The Rich Roll Podcast - “The Iceman” Wim Hof On Why Breath is Life, Cold is God & Feeling is Understanding

Episode Date: June 13, 2016

Today's guest will challenge everything you thought you knew about human potential and leave you with one indelible, ineradicable truth: We are all sitting atop vast reservoirs of untapped, almost superhuman capabilities. Meet Wim Hof, aka The Iceman. A Dutch-born world record holder, adventurer, daredevil and human guinea pig, The Iceman is best known for his preternatural ability to withstand extreme cold. Perhaps more significant and compelling is his experimentation and experience with specific and teachable breathing techniques. Rooted in the ancient yogic tradition of pranayama and canonized for a modern audience as The Wim Hof Method, Wim asserts that he can “turn his own thermostat up” and consciously activate his sympathetic nervous system by using his mind through yoga. This may sound far-fetched. But get a grip on some of the crazy things this holder of more than 20 world records has accomplished: * shirtless adorned in nothing but shorts, Wim scaled above death zone altitude (22,000 ft) on Mount Everest; * barefoot, shirtless and again in nothing but shorts, Wim completed a full marathon above the polar circle in Finland; * he summited Kilimanjaro in less than 2 days, again in nothing but shorts; * above the polar circle, he swam a world record 66 meters under a meter of ice; * he can sit in an ice bath for almost 2 hours; and * in 2011, he ran a full marathon in the Namib Desert without water But there's more. Under doctor supervision, In 2011 Wim voluntarily allowed himself to be injected with a poisonous E. coli endotoxin certain to make any human being very ill. The idea was to demonstrate that by using his meditation and breathing techniques he could effectively control his autonomic immune system response and nullify any deleterious health implications. Wim did not get sick. Beyond his countless feats of incredulity, he’s a long-time vegetarian who — for the last 30+ years — has refrained from eating any food before 6pm. All of this is seemingly insane. But Wim is hardly a carnival sideshow act — the physical stunts merely a means of attracting scientific community attention for purposes of study and documentation. Ask Wim and he will tell you that he is nothing special. He declares his feats replicable and his methods teachable — a curriculum that holds the potential to unlock a battery of human superpowers that extend well beyond extreme temperature tolerance to include control over a wide array of sympathetic nervous system and metabolic ‘reptilian brain' functions previously thought to be beyond conscious manipulation. Case in point? After a mere 4 days of instruction, Wim led a group of brave, volunteering students through his endotoxin exposure experiment (again, under doctor supervision and scientific observation). Not one of them got sick. And he now routinely takes groups of students – most of which you would characterize as non-athletes — up Kilamanjaro. In nothing but shorts of course. An absolutely fascinating guy with charm and charisma for miles, my conversation with Wim is less about human biology than it is about belief systems. It's an exploration of dormant biological and mental potential. It's about yoga, grief, depression, change and the nature of consciousness. And it's about the ever expanding event horizon of human potential that should push and challenge and nudge you out of your comfort zone to call into question the unnecessary limits we self-impose upon ourselves daily. Enjoy! Rich

Hey people, I've got a really great show for you guys today that's all about breath work and cold exposure. But I got to give you a quick warning slash disclaimer before we get into it. Never attempt the kind of breathing exercises we will be discussing today in water or before gaining proper training experience in water. Do not use the Wim Hof method without proper supervision. Cold exposure requires gradual buildup and shallow water blackouts can be fatal. If you listen to my podcast on freediving with Tank Sade and Adam Skolnick, then you know just how dangerous it can be. Now with that out of the way, enjoy the show. Anybody is able to tap into his system to regain control over his hormonal systems immune systems making

them guaranteeing them healthiness happiness and strength and that's only you know it's constituting in three words but actually it's love i love everybody because life is for love your life is great and It's every moment. That's Wim Hof, aka The Iceman, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. I don't show you. I don't show you. You don't know me anymore. Greetings. How's everybody doing?

My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, the show where each week I sit down with a paradigm-breaking thought leader, experts across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, fitness, spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, entrepreneurship, creativity. And the reason I do this is to help all of us forge a better path towards unlocking and unleashing our best, most authentic selves.

That's the goal. Okay, crazy pumped to have the one and only Wim Hof, the Iceman on the show today. This is an interview that I have wanted to make happen for a very long time after seeing the spectacular documentary on Vice. Vice did an incredible like sort of 20-minute piece on him that was just captivating. And then hearing more about his incredible story on Joe Rogan's podcast and Tim Ferriss's podcast and my friend Rhonda Patrick's podcast.

And I'm just delighted that he made a point of coming by our home on his recent visit to LA from his home in Amsterdam to sit down and talk with me. And I got a whole bunch more I wanna say about Wim and what to expect in this interview, but first. All right, you guys, today's guest, Wim Hof, a.k.a. the Iceman. If you've never heard of this guy before, you are in for a treat. He is a character bar none, certainly unlike anybody I've ever met before, let alone anybody I've ever had on the show before. But if you're new to him, he is a Dutch world record holder.

He's an adventurer, kind of a daredevil, best known for his ability to withstand extreme cold. But to me, perhaps more significant and interesting is his experimentation and experience with specific and teachable breathing techniques. It's something he's canonized as the Wim Hof method. And this is a method that he'll tell you holds the potential to unlock basically human superpowers that include not only temperature tolerance, but also control over your autoimmune response, over your immune system. It's actually incredible. And this may sound crazy or far-fetched, but get a grip on some of the crazy things this guy has done. In 2007, he climbed past the death zone altitude on Mount Everest.

He didn't get all the way to the summit, but he got almost to the summit wearing nothing but shorts, not even a t-shirt, no oxygen assistance, nothing. Just think about that for a minute. In 2009, he ran a full marathon in Finland above the polar circle in negative four degrees Fahrenheit temperatures. He did it barefoot, dressed in nothing but shorts. Again, no t-shirt. It's crazy, right? He has the Guinness World Record for the longest ice bath,

one hour and 53 minutes. In 2011, he ran a full marathon in the Namib Desert, so he can tolerate heat as well as cold. And here's something really fascinating. Also in 2011, he allowed himself to be injected with an endotoxin under doctor supervision. And leveraging his breathing techniques and meditation, he was able to control his autonomic immune response. Essentially what I'm saying is that he prevented himself from getting sick. He got injected with a poison that would make anybody sick. The guy did not get sick. It's crazy, right? Beyond that, and for the last 30 years, he's a vegetarian.

He never eats food before 6 p.m. All of this is seemingly insane. But what makes Wim really unique is that he has invited the scientific community to study him and his methods. Everything's documented. And the fascinating thing about all of this is that Wim will tell you that he's nothing special, that all of his methods are not only replicable, but teachable, that anybody can do it. Case in point, in just four days of instruction, he had a group of students injected with the same toxin. He took them through his program, the Wim Hof method. And under doctor supervision, these students were injected with

the same toxin that he was injected with. Not one of them got sick. Not one of them got sick. It's crazy, right? And he now routinely takes groups of people he has instructed on his method, most of which you would characterize as non-athletes, up to summit Kilimanjaro in nothing but shorts. This is crazy, right? He's an absolutely fascinating guy. He's got charm and charisma for miles. But this conversation is less about human biology than it is about belief systems, about human potential, should push and challenge and nudge you and me

and everyone out of our collective comfort zones to call into question how we all unnecessarily limit ourselves every single day. So sit back, take a deep breath, and prepare for one of the most compelling and unique conversations I've ever had. Excellent. All right, man. So we got to just be a little bit up on the mics, like a little close, and then we're good. You ready to go? Yes. Let's rock it. Rock it.

