Posted by If you listen to podcasts, or maybe you want to listen to more that are about interesting people, personal stories and all of that jazz, then you might be interested in Wim Hof, who recently appeared on Steven Bartleet’s latest podcast, ‘Diary of a CEO’. It’s interesting to listen to people who have been at rock bottom and have found solace and all-around peace through simple things like breathing.
This is not the first time that I have heard humans, as of recent, don’t know how to breathe properly and I blame a lot of that on the education system. Little do schools prioritise mental and physical health; it’s usually like 2 hours a week and while it’s good to teach and encourage sports for both physical and teamwork reasons, in all the time left over that kids have in form or towards the end of the year when revision is taking place, there is no structure in place to teach kids from an early age how to breathe.
While the whole notion in itself sounds stupid, like, of course, we know how to breathe, when you think about it, things like yoga and meditation require specific breathing techniques to get the most out of it and to reset your body and mind. When it comes to it, we don’t incorporate deep breathing into our daily lives but we all breathe a lot more and in shorter bursts, which research suggests is not good for us. To make matters worse, I sometimes hold my breath, which isn’t exactly a good thing.
More about the podcast that I listened to last night so we can both understand how and why breathing properly could completely transform your mental and physical health.
Who is Wim Hof?
Wim Hof is both a motivational speaker and a personal health guru. His personal trauma led him to try alternative treatments such as cold water therapy and meditation breathing techniques instead of pharmaceutical help that gets handed to us a lot quicker than anything natural.
Through his alternative treatment, the Dutch star has earned himself the name ‘Ice Man’. It’s also interesting that in the Netflix documentary ‘Human Playground’, in one of the episodes, a woman who has experienced trauma regularly dips into ungodly cold water, where she usually comes out in pain. She does this treatment as a way to not only take control back but also reap its practical rewards.
Bringing us back to Wim Hof, he has set numerous records for endurance and exposure to cold temperatures, making his new nickname very well suited. But it wasn’t just the records that piqued so much interest from the public but also his reasoning for doing it. He has become a huge advocate for its benefits for both mental and physical well-being.
He said on the podcast, “What is the purpose of living? Happiness, strength and health.” He also went on to say, “This society is sick, we cannot deal with stress and it drains us. But if we listen to our body, we can change it through science.” this is something that not only resonated with me because it helped me realise that our bodies can endure a lot, and the reason why you might not want to do something like an ice bath is because of your mind, not your body.
He also went on to say, “It’s about handling our emotions and feeling that we are on top of it no matter what. But we have never learned in our school how to do it next through the power of our mind.”
It’s our responsibility to take control of our health and to deter pharmaceutical help until we have tried everything natural. We owe it to both ourselves and our children to show them the power of breathing properly.
How Does Breathing Properly Fix Our Health?
Wim goes on to discuss exactly how he has taken this move to a different lifestyle but also explains how scientifically it works for our body.
Breathing itself has been linked to controlling grief and anxiety and in 2014, this was proven in a study. When they looked at the nervous system, breathing techniques were able to tap into the autonomic nervous systems, hormones and innate immune systems, which are all linked to looking, feeling and being better, which at one point was considered impossible. What I find even crazier is that this is something we aren’t talking more about and has been pushing into the shadows for what is considered a useful technique to improve our overall health.
Wim also added that breathing properly can actually heal the trauma tissue that is created when actual trauma occurs. In itself, that is both insane and the best part is that Barlett peer previews all of these studies linked to the health benefits associated with these breathing techniques.
Having taken the necessary steps forward to fully understand the direct benefits of breathing on this body, Wim worked alongside a cardiologist and together they discussed specific techniques and their effects. For example, if you hold your breath after breathing, then five times more oxygen flows to the brain and the heart, which can bring your PH levels way up.
Through research and the algorithm listening to what I was interested in I saw multiple techniques advocated to help with stress and anxiety. Such as 3 pulsing breathes have been linked to calming your stress levels in almost immediate effect.
Which Breathing Techniques Work?
Wim went further into the podcast, introducing techniques he uses on a daily basis. He went on to say there is no right or wrong way to do it in the sense that you could do it in bed, on the sofa or standing in a queue to buy your mens hoodie in a sale. But there is a reason he tells people to do it in these scenarios: it will go past your conditioned mind, which means that after teaching yourself, eventually, you will be doing it in these situations without you knowing it.
Here is a list of techniques that you can both research and apply to your everyday life:
- Diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing).
- 4-7-8 Breathing.
- Alternate nostril breathing.
- Box breathing.
- Bhramari Pranayama (bee breath).
- Kapalbhati Pranayama (skull-shining breathing).
- Bhastrika Pranayam (bellow breathing)
- Lions breathing (simhasana)
- Cooling breathing (sheetali pranayama)
These are just a few examples of the breathing techniques there are and each of them has its own benefits. Understanding a range of healing, relaxing and energy-giving techniques will allow you to apply them where needed and could completely transform your life as you know it.