Good Life Project - Wim Hof: The Making of The Iceman.

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

Known widely as The Iceman, Wim Hof, is a Dutch-born world record holder, adventurer, daredevil and researcher.While best known for his seemingly freakish ability to withstand extreme cold, and the many world records that've come along with that, even more significant is the work he has done blending extreme cold with breathing and mindset exercises to alter physiology and short-circuit responses thought impossible to control.Through his Wim Hof Method, Wim asserts that he can “turn his own thermostat up” and consciously activate his sympathetic nervous system. What makes his work even more unusual is that he's partnered with academic researchers in a quest to scientifically validate, measure and teach his techniques.In this week's episode, we dive into the early life experiences that turned Wim on to the transformational power of extreme cold and water. We explore his obsession with existential questions and Eastern philosophy at an early age, how that led to him being viewed as a bit of an outcast and how he kept to his studies despite this. We also explore how the death of his wife and his experience raising his kids pushed him to explore extreme cold, breathing and mindset training as interventions for not just disease and inflammation, but also anxiety and depression.It also bears mentioning, Wim's ideas are very progressive, as with any health/lifestyle advice that pushes paradigms, be sure to check in with a qualified healthcare provider before exploring these ideas and, if you choose to try them, be sure to do so under the guidance of a trained professional and never alone.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The thing is, I was born too late. Almost too late. Suffocated almost. Purple. Little nothing. In the cold of the hallway before the operation room. I was born through the fear of my mother, but also her belief. She prayed. She thought she was losing this child. And she invocated or prayed while being shoved to the operation room. Oh God, let this child live. I will make him a missionary. So what if you could change your state of mind, your state of physiology,

your internal inflammatory response, your risk for disease, your ability to diminish stress and fight illness, not by taking anything, but by actually doing some very simple shifts in breathing and state of mind, and potentially also exposure to cold. Well, that's what today's guest Wim Hof has been studying for decades now and bringing what used to be esoteric practices into the world of science and validating them so that they are shareable with the world. That's the conversation that we dive into today, where those things came from, how he became interested in these, and what's behind his mission to scientifically validate all these different practices.

I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. You grew up in the Netherlands. Yes. Yes.

From what I read and what I hear and what I've listened to, nine kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just in the middle. Yeah. Nine kids, you know, four below, four up. Yeah. So they're born just a kilometer from the German border in the Netherlands and 12 kilometers from Belgium.

And yes, you know, like English was transmitted through the television, my time, I'm 58, so my time it was black and white TV, even a time without TV because there was just none it was a luxury tool then but very soon i learned words in when television came all in german because yeah it was very close no satellite tv it was just one kilometer from the border. And French, because of being very near to the Belgian border. And they talk French. So French, English, German, and Dutch is the way I grew up. And you learn the languages.

And then your mind is being exercised. Because you can't just drown into one language and try to define everything. No. It's like every meaning has four different words. And that's good. That's a good part to be born, to learn. I think in the schools, like primary schools and all, we forgot about the most important of life to be taught, which is happiness, strength, and health. That's my mission.

And that's done by exercising the mind. The mind should be exercised, but not just poured in with all kinds of facts and all kinds of unnecessary data are being poured in and neurological pathways are being created to take on a lot of crap and not related directly to our consciousness of being happy, strong and healthy. So your thing is a good life project or something. I think that's a great initiative. I feel very welcomed. Like my home is a home where there are good vibes only.

And if there is somebody clashing or having some arguing, hey, that's okay, but get back to the good vibes. We should learn that in school, in primary school. I can't argue with you there. When do you come to this, though? Because as we're sitting here, like you said, you're 58. You grew up learning five different languages. Actually, four.

Four. And then I enhanced it because I liked languages. Languages is all about traditions and cultures and the way the earth expresses it through a human mind. It's actually about traditions and cultures and the way the earth expresses it through a human mind. It's actually very beautiful. So it's also communication.

So a lot more languages on the way. But the only thing I know in Hebrew is that it was a little girl of my friend from Israel. And she always gave me a little kiss on my cheek. So when do you start really getting interested in these ideas that aren't taught in school, the mindset side of things? I think it relates to my birth. I was one of the twins, but they never suspected the second one to come. They only thought, there's a baby coming, that's it.