Yeah. Welcome to Los Angeles. Thank you. How long are you here for? A whole week. Yeah. And yeah, I'm meeting all kinds of people, Red Bull. We're going're gonna do uh you know the top athletes uh-huh the extreme uh athletes i'm gonna uh train them a day in june through the red bull performance yes thing oh that's pretty cool man yeah yeah it's like a half a billion viewers yeah that's amazing

that's amazing and this morning we had talks with Warner Brothers. They want to do a series. Oh, wow. Yeah. The Iceman. Yeah, man. He coming to TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're blowing up. Yeah, man. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were just with David Blaine this morning? That was yesterday. Oh, yesterday. He's trying to figure out your secrets.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's no illusion difference right it's about him before no no no but he told me you were studying me already for 10 years oh wow so finally we come together and and it directly hit off right and I think we are gonna do two world two world records in um in september so like collaborating on a project or you guys are gonna both like go at each other like no no no no no not competing though i you never know yeah can you say are you so you're trying to conceptualize some kind of uh challenge or something we're to climb Kilimanjaro in shorts.

But that's nothing for you. Absolute record time. Oh, I see. For speed. You know, fast. For speed, yeah. Yeah, speed, no acclimatization. Go direct to the top.

I like it. Yeah, I know. You must because you have been there too. Right. You know, mountains and nature and all that. You got to connect, man. Uh, yeah, I know you must because you, uh, you have been there too. Right. You know, mountains and nature and all that. You got to connect man. And a yes.

And the other one is the North pole swimming four times this swimming pool of yours. Oh yeah. A hundred, a hundred yards swimming at the North pole. Yeah. No, no wetsuit. Of course. No wetsuit. Totally naked. Yes, sir. Almost. I love no wetsuit, of course. No wetsuit. Totally naked. Yes, sir. Almost.

I love it, man. That's fantastic. We love nature. Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. This has been I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. Thank you for coming to my home. We have lots of friends and mutual acquaintances. And so I've spent plenty of time listening to you from my friends podcast Rhonda, Joe Rogan you know they're great all these people Ray Cronice is a friend of mine you know so lots of lots of people in common a lot of excitement about us talking so very cool and in kind of like taking a you know a bird's eye glance of everything that you're doing, I thought an interesting point to kind of embark upon is just this idea that I had that is reflective of your work, which is we're all, like sort of modern culture, we're all trying to control our external environment.

You know, it's all about the house that we live in or the car that we drive, and it's about comfort and security. And if you can afford it, luxury, we're trying to control the people in our lives, which never works. And this leads to frustration and depression. And we're not really tapped into the idea that we can actually control our internal environment. We sort of believe that that is outside of our mandate. And if there's something wrong with us, we'll take a pill or go to a doctor. But it eludes us that we can actually exert some level of domain over that. And your work really demonstrates that that is focusing on that and developing that and cultivating that is the true kind of actual path towards happiness, satisfaction, and living a healthy, happy life. Yes.

Is that accurate? Yeah, that's absolutely accurate. And it is in the universitarian books now. So they changed the books, talking about chapter 22, biology now, saying the Iceman. But it's not about the iceman it's about a comparative study wherein we have shown 100 score that everybody uh within a couple of days is able after awakening their inner abilities uh making a brain body connection right right, like Mother Nature meant it to be, that we are able to tap into the endocrine systems and the immune systems far better, far better.

And the endocrine system is all about the hormones. They saw people lying in bed producing more adrenaline, that's the stress hormone in a control absolutely controlled way in the easy they felt a little bit high and nice but they were producing more adrenaline than somebody going into its first bunker jump and traditionally just to like put a pin in that that traditionally our conventional wisdom is that a human being can't control their auto, you know, autonomous nervous system. That's why it's called the autonomous nervous system. It's anchored in the primitive brain.

This is your fight or flight response. And it's outside of your sort of conscious control. And it is logic that it is. It's like a muscle, a non-trained muscle it's there but never has been stimulated because we always choose for the comfort right and and there is you know a tradition of sadhus dating back thousands of years you know with all these sort of anecdotal stories of amazing things that they can and could do i mean i remember as a kid watching a television show in the United States called That's Incredible. And there was the Yogi Kudu and he would fold himself

into a tiny lucite box and they would put it at the bottom of a swimming pool. He would slow his heart rate and he would be down there for an interminable length of time. And then you hear about these, you know, guys meditating in the caves of the Himalayas and they don't eat anymore and they've been doing it for months and they they seem to have control over their metabolic rate their metabolic systems on some level and yet we kind of scoff at that and say well you know that's just stories that didn't really happen but I think your work and what you've demonstrated you're kind of a modern day incarnation of that but the difference is that you have um you've caught the attention of not only the mainstream public but the scientific community who's began to study you

and verify these results and i think that that really is a game changer it really makes people look at what's happening in a very very different unique and compelling way it is so and studies are ongoing uh and it started like two and a half years ago, showing that the autonomic nervous system can be influenced, that in relationship to the immune systems and the green systems. And anybody can do it. That has changed the scope already, but yet it is not implemented in our thinking infrastructure,

the way we handle things in the world, because whole industries working upon our health by pills and food and all that, and it's making money. And power is over there. I don't want to upset that. I'm not upset. I'm not anti-industry and all that

absolutely not but i'm pro-human and uh humans they finally always go for development and what we have shown is something very effective very accessible for anybody to uh to take on and yeah we got it scientifically endorsed so there is no speculation about it well let's uh let's define what it is exactly that we're talking about right like what is the wim hof method and then i want to get into the origin story but let's at least talk about you know what it what it is that you know we're referencing here yes uh what they saw with the breathing techniques within a hospital that uh if we raise the ph levels within our body say within 20 minutes and we have proven this in scientific studies already, to go far up and controlled, then we do not need to breathe for a long time. Because the breathing begins when you become acidic.

Carbon dioxide, and that's the trigger to breathe again. Once you get the pH levels up, your body is very able to function and as it is able to function then we are able to manipulate by not taking oxygen inside ourselves anymore then what after one a half minute without oxygen or air in the lungs, yet with the pH levels right on, the oxygen's parameter in the brainstem is alerted because there is no oxygen anymore. But there is no need for it. Here comes the interesting part then. It goes down from 100% to 90, 80, 70. What goes down?

A saturation of oxygen in the blood. Oxygen level in the blood. Okay, gotcha. Yes. It really goes down. And it goes dramatically down. It can be gone down where the measurements of nowadays are just being shut down that's 30 percent people normally die at 40 50 percent but because we are our ph levels are right nothing is going on yeah you feel great

a little bit high but because there is no oxygen and we got in the into the brainstem consciously we this is what mammals not can do we do it consciously consciously manipulating by breathing techniques then the adrenaline shoots out through the body in a in a in, bang, and you get into the best of functionality and all the systems work the way nature meant it to be. Interesting. And the technique is really a sort of version of pranayama, like it's deep inhales and then releasing, right? How does it work? deep inhales and then releasing right there there's an equivalent uh in the in the yogic

tradition in the pranayama tradition about kumbhaka yoga you have the uh the bahia satya kumbhaka which is retenting from breathing after inhalation or after exhalation and then you have Kevala Kumbhaka which is retenting from breath like you said in the beginning about this dooku kudu the yogi kudu yeah yeah yoga kudu and it was then staying under and that's Kevala but it takes years of practice years of practice, what we do, is showing scientifically not only that everybody is able to go into the autonomic nervous system, which normally takes years of practice. Right. Years and years.

And no, you can do it in 20 minutes. 20 minutes without, because it's basically, it doesn't require any thought, right? You just do this and this is what happens. what it also is you your brain shuts down i mean the upper part the thinking part really has been shut down you get into the limbic system the mammalian brain and you just feel that's it and it's because of this brain, what do I say, breathing technique, the blood flow gets into the deeper parts of the brain, and it feels great. Well, I feel like in our culture, we're all up in our thinking brain all the time, and we forget that there is the primitive brain there.

