When people first hear about the Wim Hof Method, they often wonder how it can possibly be healthy to repeatedly expose your body to ice water, hyperventilate and hold your breath.
Turning to science, the research field of hormesis can readily provide answers to these legitimate questions. The concept of hormesis was developed more than a hundred years ago and research in this area has rapidly expanded over the last two decades.
By definition, hormesis is a dose-response phenomenon characterized by low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition.
Hormesis means that the administration of small doses of stress which in high doses would be very harmful to a specific live form can stimulate physiological processes that are beneficial in the long run.
Now transfer the hormetic principle to the Wim Hof Method: immersing yourself in cold water for just the right amount of time, or challenging your body with periods of low oxygen during breath retentions for just the right amount of time, should have beneficial effects on your physiology!
Edward Calabrese has been dubbed a “Toxicology Rock Star”. He is a professor of Toxicology at University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. He has an impressive resume, including over 600 scholarly articles and more than 10 books. He was awarded the Marie Curie Prize in 2009 for his work on hormesis. In the past 20 years, Calabrese has conceived and carried out hundreds of experiments to test and re-confirm his findings. His work is a reminder that it is easy to think we have attained vast amounts of understanding about the natural world, but in fact, there is so much more that we don’t know.
It seems to me that the hormetic principle doesn’t quite map on to the Wim Hof method, because of the way Wim Hof stresses the importance of mental focus.
So it’s not just a matter of subjecting your body to the cold or oxygen deprivation in a kind of mindless fashion and it seems the whole point of these practices is to gain a deeper awareness or mental connection to your physiology. The cold and breath retention triggers a kind of primitive low-level response in the body and by focusing your attention on this you can gradually learn to gain control over parts of your nervous system that are normally regulated involuntarily.
Hi Niek, although there might be more to the WHM than just physiology, the concept of hormesis fits quite nicely to all of the bodily effects and strategies that Wim teaches. And on the other hand, only a deeper awareness won’t show these results. Additionally, I think the body has its only unique wisdom, so I am not happy with the phrase “primitive low-level response”.
Fascinating topic! I do see where this can apply to the WHM breathing and cold water exposure. If so, then there is a maximum beneficial “dose” in how often one practices the WHM. Any thoughts on what that most beneficial dose could be?
Hi Don, good question. This is totally depending on your individual status. As Wim always says: “Listen to your body!”.