So no twins. There was no echo, scopics, or anything like that. So it was all on the hunch. Oh, there is another one. It can be two, but you never know. I was apparently too deeply inside the whim. And that's my name, Wim. No, that's a joke that's a joke thing is i was born too late almost too late suffocated almost purple little nothing in the cold of the hallway

before the operation rope i was born through the fear of my mother, but also her belief. She prayed. She thought she was losing this child. And she invocated or prayed while being shoved to the operation room. Oh God, let this child live. I will make him a missionary. And I'm on the mission now. I always was different because I had this traumatic birth.

And I was different of my identical twin brother. And that made me always listen to something mystical, something deeper, something out there, which was actually in me, the traumatic birth I was not aware of. I had to learn a connection with that. So at 12, I found my reading books, studying psychology and Hinduism and Buddhism. At 12? At 12, yes.

Just of your own interest? Yes, absolutely out of my own interest. And really drawn to anything esoteric. Began to practice all kinds of things in the esotericism, like meditation then at that time was a very strange thing. Right. I mean, how are your friends, your family sort of looking at you? Because I'm assuming that's not sort of the mainstream.

I come from the Netherlands. It's Dutch. There is a saying, you are like a strange duck in the pond. There are many ducks, but sometimes a duck gets lost of a different species of different country, and it is in the midst of the pond.

I felt like sometimes like that strange little duck or the black sheep of the family. But I was not a black sheep. It was just inside I wanted to enlighten something and I was always on the search. Nothing was really clear to me. Did you have a sense for what you were looking for? Absolutely not. Just a hunch, just an instinct, just an intuition I followed.

And why? Because it's simply there. It's related to trauma. And when trauma is there, your intuition, your subconscious knows that it needs to deal with it. Only to your awareness, you do not know. So you try to find a way and you don't know why, but you follow that feeling. And that feeling brought me finally in contact with cold water. Because then, at the moment when I first got into ice water, I really made this connection. Take me to that moment. Like walking from 12, psychology, Hinduism, and all those things.

Always on the debate, philosophy, religions, anything. Looking into it, practicing Kung Fu, yoga, Sufism, dance, anything. And all through your teen years. Yes. And 17 years is when I found myself on a Sunday morning pondering once again, like pondering. The strange duck in the pond, pondering. I'm also sometimes funny. This is after a whole lot of shit, man.

Okay, there I was pondering in the park. Sunday morning, nobody around, everybody asleep. And I felt attracted to the thin layer of ice on the water. I looked around, nobody there. Undressed myself and went in. And there it was. I felt, I just simply felt something that made me aware of connecting with this inexplicable something that happened while I was a baby. And now I found the source, the connection with that.

And that made me literally feeling that good. And not only did it make me feel that good, it also gave me a rush afterwards. I didn't feel any cold at all. Only was a minute in or something, and you know, your mind is still a little bit on after the first experience of, wow, you do not talk in your mind, you feel.

Now I know how it all works, but at that moment I was absolutely not aware, but it just felt good. So, going out, I felt all the day a rush. And that rush was great. So the other day, I just came back and see if it would happen again. And yes, it happened again. And from there, regular practice. And I became aware that breathing could make the difference in staying longer and become aware that the ice water was not an aggressive impact no more. So I stayed long and at a certain moment, a few months, only I could do like 25 deep breaths,

charge my body, oxygenize my body, and you could really feel it. And then going down and hold my breath for five to seven minutes every day in the morning. And I kept it all secluded because you know how people think. That's, he's crazy, he's a fool, he's this, he's that, whatever he is, but I just felt good. So I learned to do this for 25 years, very secluded,

all winter long, every day. Until the morning, I read in I read like 25 years later, I read this newspaper, and there was a little article about people who do strange things outside in wintertime, like in New York in wintertime, it's cold,

but still there are people who are busy doing things in the street. And it was about those people. And they gave a comment. Do everybody's inside nice and warm and this and that? How about the whore who's working outside and needs to make money? Or a man in the marketplace