It goes unattended to, and you're kind of flipping it and saying, we need to focus on the primitive brain and shut down the thinking brain. And I wish I could. It's like meditation, all these techniques, they're all designed to quiet that chatter of the thinking mind. Yes. This one is shutting down that part of the brain, the unnecessary part of it, the unnecessary functionality of it,

keeping on, keeping on, keeping on, not being able to shut it down and to feel, just feel. Normally, it takes very deep meditation to get there. Now, with this breathing technique, it has been done, say, four minutes. with this breathing technique it it has been done to say four minutes you get into this state into the deeper parts of the brain up till the brain stem and the brain stem is even deeper that's the reptilian brain so uh and where does it flip into one's ability to then it's interesting i i get to i i feel we are going into the core yeah all right we'll go for it yes yes so yeah like where where is the part where you then are exerting some control over your you know endocrine functions and your hormone you know your hormonal functions and

and your immune response like how does that like explain how that actually transpires wow yeah once again what we do is conscious breathing is what mammals not are able to do except for the dolphins right yes and the rest of the animals they cannot do this but we can do this and so if we do this then we just tap into the deepest part of the brain. And that's where the pineal gland, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, pituitary gland, they are all there. We could not get there. That's the hormonal mechanism. That's the center, the directive, the directives.

And now we are able to tap in and neurologically make new patterns toward it in order for a after practicing some sometime a couple of weeks maybe some months depends on the intensity of your training. There you grasp you are the one who is able to influence in that what creates mood, health, and strength. And it has been shown that it influences into the DNA. How to explain that aspect of it? There is a station in the DNA, which is called nuclear factor kappa B. And it controls all the genes.

It makes the genes are like traffic lights. A cancer cell should be on red. Not the expression of the gene. Yes. not the expression of the gene yes so it has been shown that these exercises they get into that station and regulate uh create the right chemistry in the cell in the dna and therefore a cancer cell stops uh you know it gets into red and uh and that what causes energy get gets into green and It regulates because we are that being

which should be able to function in any natural setting and That means it shouldn't be no cancer. There should be no depression there should be no disease of chrome because then you are not able to function but here comes the consciousness it comes in and because we do all this conscious uh consciously we are able to become a happy strong and healthy i like the consciousness part yes me too but this is the most interesting everybody everybody wants to talk about the science and i want to talk about the alkalinity and all that kind of stuff because it's all super fascinating but you know there's a there's a spiritual through line through this right like this this this began as a personal

journey on your part to you peace and wholeness. It was birthed out of pain. Yes. Right? Oh, yes. So maybe we can step back a little bit and talk about that. Grief. Something very abstract.

Losing your wife because of schizophrenia. Jumping from an eighth story down, having four children alone. She was the love of my life. How old were you then? 35. Yeah. And yes, nobody to console me.

Whatever is inside, you can't console it console it you know heal it with hypocrisy you have to go deep and so i began to look into nature had you been playing around with cold water prior to that or did that i did this experience introduce grief made me go more consciously, more concentrated, more focused into that area of the brainstem, the emotional center, the amygdala, and learn how to influence therein because it creates discomfort, grief. It creates dysfunctionality, bringing up alone for kids for children so i have to with four kids it's not like you have i mean you just have to do what's in front of you to take care of that i have four kids you know i know what that's like yeah there's no time to that it is be with yourself yes but still there so i dealt with that and i came at the first you deal until you feel different and then later you begin to think about it right and what's what what what

is it it comes to your brain to come to your consciousness but you've been studying a number of traditions over the years right like i know you studied all kinds of different types of yoga and you know meditation techniques and you know you're pretty well read on you know all of that universe in that world yes on some level all of that informs this yes yes but it's like copying. But whenever something comes to you, then you specifically need to go into it. And then it's different. Maybe you can have a hammer, but until you need the shack, you're not using it.

Right, right. But you know how to somehow. But then it really comes to your consciousness and you begin to deal with it and you make whatever you need but the cold was really the revelation it is you know the cold brings you right here right now so was there like a lightning bolt moment where it dawned upon you that that exposure to cold has a certain kind of property like a healing property that you wanted to explore further or was it an evolution of just you know plunging into cold water no no it was absolutely

no plunging because prior to my first cold plunge or not plunging just immersion I had done a lot of reading a lot of practices and traditions cultures languages anything you know philosophizing and religions or all kinds of things and then but still yet I did not feel that connection within is when that day I felt attracted to this cold water I went in and bang there it was from the inside right so what happened next like what did you take with that information you know it's a feeling it's a feeling deep feeling a deep understanding and then it yeah begins to awaken it begins to grow on you uh you feel good and you feel that you consciously are able to exceed the limits and very fast and it brought me silence you know what it is if you i'm not

recommending this right now to nobody just go gradually if you do these things but i i stayed like five to seven minutes under the ice easy does it very controlled how long into your experimentation were you able to only took me i was already prior to that into all kinds of disciplines so i had my basic conditioning of my body and it served me and uh because of the yeah i got focused and i and i just followed my feeling and that's what i say always don't force do not force the guide your feeling knows how to get into the depth of your body it's natural don't force the guy don't hit the guy don't do not be aggressive what they call in yoga ahimsa no harm yes no harm and uh it really brings you uh down there in the depth and uh that was not so it wasn't not clear in the books so there i found it and from there i i just followed this natural path i didn't read

almost nothing anymore it was very i mean the whole thing is very instinctual right you were like tapping into your intuition and just following this knowingness that was deep inside you that's why there's this bizarre like destiny aspect of this whole thing because it wasn't like you read it in a book it wasn't like you read it in a book. It wasn't like somebody explained it to you. You just knew, like you knew you were the ice man. Yeah. Yeah.

Inside something was growing and taking over in a positive way. And, uh, and, and, you know, when did the first kind of crazy stunts start occurring? When do you start you know trying to are people starting to pay attention to you i know you've had you know people telling you were crazy from the beginning yeah uh it was when the television came in because i did my practices outside in the winter all the winter long and you live i mean i watched the the vice documentary so you live right there on the water, right? Yeah.

So people are seeing you doing this. Like it's very much out in the public. Yeah, yeah. I'm a peaceful man. I just swim in the winter outside and, yeah, I make my holes and things and they just leave me alone, you know. But probably everybody, like long before we all know you as the Iceman, in your neighborhood, people knew, oh, there's the Iceman, right? Because you're the crazy guy who's swimming in the water in the middle of winter.

Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. A lot of mockery and cynicism, but, you know, I'm not harming nobody. I'm always whistling and happy. Okay. So somebody at a television station wanted to do something. How does that work? Yeah, first it was a newspaper article.

And from there, when it was published, I told them that, yeah, I do all kinds of challenges. Anywhere, in the mountains. I walk for hours barefoot in the mountains, in the snow, and I do my practices during all the winter, every day in my ice hole. And I do all kinds of breathing techniques. I see lights and it's, wow, it's great. I don't need any drugs living in Amsterdam. I just am totally armed with my natural drugs.

You're the highest guy, not high in Amsterdam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could say that. You could say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So, all right. So then this TV channel wants to do something.

So what is the first thing that gets broadcast? Yeah. The first thing was to swim in December. It was just for a report, seven minutes. And they took out the boat and began to follow me, me swimming in ice cold water outside. And I did it for, I don't't know half hour or something right and they were just astonished and then after the half hour i was not like you know uh half paralyzed or stiff because of the cold i did all kind of yogic postures or you know if i putting two legs in my uh behind my uh neck head and uh or stand on one hand and uh do uh splits and uh and having fun right so they then afterwards they saw

this and then they began to challenge me maybe you come come to Finland and you swim under the ice. Are you up to that? And are you able to do that? I do that all the time. Okay. And then they first took me up for seven meters, like seven yards, eight yards, something like that. But then I said, well, I can do a lot more. So I did like 50 yards, 60 yards.

