Say that again. It's very interesting. And so then the couple of two, you're talking about increasing focus attention. The norephynephrine? The noraphenephrin.

The noraphenephrin is increased by the cold. Yes. And then the breathing, the controlled breathing, increases the epinephrine and the adrenaline, which then causes all the anti-inflammatory response. And then increases, then it deepensual. increases carbon dioxide, which then stops the pain. It is science. No speculation.

Yeah. So what you're talking about potentially, and this is what I'm interested in, is treating possibly depression, anxiety, OCD. Explanation. Look at how serious this is. This is, and I want science to back it up, please help me with the scientific research. We got it, but we need to prove it. You're doing a pretty good job.

Right now you've got two pretty good publications, one of them in the PNAS Journal, which is a very nice journal. It's a great paper. You know, I read it two times. I think that you're on the right path to, you know, using science and harnessing the power of science to show the physiological changes, the brain changes that are occurring through the use of the cold, you know, shock, through the use of these breathing techniques. You're very humble.

She's a humble girl. Thank you. I'm curious. How did you decide? Like, what made you decide to turn to the science? Just your curiosity, you've got that scientific sort of mind where you wanted to understand. Recognition, science. Yeah, I already knew it 25 years ago that the autonomic nervous can be influenced and the immune system.

But everybody told me I was crazy. Yeah, yeah, I'm crazy about my life and about my wife. that's okay but for the rest no I know because of nature of cold and all that and I can think I'm able to deduct and to make conversation like we do right now I can recognize what you say I can recognize what we are what we do and what we need to do even more but so that that's that's the way we all I began and I began of course when I had the chance

and that was in New York wow now we get to something in New York in New York Manhattan no manhattan I did a record over there in the ice standing in the ice during the winter in January

in front of the Museum of Himalayan Arts in New York And I did like one hour, 13 minutes done. Now it's one hour, 53 minutes. It doesn't matter, you know, every time a little minute is going on. It's being invited all over the world. Don't say it.

But I did it. And then the other day I went to the Feinstein Institute in Manhattan, New York, which is under the supervision of a, Dr. Kevin Tracy, which is a microbiologist, and he is an authority in the field. And he is also in the board of Nobel Prize winners for medical research. So he should give me one. By the way, making jokes, you know. But the real serious thing is that he then saw me influencing the vague nerve.

Yeah. And not a little bit. And he saw it compared to a whole lot of test objects before. And I was the first one who was doing this, actually. And there's a whole story behind it, et cetera. But he told me we were going to do all kinds of research, comparative studies, because if this would be, if I would be able to pass it over, to a group of persons that would be huge consequences for human mankind.

A month later, I did not hear any contact anymore. And I found out they were quite sponsored by pharmaceuticals. And that's okay. That's okay. Everybody needs money to go around and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. But years later, I had this opportunity to show in the Radbaut University here in Holland, in a physiological experiment, cold experiment, that I was able to, you know, go into 80 minutes immersion into the cold, direct cold, ice cubes and water and all that,

and stay 80 minutes and raise my core body temperature whilst doing. And they had a lot of going retrieving from it. And they exposed it ex vivo, just without me, in a laboratory setting. And they saw 100% cytokin suppression. Wow. 100%. And then later, yeah, of course, they've been. began to become interested by intensive care department.

And they said, do you want to be injected? Do you want to be part of an experiment like that? And then they saw this. And then I said, yes, but maybe I can do it. And all these people didn't do it. All these hundreds of people who were not able to do it. And now I'm able to do it with such a big difference. But I say, it's not because I'm the ice man, anybody can do it.

So you can do it, anybody can do it. Even the dog can do it. But she's out there calling for us. Let her in. She is taking part of this interview. It's all about love. So that's how it came, the endotoxins that came to be. Yes.

Because that has, like I said, it has huge, huge clinical relevance. Come on. Sit down. Sit down. In my little cytokin. Sit down. Doesn't do anything. I can surprise the citican production in my body, but I cannot control my dog.

It's all about the love, you know? Absolutely. Very, very cool. I would love to see, you know, this, like I said, potentially be used to help treat depression to help treat a lot of depression. Oh, yes. Depression. It's my next day. Inflammatory.

Yeah. My wife died because of being schizophrenic, as they say. Like, no control. And I saw there was no control. I lost her and I have four kids with her. That's the way I began to have interest in scientific studies to show we are able to do so much more. It's in there. It's a soul search.

And that's why that's the way I began. Do you think that Holland may be more open to this type of treatment? And the reason I say this is because just a couple of days ago, I was at the Van Gogh Museum. You know, I'm a tourist and going to the Van Gogh. Yeah. We're all kind of drawn to Van Gogh because he's got this, you know, dark story. Yeah, yeah. He caught off his ear.

Same thing. Same thing. Yeah. And as I was reading through, you know, looking at his paintings and reading through, you know, the history behind it. Emotions and all that. Yeah. Yeah. What happened was he went into this sort of psychiatric hospital, and I thought immediately, oh, they probably put him on drugs.

I mean, that's what I thought. As I was reading, said, no, his prescription was two cold baths a day. Look at that. And that, I was, I mean, I looked at my husband, and I was like, are you kidding me? Is this really, you know, so is that something you think that maybe, you know, because this was in the Netherlands. Yes. It actually was in the south of France. with Van Gogh.

Oh, was it in the South of France? But he was so depressed and the light has got a lot of influence on depression. Melatonin, serotonin, the hormone production, etc. So he went to the South of France finally. And then Arles, somewhere in South of France, he got into the Sacriatic Asylum, but they did it new as well. Because the cold brings about the alarm cells and the body which suppresses the cytokine production per direct. But then the breathing even does more.

Yeah. Noropenephrine is induced, is increased by the cold and it suppresses the cytokine production. But the epinephrine from the breathing does it even more robust. But I was so curious that back in the late 1800s, they were saying cold bath. Why not now? You were the first one to tell me he took her best. Twice a day. My respect for Vincent forgot.

Who was a crazy motherfucker? I'm sorry. We cannot say that. Okay. But he cut off his ear and then shot himself. And my wife, like 200 years later, jumped from eighth floor. having four children. And I'm working with the children right now.

And we're having a great company. And we've got a lot of happiness and all that. But then those days, we had a lot of discomfort and no power. And being dependent on all these systems. And that's why I say, yeah, I'm sorry about the F word, but it's EF word. the systems, have these systems, because we are going to do something about this. And this time we're going to bring back the belief, but also the real chemical connection within the body and the brain toward all the people.

And that's regarding depression or any type of mental disorder or physical disorder. Yeah, inflammatory disorders. Yes. Inflammation, cytokin production. Are we able to tap into that? Yes. Are we able to tap into the vague nerve? Yes. Are we able to tap into the autonomic nervous system? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Please keep doing what you're doing and it's awesome. Your passion, your energy and what you're doing, I respect. And likewise, I respect your work, which is very good and it is really needed. So if people want to find out more about Wim Hof? I just go to inner fire.n-L, you know,

www-W, all these stripes like that, dot inner fire. Dot n-l. N-L is Netherlands. Inner fire, like I-N-N-E-R-F-I-R-E. Inner fire is about, you know, the cold is cold. Yeah. But if you go into the cold and this fire comes up, feel good.

That's the inner fire all about. So, www.w. w.a. Inafire. dot NL is the Netherlands. NL. You know,

Netherlands. And that's it? That's it. And the rest, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Nothing about Twitter and Witter and better.

And letter. I don't know. Yeah. And you've got like a training technique. Oh, yeah. We've got online videos. And we got a free video course. as well.