who's making his money and all day long there. And people who work in the street, breaking it open in the cold, or in the morning when they have to bring the newspapers. And then I thought, I do something in the cold as well. So I'm going to call them. I called them, and they laughed at it. They came, the juniors, and I showed how to be like in the water without fear,

without cold, without being very flexible, putting two legs behind my shoulders in the most twisted ways, sort of yoga poses while being in the cold, not being stiff and all those things. And I showed them about the breathing and going under being stiff and all that or those things and i showed him about the breathing and going under the ice and all those then all my stories uh yeah and i did mountains barefoot in the snow and running outside and sitting outside a whole night long in in just shorts and feeling okay great and go and And almost an unbelievable article it was. And then from there on, television every day for 10 days,

like several TV stations. They really took it up and put me to the test and this and that. It was like a bomb inside in the news, something very peculiar, a stranger, and apparently my time to come in. So from there, I began to be challenged by TV reporters. And there was one guy, Willi Borte-Fricke, who was always, you know, the man with the balls. And going into and verify if something is true, yes or no. And he became sort of my best friend and like media father. And he brought me everywhere.

We went to Mount Everest. I climbed to Mount Everest in shorts to the death zone. I swam under the ice for 50 meters, 100 meters. I ran a full marathon in my shorts beyond the polar circle. And many more of those records, extreme in the extreme cold. I did. It's when the scientists came in. They began to be curious.

But this man in the news, in the television, documentaries, and meanwhile it was not Dutch TV no more, was all over the world. And everyone's got to be wondering, like, how is this happening? How is this possible? Yes, yes. And so BBC, National Geographic Discovery Channel, here in America. And then the scientists came in. And that began actually here in New York.

Here I was in front of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, very close to Tibet House. I stood there for one hour and a quarter, something like that, inuary in the eyes and about 20 of those teams of camera teams 20 different countries they saw some news yeah they are always like waiting here in new york for something to happen so there they were so it was like a busy beehive of TV reporters and journalists and ABC News who was doing a documentary on medical mysteries. I was the human popsicle. So I did that. And then the other day, I went to the Feinstein Institute, Biochemical Institute in Manhasset

under the supervision of Dr. Kevin Tracy, who is an authority in the biochemical institute in manhasset under the supervision of dr kevin tracy who is an authority in the biochemical field in the world and he was going to see if i was able to make changes in the blood of 312 values blood values while being in a, hooked up with a blood-taking device, infusion or something. This is while you were in a cold environment? Absolutely not. Just see if I was able with my meditation, that's the way they call it, to make a difference on the workings of the vague nerve.

The vague nerve normally is part of the autonomic nervous system. You cannot influence. Now, they took a long heart meter on one side and blood from the other side. And a week later, Dr. Ken Karmler, authority in the field of

the extreme and the Mount Everest expeditions for the Americans. He was also there with the Krakow expedition, you know, with the fatalities, 13 fatalities. He was there in one of the camps. So, yeah, they couldn't do anything. It was just too much. But he was there and he was calling me up a week later, after I did the documentary with ABC News,

Wim, if you are able to reproduce these results, then that means huge consequences for human mankind. Meaning the results that they took that one day. The blood values showing I was not only able to influence deeply into the vague nerve, this could possibly mean that we have found a way to battle autoimmune diseases, depression, and all those things caused by inflammation and deregulated immune system.

Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. inflammation, and deregulated immune system. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So what were they actually seeing? That I was influencing into the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is connected to the most of organs within the body so if you are able to intervene there then you are able to stop or activate or accelerate the workings of those organs to rebalance them and that is rebalancing the immune cells, the immune system.

Now, I heard of them. Okay, we are going to reproduce this, possibly with a comparative study in the Catskills. And they're in a retreat center and then do it. But a month later, I did not hear anything anymore. Radio silence. Why? Is it the pharmaceutical industry? Yes yes or no it's a natural method something you cannot make money out of i don't know doesn't matter three years later to me it was suddenly stop i wanted this my mission was born at that telephone call The missionary of whom my mother invocated it while I was born, there he was at that telephone

call because I know I am able to reproduce this in a group of persons within a couple of days to go in areas of the body in the physiology where scientists think it is not able to tap into that. Consequence of that is that we are just victims of autoimmune diseases and anything related to a deregulated immune system. Did you know that at that moment in time or was it things that you did after that that revealed that to you? At that time, I knew Dr. Ken Kamler. He summed up all the possible cures or solutions or research possibilities linked with all kinds of diseases like arthritis, Crohn's disease, MS, depression, anything, anything like that. He was summing up. So I knew at that moment, but what I did there in the chair, I can reproduce that anytime with anybody.