And then this first, before the first racket, Guinness World Racket, which was going to be 50 meters, I did this rehearsal because I didn't know to wear goggles. And after 35 meters, 40 yards, something like that, I lost sight. So I couldn't see anything. I got lost. That was a great experience because I did more than double the distance trying to look for the hole, you know.

You did 66 meters, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your dive, I mean the the ice is a meter thick you have a hole and then you have another hole 50 meters down or whatever yeah so how far were you swimming underwater before your retinas froze and you lost sight uh that was about 40 yards and then i lost it and i was looking looking and finally i swam over the 110 meters and then a diver grabbed my ankle because they saw me hey he's gone what is that happening what's happening he's too long down there and they got me back to the 50 meter hole so. So the other day, I had to do the official record,

which was like the half. I got you. Right, right, right. But when you lost your sight, and you know you're under a meter of ice, and you're not going to be able to see where that hole is. I mean, what is going on mentally and emotionally? That was remarkable,

because I never felt the drowning, the agony of drowning. No panic response. No panic response, totally under control. And that's because my pH level later on began to understand what was chemically going on within the body. I was fully in control. Maybe I had no oxygen anymore, but my body was very able to uh function keep on functioning because the chemistry was right and my car i was really conscious all the time i've had it's interesting i've had some free divers on the podcast and i

had recently had a guy named adam skolnick who lives in Malibu actually, who wrote, uh, an amazing book called one breath about, uh, Nick Mavoli, who was a American champion free diver who, who died, uh, at vertical blue a couple of years ago. But one of the things we were talking about, which is super interesting is what happens when you get past that, like when you, when the body automatically starts to crave oxygen and you have that sort of panic impulse or you're like gagging you know for air yeah if you can weather through that you get past that because it's it's not that your body actually needs oxygen it has enough it's just this nervous response because it knows it's going to be running out soon but you actually have more of a supply of it and

once you get past that then that goes away right and so a lot of these guys end up yes you know they go too far to black out because they're not feeling that anymore right they're trying to push that edge so i'm curious about what you're i'm sure you've experienced that and what that's like for you yeah yeah i experienced it uh twice. And yeah, divers were there finally to take me back. But I was already like sleeping. Yeah. A little. But okay, you know, I was still conscious, but sleeping.

And then arriving at the hole, coming to the surface, you do. Oh, yeah. What's up yeah okay oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it's amazing so from there so you've done you have like i don't know 20 guinness book of world records right 26. and the the sort of notable ones are that and also the the sort of notable ones are that and also uh scaling everest in shorts you had spikes on but no t-shirt and shorts right but there was like wasn't there i read there was like a you had a foot problem or something that prevented you from getting all the way to the summit yes you were all you were like pretty far up there yeah yeah yeah yeah i was very fast very okay there completely acclimatized and actually had absolutely no problem except for my left forefoot three months prior to that i did a half marathon in extreme conditions beyond the polar

circle in january barefoot barefoot and i suffered from self-inflicted injury, cold injury. And the professors told me it was irreparable damage was done. But I had to wait for four months. I said, no, no, that's not possible. In three months, I'm on Everest. I'm going. So I began to heal myself. And a month later, inner and outer of my foot was healed was okay and i went there but then i discovered that the flexibility of the veins the arterial circumference closing and

opening needs to be you know it's an extreme up there right because there's one third of the oxygen and it all works on the veins. They have to adapt, open, close, open, close, open, close. And it was not flexible enough and I felt that. And that made me turn around. I see. I'm crazy, but not an idiot. Not that crazy. Right, right, right.

Well, I feel like, I mean, I'm no expert on Everest or mountaineering at all, Right, right, right. Well, I feel like, I mean, I'm no expert on Everest or mountaineering at all, but I feel like a lot of the people that end up getting into big trouble is a result of making poor decisions, perhaps because their brain isn't functioning at its peak because of the thin air, right? So they're not turning back or they're being a little bit rash. Yeah, exactly.

Like that's an extreme example of that. But do you feel like you want to go back and summit it if right now um uh yes why not i can i can do it and when you were doing it yeah did you have a bunch of sure but i mean what is everyone else thinking who's part of your no that team and we're quite a loner base camp i'm quite a loner dar At base camp? I'm quite a loner, Darren. If I feel, I go. And Sherpas, they leave me all alone. They know at a certain point. He knows what he is doing. Let him go.

He's okay. He doesn't need my guidance. And I go. Just go up. Bum. And I always come back back and I'm okay. And they see it. My control is good. I think my control is better than all the alpinists because I'm insured.

I'm much more in contact with the nature. I can read the nature. I can feel the nature. In other words, if you're insulated from your environment because of your attire or oxygen tanks then then you're not really completely in touch with what's actually going on that that it is yeah that it is interesting yeah all right so you did that and you ran this uh half marathon above the arctic circle right where was that northern finland yeah lapland uh-huh in lapland yes barefoot don't get like, well, you did injure your foot, right? But you don't get frostbite on your feet?

Yes, that I was. Is that what it was? How cold was it? It went up down to minus 30 Celsius. Right. So that's like minus four or something like that Fahrenheit. Yes, minus four Fahrenheit. That's, yeah, that four or something like that Fahrenheit. Yes, minus four Fahrenheit. That's really cold.

Right. And it's also the surface. If the surface is sharp, you know, it does things. And it takes away, it scratches away the skin. So, yeah, all those factors resulted in self-inflicted cold injury. And then finally, the marathon that you ran in the Namib Desert, right, in southern Africa. Yeah. No water, one of the driest deserts on the planet.

So this isn't just about acclimating to the cold. It's about self-regulation. Exactly the cold it's about it's it's about self regulation exactly or hot right yes and that is um we got these temperature sensors and they are connected with the immune system the autonomic nervous system and all that but we don't know how it works anymore and now they begin to see it because we prove it by scientific measuring and me training people just in a couple of days being able to endure freezing cold insures for hours and that means that those temperature senses they are under uh conscious uh in conscious connection the brain body connection is back there well this is where we get to the real heart of the story because it's one thing to say oh the ice man he's this

outlier you know the ice man is the ice man only he can do this he's a you know, the Iceman is the Iceman, only he can do this. He's a, you know, a sideshow situation, but you're, you've maintained from the beginning that you're nothing special, that this is something that can be not only learned, but easily learned and implemented and then scaled for the health benefit of everybody. Exactly. And what's interesting is that whether it's the, you know, extreme adventurer or athlete or what you're doing, you need these people because that's what gets everyone's attention. You have to go try to scale Everest or run these half marathons and marathons or swim under the ice because without that, you don't get on the radar of the scientists at the universities who want to study you. So for you, it's never been about those crazy feats that's always been a vehicle to just further this message that you're trying

to get out there yes is that true i was absolutely uh 25 years prior uh of these challenges taken up and named by By television. I was doing my practices on my own Uh-huh very secluded all the time and I believed in it and I did it every day With great, you know with a lot of happiness and inside silence always so but once I saw, hey, publicity. And I took it on. I kind of liked it to go, you know. You're good at it.

Yeah. All places in the world and taking on challenges. And then finally getting into the radar of a scientific world. That's my mission uh being missionary having a mission something that makes sense and gives me sense uh deeper you know uh like a body yeah you do something for others right in service and then in service being in service. And yeah, that really is my challenge now. That's far higher than Mount Everest and climbing on your hands backwards and making somersaults. Because there are too many people suffering from depression or chronic pains and all the other diseases.

And it should not. And people feel powerless or they're just overly medicated to deal with this, right? Exactly. anymore that there is an ability in the body if you just reconnect and awaken that is able to tackle pain depression autoimmune diseases inflammation all that it's sort of related to ayurveda you know the principle being that the body is made up of systems and when those systems are out of balance that's when we get sick or depressed etc and it's about trying to figure out the chemistry of balancing all of those energy systems so that we can and when we do that then we can heal ourselves exactly yes because the body is a whole organism and the aim for yoga is oneness. But as also the chemistry should be one.