Right. So what I'm asking is, did you know that? Like right here, right now with you. Right. Maybe we should. Yes. Oh, but it's very easy. I got it on my website for free, free course.

And there you can just show up and do it. And it's tremendous how simple and effective it is and how tremendous the sensation is of oxygening yourself. And now it has been proven after the new studies that we are right into the lymphatic system past the firewalls. Right. So let's go there. But I want to bridge a gap first. Yes. Because, you know, my guess is all the early focus was on you, and probably the assumption was, well, you're kind of a freak of nature. Yes. Like, well, sure, you can do it because you've been doing this for 25 years, and somehow you've trained your body to be this rare person, or maybe there's something genetically or

environmentally just different about you. And what you're saying is that the ability to change your physiology that you developed at first as a way to be able to sustain yourself under ice for longer periods of time. Also, I guess then the research shows had these other physiological effects that could potentially be super beneficial. And the big realization is it's not just you. It's reproducible. Exactly. Point per point, one is genetical freak.

No, I got an identical twin brother. So genetically, I got the same walking out there, and he is not able to do that. So it's all based on training. So training, activating, awakening. Because in the end, it is a natural ability of ours which we lost through the alienation of comfort zone behavior where we live in we live with clothes we get lots of stress and we don't know how to control stress hormone and then yeah

if you get enough stress you deregulate anything in the end. But this is our society, our infrastructure. We forgot about nature. And this nature, which is still within us, the physiology, the basics of that, I know how to activate it now in order for us to handle stress. I mean, we learned to go away from nature. We ain't got no leopards or cougars or bears. Or cold and heat. As a possible danger anymore.

We got it all controlled. We live in houses. Nice and heated. When it is too warm we got air conditioning. And the only thing we need to be aware is. How to walk over a sidewalk and not be hit by a truck or a car. It's all in the mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind, mind. But at the same time, I mean, we don't have the most of us, you know, we're living in a sort of modern Western world.

We don't have those big dangerous stimuli that trigger the, you know, the really severe fight, flight, or freeze response. But we do live, many of us live in an environment where there's this sustained baseline level of stimulus that keeps, you know, not the extreme stress response, but it keeps like a mild to moderate stress response there chronically. Yes, exactly. So that mild stress response is out of control. We have no control over the stress hormone release within the body, which is the endocrine system, the hormonal system. Thus, cortisol is keeping on being within us, and it impedes the parasympathetic nervous system activity in the cell, the rehabilitation, the energy making factory, the peace, the being a witness and being relaxed, it's gone because the cortisol is constantly present. And that means a new energy is very hard being remade or reactivated. Thus, we have low energy levels and that in the end will deregulate all the systems the immune systems the endocrine the vascular anything the brain in the end because it's based on the

inflammation in which the immune system is not able to handle goes up in the brain we get depression out of control hormonal system it it creates a depression loss, depression. It's all very simple. And the other hand, biochemics, they tell me, we found now with these techniques, we found the way mother nature works within us, the ability to go into the deepest, which is actually the cause of all the autoimmune diseases, a constant presence of acidity in the lymphatic system. And because of our mild lifestyles, as you mentioned it, which is a very good one, I have to say, it's right on the finger on the problem. We have a constant presence of this, not only cortisol in our bodies, but also a constant slight level of acidity in the lymphatic system, which is not being worked out.

We don't know how to tap in, but now we found the techniques how to tap in and to change the acidity into alkalinity we have shown this very recently in a completed study with 48 people and a hundred percent score everybody going past the firewalls of the lymphatic knots in the central nervous system going right in the way we got in, like any mammal who is still stimulated by environmental sort of stress, like cold, heat, danger, and oppression and all, they are just working in deeper physiology.

They go past these lymphatic knots, and thus they have maybe the danger, like a rabbit, of a fox, and this and that, but for the rest, they have no autoimmune diseases or anything like that and it's only present in humans and only when the rabbits get too close to our environment in cities and all that they get myxomatosis like a blindness disease or something, and like dogs overbred these big dogs in the back legs, dysplasia. So, you know, they begin to, they cannot even walk anymore. Their dogs, like we are mammals, but we are no longer mammals anymore.

And we make our mammals, domestic animals, like cows and horses and all those, we put them out of nature. And then ask, why are they? We need the vats and all this to maintain. Nature is out there. Nature is the doctor. So we got back to the doctor and the doctor is right in us. And that's our ability to become the alchemist over our own chemistry in the depth, the way nature meant it to be. And that's really in the lymphatic system. And we just now have been measured this through a laser on the chest into the tissue, being able to measure the oxygen tension of the mitochondria in the tissue,

which is deeper than the blood flow. So for the first time that we are able to make a change to increase oxygen levels therein, thus it becomes alkaline. Thus you take away the cause of any deregulation of the immune system, how the immune diseases are caused by a long chronic presence of acidity coming back into the system. So, I mean, it's so interesting. What a story. I know.

Sorry. Why not? Once I begin to run, man, I'm running with the mind. Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. You know, what's interesting, too, is because what you're talking about. Thanks for having me here. Not only, but also let me talk.

And then you let me talk into the world but i can see the energy here now is changing and that's nice this is all about it we have to retrieve back our energies and then our energies is right here it's light it's beautiful it It's spiritual. It is sane. It's strong. It's like a charge. And everybody has it. And there is the sanity. There is the doctor. And we can guide always this energy toward this being light, like not being heavy, being light, not being dark.

I can't argue with any of that. What's interesting to me also is that all of the outcomes that you're talking about and the capabilities that you're talking about are things that, from what I've been taught over the years, are not within our conscious control. You know, there are autonomic systems in the body that are, you know, that I guess increasingly the research has shown, you know, there are autonomic systems in the body that are, you know, that I guess increasingly the research has shown, you know, becomes massively dysregulated through stress and environment. And now people are saying, well, maybe there are ways to treat this and to deal with this by changing nutrition and moving your body. But the idea of almost willing yourself to change, you know, through mindset practices. Wow, this is good.

This is good. I like you, man. You indicate the right things. This is no bullshit. Yeah. I love it. You know, right. So the ability to actually go willfully

and through mindset practices and breathing. I tell you, I tell you. Two months ago, I was at Michigan University and I showed in-brain scans, doing nothing, having a suit on, being poured in with tubes and ice water being poured into that suit, ice water. I was doing nothing. On the skin temperature monitoring, that skin temperature plummeted down to like 25 degrees. Correlating in the brain with absolute sympathetic nervous system activity is the part of the autonomic nervous system. Action, action.

It means action in the brain. You can correlate it with a certain part in the insula. Boom. All 100% action. the certain part in the insula boom all 100 action and then adrenaline directing to involuntarily into the brainstem producing adrenaline classic fight or flight response yes and that's because ice water is coming in right so you got three markers you got the action mode of the brain you got the brainstem producing adrenaline, and you've got the 25 degrees Celsius, centigrade, I mean, that's plummeting after exposure to ice water on the body,

and you could see it. So those correlate. Now, the other day, they did that one, they did two times, and they saw plummeting down, correlating with activation of the insular sympathetic modus, 100% action, plus adrenaline. That's what they saw. Okay, like all the others. And then the other day, I told myself, now I'm going to use my mind power, which I've learned in nature, how to deal with cold, with heat, with environmental stress. I learned with my mind, I go to the university,

and I set off, I'm going to make the change. So, this is all I did. Set the intention. Willfully, in the tube being there having ice water coming in through the suit i could not do anything like not breathe heavily or anything like that just lying you cannot contract muscles or anything because you get a blurred vision on the monitors of the brain. So there I was. Four times, seven and a half minutes, they exposed my body to ice water, see if correlating with the skin temperature going down,

the brain would go into sympathetic modus action together with adrenaline. Now what they saw was, and they measured it four times, they were really astounded, that there was no movement of my body, just my mind, skin temperature not going down after

exposure of ice water, and then the action modus of the brain was really on, together with the adrenaline, but not only the adrenaline, and not only the action motors, also the peace motors, the parasympathetic

motors, which is completely witnessing and nice, and then they saw the adrenaline, but a part of the adrenaline, absolute activation of the periductal gray hemisphere, which is the brainstem, which is the one of endorphins, opioids, cannabinoids, dopamines, serotonins. The feel-good stuff. All good. They were all working.