Right. All the systems should work together with the consciousness. And what's unique about, what's really unique about your story is you have this deep knowingness, this awareness, this not just self-awareness, but like cosmic awareness of the impact of these practices on your health. And you may not have had the scientific background or the vocabulary to articulate what is actually going on, but because of these feats that you've accomplished and the attention that you've attracted, you have these

scientists studying you now, and now you're able to explain what you've known all along, right? Exactly. And so what is it that's happening what now is happening is that i want to go from science to sense from science to you know caring and sharing we should love each other and but the love is It's constituted now scientifically by hormonal control, immune system control, and once again, energy management. And we got it analyzed now. So if every mother would be able to guarantee health, happiness, strength for her kids, health, happiness, strength for her kids, then there would be no war anymore because there is no powerful positioning and all this crazy stuff going on anymore.

It's out because what is the most wealthiest person? That what you cannot buy but be. And that's healthy, strong, and happy. So we bring it down by analysis, saying that's a hormonal control and the control over the immune system. Anybody can do it. And what comes first, the cold or the breathing? Like what is the most paramount practice? Like how do these two worlds fit together? like how do these two worlds fit together the cold brought me this a deeper uh connection because i had i had to reconnect consciously into my physiology to endure the cold but it made me

change my breathing pattern later on i saw that the breathing what we do is too shallow it's too shallow every moment so if you miss out or every moment or 10 15 percent of the right chemistry brought in by a wrong intake of oxygen bringing in wrong ph levels then the body is confused and so at the breathing I say the breathing plus consciousness the cold is what brought you to the breathing though yes it could also have been the heat could also have been oxygen deprivative states like situations like Mount Everest or Kaylaimanjaro. Anything that triggers the deepest part, the survival part, the fight, flight, food, the fuck in the freeze. Right.

That mode is. It wakes you up. They say the big five. I say there are six. Spirituality is also there. That's the consciousness. So let's break down the biochemistry of what's happening. You're talking about raising the pH, becoming more alkaline, your system becoming more

alkaline. And I think that's super interesting. There's a whole school of thought that most people in Western culture are in a state of chronic acidosis. The food that we're eating is very acidic, meat and dairy products. We're breathing toxic air. We're not getting enough sleep, stress. All of these things contribute to us being in a state of acidosis most of the time, right? And our systems have to, we buffer that. Like we maintain a relatively neutral pH, but we have to leach minerals out of our bones to maintain all of that. But the more alkaline foods that we can eat and the better care we can take of ourselves and the sleep and all of that reducing stress pushes us towards that more alkaline state. And what

they're realizing, and I'm interested in your perspective on this, is this state of chronic acidosis causes the inflammation and it's the inflammation that is leading to all of these chronic illnesses from obesity to diabetes etc that are just killing millions of people every year it does so it's it begins with the alkalinity it does and that's chemistry we have to become alchemists everybody everybody is but we don't always but but we just have to become alchemists. Everybody. Everybody is now. But we just have to do the right breathing technique, right? That's it. So we don't actually have to be alchemists. No, no, no.

It's not a school or something, you know? Yeah, yeah. And there is no, you know, it's not $4 breath and a $3 breath and a bargain here for 75 cents. It's for free. Anybody can do this and take it in and do it consciously our consciousness once it begins to get into our system it gets into the cells we have memory cells and all that but there is a new element which is the consciousness and finally it's becoming neurological so mean by that the neurological patterns that enables us to get in the right way into our into the

depth of our system enabling us to control whatever makes our mood happy and a condition you know it's a healthy and and the energy management in in cell on cell level we can influence which is strength so we are able to do that well we have to change the neurology and it begins with better breathing and then it takes a little time to readapt to this new neurology, enabling us to control ourselves a lot better. And that's done by consciousness. I'm charging right now.

But mostly, I always follow my feeling. Feeling is understanding. This is what I feel here right now. Right now. That it is a new insight. I'm into ongoing scientific research because I don't like speculation. I like the philosophy. I don't like speculation.

And I believe that we have the sense to see what is right and what is wrong in yoga, viveka. Right. It's all that. You know, it strains conventional wisdom or the logical brain to think that we could actually control our immune response to, you know, an invader. But you have proved this out, right? You volunteered to be injected with an endotoxin right which is what was it some form of bacteria that makes you coli bacteria yes very very sick and you had zero reaction to this yes not only me after i did it and i showed it then i took 12

18 persons and they 100 score all showed it after four days of training this was under a controlled circuit you were like at a doctor's office or a hospital you weren't just in your apartment injecting people oh no no no no no no it all uh follow it was published in pn as so walk me through this yes okay uh what what i do with the people is uh instructing them in the breathing techniques and gradually go into the cold and just takes a couple of days to awaken their deeper physiology and bring it bring back a brain body connection the right way because yeah later on you have to tackle a bacteria and its effect on the immune system which is an immune response and creating fever uncontrolled shivering headaches all over agony and you have to tackle it so you need a connection with yourself to be able to do that

because normally in many other studied cases they it all has been shown that all these people had no control over their system after the E. coli injection the bacteria and the reactions on the immune system. So now 18 persons come, 12 are selected later randomly. They are injected and 100% score within a quarter of an hour. They have control. That means they have to have a connection within which enables them to tackle the immune response influence they're in, in the depth of the immune system. And it was never been seen before. So 100% of them got through it successfully without a negative reaction.

Within a quarter of hour, all they had no symptoms, no more. And what is that connection? Like what is actually happening is it a conscious thing where you're directing your thoughts and your awareness into a certain place or it's much simpler they do breathing techniques their being is already focused because they know what's happening so we have once we know a bacteria is coming in, then you are alert enough already. So I don't need to work out the focus there. I told him in the beginning, though, before it all started to get their mindset going. Hey guys, listen, what we are going to do is tackling the world's most inflicted suffering war ever, which is the one of the bacteria, the bacteria and the virus.

We're going to tackle it. You got this? And I talked so much that they got it uh-huh they and they surrendered in into this training took them four days we had a lot of pleasure too a lot of music and we drank we had a good time too but when they were on they were on 100 percent wow so and what did the what did the scientists say? Yeah, they were absolutely astonished because what they saw is that, and now we get to the beginning of this discussion, when they were doing the breathing techniques

and raised the pH levels, then they are able to return from breathing. So stop breathing after exhalation. That means that there is no air in the lungs anymore present. And there is no force. They feel high, feel okay, man. And after one and a half minute without air in the lungs, which anybody can do, then the saturation of oxygen in the blood

really goes down dramatically. It goes down until even the measurement devices in the hospitals shut down because they think he's dead. He's dead. He's completely dead. But they are not dead. They are fully aware, feeling okay.

And then after two minutes, three minutes, yes. Then they take it. When they feel the urge, the real urge to breathe again, because the alkalinity goes down, then they take them in, and then it shoots out into the brainstem, and all the systems work at once. And, you know, the adrenaline goes and it makes the body most effective. All the systems work and the bacteria has no chance. That's crazy.

So have you repeated this since that time or you've taken one group through the endotoxin thing? Just now I completed a new study. You did. and we do now uh it started with 48 people and 12 of them i train just in the cold and focus because focus is also something yeah it's beautiful they saw me uh by blood samples taking blood from me before I was going into an experiment going into the eyes say for 80 minutes completely wired and they took blood a lot of blood, vampires, they took blood. They were drinking it. Yeah yeah and you don't know what they do in these laboratories. What happened and what they saw,

I was just standing in front of this box, the ice box. No movement. Just thinking. I was to go into that box. They took my blood and I analyzed that blood of that particular moment. And they saw 300% more metabolic activity in the blood. That means... Because you're triggering your adrenaline response. By my mind.