And you know, the skin temperature never went down. And that's our brain power. That's our mind power. And that's what we have lost, the connection of our brain with the body in the depth of the physiology. We have brought

this now back, and now very soon we're going to do a comparative study, because I still have to show I'm not the freak of nature. I'm not NS1 and the exception that confirms the rule. I'm talking to all you guys. You are equipped with a mind power that is very able to make you feel good in any situation and learn to control stress hormone.

And that's what we have shown in the hospitals already, comparative studies. The people who were doing these breathing techniques plus believing, believing as neuro messaging, neuro chemicals, they were able to produce while feeling good a little bit high adrenaline levels more than somebody like lying in bed more than somebody going into its first bunker jump so those are comparative blood values compared and it's beyond a doubt. We learn to control. We are equipped with a possible control over the stress hormone, 100%. And any stress on your body,

on your impact, could be heat, could be cold, could be grief, could be emotions. Anything of those, we are, from now on, able to tackle it with good feel hormones anytime yeah and a parasympathetic nervous modus which is just peace yeah i mean and the effects are on multiple levels psychological if you can if it has an elevating effect on your mood

and also physiological if it has a curative, I hate to use the word curative, but if it has an impact on your risk for disease, your illness, pain, your autoimmune response, I mean, those two things. What's really interesting to me is when I first was exposed to your work, which was probably a couple of years ago now. So I have a background in yoga and in meditation. And years and years ago, I first stumbled upon Herbert Benson's book, The Relaxation Response. And that was my first exposure to this thing that he called tummo yoga, or just tummo, you know, Tibetan for fierce woman, where he described the scene where Tibetan monks would have a ritual practice sitting outside in extreme colds,

be draped in shawls that were soaking wet, and enter this meditative and breath-oriented state where they would not only survive, but they would generate enough thermogenic heat, internal heat, that they would dry the shawls. And people thought he was nuts, you know, and people thought this was just myth. But, you know, some of those studies over the years have been replicated to certain extent, showing that there's that level of control. So it was interesting to me because when I started to look at your work, because when I first read Benson and when I first got exposed to that, my curiosity was, okay, so

through meditative practices and breathing, what those were telling me is we can alter our core body temperature. But I didn't think beyond, could we also alter autoimmune response? Could we alter stress response through these same things? So it's interesting is that the work that you're doing is sort of expanding on this and saying, yes, I mean, clearly we can alter both core and extremity body temperature in the most extreme environmental conditions. And at the same time, we may also be able to change our physiology in a way that affects so many other things, which is fascinating.

It is. And going back a little bit to this yoga, you know the first sutra of Patanjali, Atayoganu sasanam yoga cetavriti narodha tadadrasva svarpe vastanam. is yoga. You know the first sutra of Patanjali, It's a silencing of the modifications of the brain, of the beginning of the brain. And we don't know how to do that. And then we make that the highest level of yoga. Yoga means connecting.

Yeah, connecting with what? Now, because we have a Western mind we have a western pace we need to come up with specific solutions and use the natural already existent for thousands of years methods and disciplines and doctrines possibly but we have to it's like old wine in new barrels it's there now and we are verifying this or i'm verifying through scientific scrutiny and research so there is no speculation about this and now it is to be understood not through scriptures of far-expanding consciousness, enhancing writings of how Buddha is working through the bodhisattvas and the avatars and the fierce women like Gautama and Lama Lungumpa and all these Mahima and Lagimya cities and all those things.