And you can do that. Anybody can do that. But nobody knows anymore. And that's the placebo. That nobody knows anymore and that's the placebo that's the spirit that's the mind right now our mind is off all the time into medicines or the doctor does it oh I cannot do this no we gotta bring back the mind into ourselves when something is wrong when we do not feel happy strong or healthy

we should mind again bring back the consciousness consciousness is being it's so crazy because we sort of walk around thinking that our, you know, our job is to, you know, get married and have kids and have a house. We don't, we just don't look, we're very myopic in what our abilities are, what our purpose is here on earth. And to hear somebody talk about how expansive, you know, our mental capacity truly is, it calls into question so many other sort of tried and true facts that we've been taught our whole life. Like what else are we capable of? What other

untapped areas of our, you know, mental capacity are just sitting there dormant waiting to be discovered? Because you're just, you happened into this by virtue of experience. It wasn't like you read it in a book or you were a scientist doing studies in a lab. So who's the next Wim Hof who's doing something totally crazy in a different way, who's going to discover that we have something else that we're just not aware of, that we've been told our whole lives is outside of the realm of possibility? Yes, the purpose of our being is really making the soul ascent to expand consciousness and

That's our true one. If we follow that path then There is no tension. You just live like a kid Open and it's all simple. It's beautiful. The energy is clean You have a very you have a very profound sense of play. Like you're very childlike and joyful. Yeah, yes. And we should. We are children of Mother Nature.

So the nature is there and it's beautiful, but we do not experience that anymore because our consciousness got narrowed. And nobody understands this they say ah you're religious or you're happy or you're this or that and then that's then you're taking groups up kilimanjaro right or k2 what which yeah kilimanjaro in record time like last january like non-athletes non-mountain 76 years old right 76 years old the last one without prior mountaineering experience and going in in shorts you are up in record time uh-huh 76 i bet you had a pretty good legal waiver yeah oh absolutely not just a sense just as my son you have to like survey these people and go who do i think is you know, who's going to cop out here?

Who's going to be able to handle this? Yeah, yeah. I ask always for motivation. If you have the motivation, then you will be able to open up to nature. Right. And that is the thing. We are not open to nature anymore. What's the right motivation, you think?

The right motivation is if you really want to search for more, to break through the conditioning, to find out how beautiful this planet is and the energies and the nature of yourself, then you're ready. Ready to embark inside. How many people have you taken on these ascents uh Kilimanjaro is now the third year about a hundred wow and am i intending to go in september yeah in a record time with david blaine uh-huh we go with shorts up televised i'm sure yeah yeah sure

sure and that's okay because i'm I told them I'm going to use and abuse you for my mission to show that we are are able to do so much more than we think and we show it because if we are able to ascend the Kilimanjaro in in say 10 hours or 15 hours or something direct without acclimatization then that means that you are influencing in the red cell generation processes of the body which normally scientifically is stated we cannot influence now because of red cell generation and being able to influence therein you are able to heal a whole lot faster and a leukemia for example is is go is a red cell generation going down and we have no ability to tap in we will show we are able to tap in not a little bit big time and the ripple effect of that is is profound because that just shatters everybody's

concept of human capability it's crazy you know and it sounds insane some of the stuff that you're saying but you have university research departments who are devoted to studying and analyzing these things that you're doing because they're noticing that you're teaching this to average people and they're going on to do extraordinary you know complete extraordinary feats right so where is the research taking place currently like who are the you know where what are the universities what are the what are the actual studies that are underway at the moment the actual studies right now is are on anesthesia because they found out that breathing is able to... To mute the pain response. The pain response and to control the pain response.

Because the pain response is like three proteins. Trimerization, it's called. Dry, you know, three. And merization, they marry together, something like that. They come together and that it creates a pain a pain signal and that's because the chemistry around is acidic so if you focus to that area and change this acidic state and bring it to 7.6 then the three proteins or the pain signal falls apart because there is no functionality

of the pain signal anymore over there. You are there and you have changed the chemistry because a wrong chemistry is dangerous for the body. That's why we get pain. That's crazy. That's wild. It is. And so we are into this and we have shown that by breathing these

people are able to tolerate pain very much higher or and is that influence into the chemistry is that similar to tolerating the breathing temperature breathing yes and with the cold, cold creates pain. If you just breathe right, then this pain signal doesn't come because the oxygen which is combusted because of the cold impact and the change of the chemistry inside makes it acidic. Now you control it, right breathing, up the pH level and it is maintained. Thus, there is no pain. Then it feels great to go into the gold. No pain at all.

No pain at all. So just cut the person wide open while they're alert. In the extreme, it is so. It's like giving birth for a mother. What does she do? Breathing. Yeah, breathing. And pressing.

Yeah, nature kind of figured that out, right? Ah, so now we do that in different areas. Same thing. Go back to nature. Interesting. Nature knows. go back to nature interesting nature knows and and is anybody kind of looking deeper into the the immune system response as a result of the endotoxin experiment yes of course there is an ongoing study not only on pain but also on inflammation right now with 48 people in the

netherlands is being conducted we are in the middle of the study. So they came to me and practiced in the cold. And you know what? I'm not in it anymore. It's independent. The doctors took over and they instruct now. It's independent. They can kill me.

Hey, the method still lives. But you're coming from a place of thinking that these techniques are applicable to preventing and even reversing any number of chronic illnesses that people are suffering from, right? So have you worked with people that have actually been able to reverse chronic conditions? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'd love to hear a little bit about that oh yeah we got we got many testimonials yeah uh from people like a rheumat with arthritis or disease of Crohn or a cancer even a depression a lot ms asthma allergies and all kinds of things but until it is not scientifically proven i cannot state you know like hey this is gonna work for everybody i'd say no no this is just we

we love no speculation but we got great testimonials and wonders happen every day because we thousands and thousands of people are practicing with this method and we see things that we get income of meals and and testimonials of so many so we know what works but we want to prove it we are right but we still need to retrieve the right by so i prove it scientifically i'm interested in what you think about the applicability of these practices to um dealing with addiction whether it's substance or behavioral addiction like that that sort of emotional compulsion you know with substances it's anchored in a in a like a biological imbalance i guess you could say but i'm wondering if you've ever

worked with anybody or had any experience who's who's had that problem and who has experienced relief or some kind of shift as a result of i know and not one many many yeah oh yeah uh with addictions or depressions or grief or you know things uh go into thin air because because you don't know what's happening. And you're just dealing with it. You're suffering from it. So you take alternatives and you become addicted. Now, if you learn these... Because you're having a spiritual crisis.

Yeah. You're looking to feel better. You're looking to numb your pain. The drug is the solution to the problem. It's not a problem. Yeah. It's symptomatic but what we learn once again what we have shown that people are able to tap into the hormonal mechanisms so if there is a deprivation of a certain hormone created by grief by trauma by fear by uh too long not being creative or things like that then the the chemistry in the body begins to change and then you get deprivation of say melatonin or

dopamine right like the addict is always looking for that dopamine they want you know give me that dopamine response and then they when they stop taking the drug it's almost like life becomes banal or numb because they're not they don't have those high highs and lows exactly so we teach people to regain control over their hormonal system and then it's up to them to tap into it because the way nature meant it to be is that we are able to function in almost any situation up till the extremes but we thought we were master over the nature yeah we got into it and even you know many people with goodwill they are brought up and nature is this is hostile and you keep the

door closed because it's too cold get a jacket on and wash your hands and and eat this food and they promise you all kinds of things by the advertisement and finally you are completely lost in your own body because you have no sense anymore yourself of discovering the way nature meant it to be so we bring people back to this natural ability in consciousness and then uh yeah from there it starts off right on as an athlete i'm always looking for you know what that extra edge is how can i you know make gains beyond just what occurs during training? And of course, athletic performance, like the holy grail is recovery, right? If I can expedite recovery, if I can repair my system more quickly in between my training bouts, then I can train harder,

I can train longer. And that translates into tremendous performance gains as you extrapolate out, right? So what is the applicability of your of your techniques and your practices in the context of athletic performance because i know you work with brian mckenzie and laird and all of these people so how does it work in that arena before you go and do your performances learn how to control the alkalinity because if you become acidic then the condition to perform is no longer there so if you learn to control how to become how to alkalize the body then you are able to perform longer those are it's the it's the it's the acidic response to exercise-induced stress that creates the inflammation that makes you sore and slows down the repair, right? So the more alkaline you are, the more quickly, the more efficient your immune system is in responding and repairing.

Is that accurate? Yeah, it's absolutely accurate, but that's one part. Yeah, it's absolutely accurate, but that's one part. If you breathe better, then you are able to influence in cell or on cell level to create more energy. And what does the body need besides of our conditioned being, physiology? It needs to repair, so it needs extra. So are we able to produce that extra just breathe consciously so that is called aerobic dissimilation and it's mitochondrial and it creates more ATP more molecules more energy and thus the plasticity of the body then is able to function

because the body exactly knows what to do, but it needs the energy. And if you do, just give it the energy by breathing. And just not five minutes, you know, when you feel sore after a big performance or something. Just breathe during the day more consciously then you will find out the other day when you wake up you're completely refreshed so the body takes over it repairs you in excellence and in the other morning you are just astonished well hey I feel energy again I like to run again

I like five days ago I I'm training Alistair Overeem and martial art mixed martial artist yes yes and now he's going for the title but you know before he went down and then he began again visiting and telling me, maybe it's my age, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. I don't know what he took. He dried it down. I'm not interested. I said, listen, I don't care how good you are.

I make you better. But listen. So from there, we began with the breathing and the cold and now he's winning his matches with excellence you know at ease with power overpowering the people because he is in control again he found self-confidence one week after or one half week after the first training I had with him his doubt was completely gone he told me I'm gonna win so the confidence comes back if the brain-body connection is back and you as a sportsman you want to perform but for that you need consciously the connection and if you are able to grasp that to influence

by what deeper breathing consciously and then then your chemistry is under control and it's a it's a different story different ball game as they say right right right yeah that's very cool how does it work like what is your opinion on on doing hypoxic training like in the like when i'm swimming i'll do breath control work underwater work uh you know now it's very popular to have the training mask you know run on the treadmill with this device that prevents you from breathing properly and the idea is that that enhances the body's ability to be more efficient with its oxygen metabolism. So do you see that as like an aid or is that working at odds with the principle of like over oxygenating yourself with the techniques you're talking about? Yeah, it is interesting because the affectivity of the body is then stimulated, of course, but until what kind of extent extent i think it's more natural to breathe consciously to bring about not only a physiological

affectivity within the body because of training but to do it you doing it change the neurology inside we should be in control by our neurology and it is not being done if we take uh you know passive materials outside materials to make our body function hey man that's not you you don't know did you see ever a mask in in the morning when you look in the in the mirror? You know, it's not us. Getting back to just what's most natural. And it's already inside. And we just need to apply to this and consciously then the neurology changes. And then we are able not only to increase our performances.

able not only to increase our performances and because we master and control the physiological depth of ourselves but we also get a sense of spirituality and beginning to understand the real purpose of that's the gift that's the real thing right it is yeah it is and we get there consciously. And so I'm dealing not only with all these studies now. Tomorrow I have a talk with a professor from Stanford University, a neuroscientist, and we're going to do studies on the brain. And I'm going to do also studies on DMT, because we know how to tap into the DMT. The DMT is what releases and works out the subconscious while you are in a deep sleep or at time of death.

And we have no control. And I say we have control. But the DMT is not just, you know, have a trip and LSD and go, wow, it's nice. No, it has its absolute functionality to release whatever blockages and inhibitions and traumatic experience produced in the body and, yeah, release it, open it up, and digest it and all that. For that, we have the dimethyltryptamine.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, we're going to make the spirit molecule maybe. We're going to make a new set of documentaries. Yeah, cool. On that area. And you're doing all of that up at Stanford? No, that's with John Chavez and Rick Strassman. He's a professor and uh yeah he's leading it uh the the thing so the other one is the stanford university and uh and what's that

what what exactly are they going to be looking at i'm going to have a talk tomorrow oh you're going to find out tomorrow but uh it's in the brain and we are able to tap into the deepest part anybody can do it let's talk about your diet the diet yeah yeah yeah i eat once a day after six o'clock and that's more most vegetarian right and that's because yeah yeah come on a cattle that's not wild how did you arrive at this? This through experimentation or just felt right to you? Yeah, I began to think like 40 years ago, this bio industry, you know, where it is all cultivated. It was a Christmas time and it was, you know, in Dutch, somebody was sitting on the dam square in Amsterdam with a big board saying, if Christmas is for food, then God has a big belly and is not in the hood.

So something like that, you know, and there is no love and peace possible if we killed so many animals to celebrate peace and happiness and things like that. We should think about that at least. We are thinking human beings, but no. We are killing, killing, killing, killing. And then, yeah, we should actually be very conscious about our food intake because we harm beings.'s not good slaughtering trillions of animals and meanwhile it's having an incredibly deleterious impact on the environments and our system of feeding the planet is just unsustainable

and wasteful and polluting you know every we're getting down to a whole Amazon to get so yeah on all these animals go away those are the lungs of the earth about breathing techniques right one football field every second cleared in the amazon to primarily raise to grow feed for cattle yeah yeah yeah and it takes about 10 parts of of corn and things like that to feed, to make one kilogram of meat. And then we talk about food problems in the world. There is no food problem.

It's only created for our luxury. And yeah, I'm not into politics, but also not into bollocks. And there's a lot of senseless killing going on and a lot of senseless hopelessness going on. And we have to regain consciousness over it. And we are able to do that. It's a crisis of consciousness. You know, it's a spiritual crisis as much as it is an environmental crisis

and an ethics crisis and a health crisis. Like all of these things, there's a grand interplay between all of these. But I think that, look, you're somebody who clearly, you know, people want to talk about the science. They want to talk about, you know, you walking up Everest in your shorts, but like you're dialed in, like your, your consciousness is dialed in, like on a deep level because you don't have, you know, a person doesn't have that kind of knowingness, that sense of intuition about purpose and what is making you tick unless you got your shit straight. Right?

So it's very interesting, you know. Life is interesting. Yeah. If you're paying attention. Yeah. There you got it. Now you begin to hit the bottom of the soul and it experience we don't need acid you know or lsd or beer or the this and that to experience the moment to be clear well i'm here with uh with an instructor of mine he

is there with his wife and this little baby six months yesterday when i woke up i went to the room and she was just lying there i could see through her her energy is still so clear so beautiful she's tripping all the time she's having a good time all the time and we lost this because our consciousness get narrowed because of the neurology and everything and our energy is not flowing anymore and we take the wrong chemistry inside and then ask ourselves why are we depressed why are we not happy why are we not healthy it's all very logical we just have to bring this very simply to uh to the to everybody and that's why i go to science to have no speculation about it. Anybody is able to tap into its system to regain control over its hormonal systems,

immune systems, guaranteeing them healthiness, happiness, and strength. And that's only, you know know it's constituting in three words but actually it's love i love everybody because life is for love your life is great and every moment we are on lsd without lsd hey man yeah that's pretty good yeah Yeah. Well, it goes back to the way that I opened this, which is people are looking for, you know, that sort of solution to what ails them outside of themselves, right? They think that, you know, a fancier car or a more comfortable chair or a bigger television is going to solve this,

and they would look at someone like you and say, this guy doesn't eat until 6 o'clock at night, and he voluntarily plunges himself into freezing cold water. You know, I don't, that sounds like a life of deprivation and unhappiness to me. And so what gets lost is, you know, the magic and the beauty of what it means to, you know, be comfortable getting uncomfortable, to really embrace like a more minimalistic way of living a more primal way of living that is connected to nature and that by by sort of blazing that path or walking that path that that is that's really the solution to these problems that we're all looking in the

wrong place so it's a it's a misdirect right that our culture needs to correct and it's that's why messages like yours are so important to remind people or bring them back to that center point and help them to understand and realize that maybe they should fix their gaze away from where they're looking and look at it somewhere else yes and it's really a non-dogmatic choice you can make we just prove this by science and it once again it's independently being researched now because the scientific community is embracing it now they do not believe they see it happens so then they believe and now they take it on and they see yeah anybody can do this so there is no dogma inside and we just present this to the

people if you just mind your own business again and and get back into yourself then the belief of you be in being in control of your happiness strength and health it's really there and then you can make a choice you can think about it so that it's a nice choice it is a good choice that would be a great place to end this conversation but i can't let you go without asking you one more thing if you will indulge me i want you to walk me through a day in your life like a typical day a typical day is a day without exercise is not really there. Like yesterday I was with David Blaine.