No, it has come back. It's right there on your doorstep. It's just breathing. Breathing and believing brings us right to the highest level of yoga. Very practical, very here, very effective. And it's a matter of just do it. Now, I brought it through science, neuroscience, together with intensive care and nuclear science through fMRIs and all those things.

Really non-speculatively, physiology, both of the body and the brain, that we have found a way to go into the depth of the body and to direct our lives so much more. And who doesn't want to be happy, strong, and healthy? Now, we have analyzed this. Strength is like adrenaline, cortisol, all those, the control over the stress hormone. And then you got the health is knowing how to tap into the older levels of the immune system. We have shown this now and then the happiness is the good field hormones so the hormonal system and the immune system they are very very accessible and now is it the question is how do we get this knowledge it's a natural

ability of ours how we able to not only through this podcast but this is a question to you from me are we able to get this implemented into every person in the world because it's for free it's very effective and it's knowledge and it's breathing how do we get get a trump i saw i saw this morning he wants to get a bill through where one-sixth of all the americans will have so much more trouble with health insurance and all that what obama was doing i'm not into politics yeah i'm just into health and i think health should be for free. But the knowledge should be there because we are learned that we need doctors and pharmacies and food as it is and all that. No, I think this is the time to stop all the nonsense and to get sense back right here

that we are actually built to become happy, strong, and healthy, to have the ability to reconnect with the right knowledge. We are already in the university books and food industry and oil and all those things actually polluting our planet and polluting our bodies and not giving the consciousness of love composed by happiness strength and health which is non-sentimental it's just there every mother should be able to guarantee this to his daughter and or son. A child, that's love. And that love should be getting into the schooling system, being taught. Any child can learn this within five minutes.

They just mimic their papa and mama. If they just breathe and believe, then now, by science, it's going to change their lives it's not my philosophy i just found something in nature and passed it through the scientific scrutiny and the community and it's there so my question to you is how are we god damn it or god heaven or whatever you want it's beyond words it, strength, and health for everybody. How are we going to bring this to everybody's awareness? Yeah, I think it's through conversations like this. I think it's grassroots.

I think it's what you're doing now. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

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Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. As we sit here and record this, you're in New York, but you're also, you're traveling around the world. What you're doing, bigger picture, is a big part of the how, which is we've had claims of

control over so much of this through so many different healing traditions. And like you've said, if you buy into those traditions, you have to buy into those traditions. If you buy into them, you may be open to them, but the vast majority of Western society doesn't. So there's no openness to at least try the practices. So my sense is the work that you're exploring now, which is let me, if the lens that allows people to open to the possibility that something that they can literally do sitting at home on a daily basis can have a profound change on their state of being, their state of physiology, their state of mind. If we can show them that there's scientific validation

for these ideas and these practices, to me that's where the light starts to go on on a larger scale. To me that's where things get upset. I'm going to read you a mail of a guy, the Michigan University, where we just did the study on the brain. They are really convinced we are able to battle depression, anxiety, fear, trauma, and PTSD and all those. We found a key. And that it is. It is not mine anymore.

And these are professors talking. I just want to continue and share with through studies, through research. So anybody who is out there, help me to finance a study, which is possibly keys to a battle. All those things we think are unbeatable, like depression, fear, anxiety, here. More importantly, and as I mentioned on the phone, this is Professor Vaibhav Divakar from the Michigan Wayne State University Neuroscience Department, together with Otto Musick, also a professor. We did just recently this study. So for those listening, so Wim is just sharing an email.

Yeah, I'm sharing an email just to show that it is not about me. It's about findings. And imagine how big it is if we could change our mood anytime we want. Only for that, this is absolutely great news that we're sitting here together and have a bigger voice to more people just to reach common sense. Believe that we are able to change the physiology of the mind anytime i think that's great news so i'm just showing this is it's not my uh this is a mail after the findings the manuscript based on wimps data is nearly ready another 10 days or so. The title, Brain Not Body, reflects the insights we have gained from the PET, that's MRIs,

and fMRI scans. We will send you for the submission. More importantly, and as I mentioned on the phone, we are working on a grant that if funded by the NIMH, could be transformational. We intend to propose the use of the Wim Hof method.

That's my name, plus method. You can read upon it, plus.com, and then you get free courses. Just take it on because it works. It is validated as a lifestyle intervention for patients with mood disorders. The data from WIM clearly suggests very robust activation of the periaqueductal gray matter in the brainstem, which normally cannot be entered, and now it is entered, most likely is associated with the willful release of opioids and cannabinoids. Clearly, the WIM-Him Hof method appears to exert tonic changes in the brain's ability to release protective neurochemicals.

That in case of people with depression, they are attacked with the wrong chemicals. That's why they feel depressed. It's anxiety creating and all so we think that this is a potentially transformational technique that can change mental health and this is just part of the mail but we are really into trying to have this fund a objective study wherein we'll train 12 people who are depressed. I think I need a week to get the depression completely out and rebalance the hormonal system within the brain together with suppressing the inflammation, the inflammatory markers. A week, something like that, nothing more. And then for eight weeks, we will follow the results with fMRI and MRI scans.

Depression has its scopics. You can see what it is in the brain, et cetera, and non-depressive state you can see in the brain. So before and after, that's what we want to show to the world, that it works within a comparative study of people doing this, within a relatively very short period of time. The most difficult of mental problems we face in this society, anxiety, fear, depression, PTSD, trauma, all those things. Because we have learned to tap into the deepest of our physiology, both in the brain as in the body. Only this topic is already more than enough to do 10 podcasts here together. Because there are so many facts and so many data we already have gained. But who wants a natural method out in the open? It is not about money. It's about something natural. It's the belief and the breathing.

It doesn't cost anything. And it will bring, it will make the change in mental health. And I know this is, you can feel the fire coming off of you, that this is a big mission for you on a societal level. This is also personal for you, like when in the context of depression and with the loss of your wife. My wife suicided in 95. I was left alone with four kids. You're completely powerless at that moment. You're brokenhearted.

So your emotional trauma is enormous. And you're just out of power, out of energy, out of any. And I had to raise four kids on my own. That was the love of my life. How deep can you be killed within your emotional being, within your understanding? What is security? And all that was completely devastated, gone. So from there I started.

And I could not find relief of anxiety, of emotional distress in society and with people. No, I could find it in the cold. And climbing without gear in rocks and things because nobody had an answer. And I tell you, I got an answer now. And I bring it right in front of your doorstep. It's here and so for all those who live in emotional distress or anxiety

or out of control of their own moods, not only moods, but also we have proven to be very successful in suppressing the inflammatory markers, so inflammation and chronic pain. We just completed a new study in the Netherlands of 48 people with that. And it's amazing what people can do just with breathing and believing. It's amazing. And a cold shower a day takes the doctor away. I keep it simple, you know.

But if you keep it simple, then it's going to be simple. And not complicated within the mind. It's going to decomplicate then you are able to embrace the true nature of our minds being simple being in pure energy being aware of that and then you have plenty of energy and plenty of control within the hormonal system becoming happy strong healthy yes sir the soul then is beginning to breathe and then the inexplicable suddenly becomes real in front of your awareness we have a purpose in life and that understanding is done will naturally come back and And we lost this. We are into making from, you know, power. And New York's beautiful.

I see the power of the mind. You know, all these big buildings. As a visitor, not as somebody who lives there. As a visitor, I think it's amazing because I like rocks and climbing. But, hey, there is also more out there, which is actually in us. So it feels like a good place to come full circle with us. So as

we sit here, the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that, just that phrase out to you, to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life? Yeah, just get back to simplicity and the greatest control of your mind is becoming happy strong and healthy rest is bullshit so whatever is put in sentences and and books and all that get back

get back it's so beautiful inside and from the inside goes outside. You begin to radiate again. And that's the good life project. Yes. From here, we should be able to bring this awareness to everybody. And with that, the love. Spreading the love, which is coming from us right here, right now. And this is the way nature meant to be. And from here, we go unlimited far. And this is the way nature meant to be. And from here we go unlimited far and embrace expanding consciousness together, the real and purpose of life, which is an adventure,

a miracle every day. So yeah, yeah. Good luck. Thank you. Right on. Right on. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we've included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app. So you never miss an episode and then share the good life project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time.