And I'm really not so much in physical exercises. I do can make a hundred push-ups without air in my lungs. Or climb Mount Everest. Like tomorrow, let's go. You know, we got this spirit aligned. It's there. But my thing right now is to prove all this for human mankind and also do, of course, exercise.

So I do this. I do the breathing. Do you set an alarm in the morning? Do you wake up early? Oh, no, no, no. My life is too irregular. Sometimes I'm back at 2 o'clock in the morning do you wake up early no no my life is too irregular sometimes I'm back at two o'clock in the morning so and then I have to be at five o'clock in the morning again up okay but it takes its toll then the other day I sleep more something like that I just go by my feeling. If I need to exercise, I feel it.

And I do some very concentrated, nice exercises. Stand on one arm a minute long. Or here's a swimming pool. Maybe I punch into it. I do just one exercise, you know, very concentrated. Or I see very nice mountains in the background there i would you know run up just run up and go down and then have a nice cappuccino breathing but upon waking though or you exercise first and then do it no no breathing first right and so how much time do

you spend doing that a day 20 minutes 25 minutes and so If I really want to go deep, then more. And do you have a formal meditation practice also, or is this your form of meditation? It's all day long. Meditation should be all day long. They say Satya Paramdhimahi in Sanskrit I always meditate on the soul I'm here for the soul the purpose of my being here in the world is to bring about this mission

but also to realize the soul and I will dig on until I find me completely in consciousness in awareness of the soul. Because it's time. It's time to bring back the soul where it belongs, in our awareness. So I'm doing that.

Anything there is like a mountain stream. anything there is like a mountain stream and it creates this feeling of satchitananda vigraha which is the energy chit is the intelligence and the ananda is the happiness vigraha embodiment we have a body it's beautiful become happy happy, strong, and intelligent. Use it right. Then you have no disease because you are not in tension with Mother Nature. So we translated it into scientific reductionist translations. Now everybody is able to understand that the chemistry should be in control consciously and bringing... It is great to expand your consciousness, but nobody understands. And until everybody understands, we will go on scientifically, neurologically, DMT research research neuroscientists

etc and then we explain that God exists that the soul exists that the omnipresence is all there that the harmony is there the love constituted by health happiness and strength and that

consciousness makes us strong and beautiful and then you don't need six cars and and i i don't know what they all do but it's all compensation for a loss they don't know anymore we fill it up right on that's beautiful man yeah we are beautiful well let's lock it down on that because i can't imagine topping that. That was fantastic, man. Thank you so much. You're on a crazy, beautiful, super important mission. I wish only wind in your sails and keep doing what you're doing. I can't wait to see more scientists and university departments jumping on board to try to study what's happening so that we can all understand better the innate capacity that we all have. I think us as humans,

we all have incredibly large, voluminous, untapped reservoirs of potential, mentally, emotionally, physically. I've experienced this myself. I have plenty of people in my orbit who have experienced it themselves. And this is accessible to all of us. You know, we all have our version of that. You, you know, do what you do. I do what I do, but I think, you know, the beauty in what you're doing is the excessive, the, is the making it accessible and approachable and doable to every human being because everybody should be able to tap into their potential. And so I salute you i appreciate you man and it's fucking awesome thanks that's love yeah man so uh you got a retreat coming up this summer with uh

gabby laird and brian right here in malibu in august i think yes and uh if is that is it sold out yet can people still check that out i don't know because uh i got you got all kinds of stuff going iceland australia i'm gonna be a tribe member of the maoris you are yes yes what's that about they gonna conduct a a ritual which they didn't do for 100 years and that's with me because i brought about these signs actually these design for them they translate it's the signs of love you're bringing back the tribal consciousness and that's the caring the sharing of each other and they're going to make you an honorary maori yes that's pretty cool yeah yeah i think it's a great yeah yeah very cool well if if people want

to just learn more about you where's the best place for them to go there is a we have a website and there are like free courses and all the information everybody can learn what we're talking about yes they can get your course yes yes learn these techniques it is on inner fire you know inner fire dot and now and now is the Netherlands and very soon we have a big huge platform and all that but it's like in one month but anything can be it is a big community of thousands of people who are able to answer the questions and there's a big community of thousands of people who are able to answer the questions and there's a lot of experience with a lot of diseases and states of mind and and and power and and performance it's all there excellent man yeah thank you life is excellent. All right. Where are you headed to now? I don't know. The summit of the sea.

Summit at sea. Oh, summit at sea. Yeah. Oh, you're doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all those guys. That'll be fun. Okay, okay.

I'm going to meet them now after this. Oh, Elliot? Are you meeting Elliot? Yeah, possibly. Okay, say hi to him for me. I will. I know all those guys, yeah. I will, I will.

So afterwards, I go to Australia and be with the Aborigines. Do it, man. We'll have a good time. Yeah, right on. Peace. Thanks. Plants. So that should make you think, right?

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm just amazed by Wim. I hope you guys enjoyed that. Please do not forget to check out the show notes. I got tons of links and resources to take your edification and infotainment about Wim, his methods, the science behind it to the next level.

I would highly suggest checking out the Vice documentary that Wim did. I think it's about 22 minutes long. It's just fantastic. That is definitely a must watch. And of course, the link to that is in my show notes for this episode. If you haven't already subscribed to my YouTube channel, go ahead and do that. YouTube.com forward slash Rich Roll. I'm ramping up the video side of what I'm doing. I know it's been kind of haphazard and sporadic, but I really am intent on locking down some kind

of system so I can be more consistent with it. But I just put up a new video. It's really short. It's about meditating in Venice. It's really fun. So go to my channel, check that out. Also, for all your plant-powered sweet swag and merch, go to my channel, check that out. Also for all your plant powered sweet swag and merch, go to richroll.com. I got signed copies of Finding Ultra and the Plant Power Way. We got cool plant power t-shirts. We got tech tees. We got stickers. We got all kinds of fun stuff. A big shout out to Jason Camiolo for all his masterful work on audio engineering and production of the show. Sean Patterson for all the graphics that he does, which are amazing.

Chris Wan, he compiles, helps me compile all the show notes. He creates the Instagram little thingies that I post, all the images, all that kind of good stuff. Chris puts a lot of work into helping me craft this. So thank you, Chris. And again, the music by Hari Mathis. Thanks for all the support, you guys.

I love you. Final thought. One of the things I always say is that we're all sitting on mountains of untapped potential. And if Wim's story stands for anything, he demonstrates that the event horizon for what we can do, what

we're capable of, is so much more than we were taught or what we believe about ourselves. So this week, let's meditate on that. Think about the millions of times a day we unnecessarily limit ourselves due to deeply ingrained beliefs we never call into question. Pick one of those beliefs and actually put it to the test. You might be surprised by what you learn. And I'll see you guys back here soon. Peace.

Plants. Bye.