263. Wim Hof: On Breathwork Science, Cold Exposure, Immune Control, & Human Potential

you are sharper and you learn to know who you are and what you can trust it was the breath

that allowed you to mitigate the effects of the cold. I am able to do more than we think as possible is in the power you can take over in your own mind so you determined your susceptibility

“to the cold. That's what's so fascinating. We are born to be the masters of our mind and”

captains of our soul. What I love about your teachings and the breath work the cold is like it's bringing the control back to you. Breathing exercise we are able to activate 100% neural activity in our library. The breath is the life life force itself just get it for people that are fascinated by the idea that they might have some control over the stress. What are they begin? The thing is what's most surprised me is that.

Today I'm sitting down with a man who has literally rewritten the rules of human physiology. He's run a marathon barefoot in Antarctica in nothing but board shorts. He's helped a 76 year old woman with Lyme disease, Summit, Kilimanjaro, and 31 hours. A climb that takes most

“people five to nine days. He's activated 100% of the human brain under clinical observation using”

nothing but conscious breathing. His name is Wimhoff and the world calls him the iceman.

But here's what I want you to understand before we get into this conversation.

I've tried hyperbaric chambers. I've tried red light therapy, sauna, peptides, every supplement on the planet. As a single input in my life, Wimhoff's breathwork protocol has had the greatest impact on my health, my family, and my outlook on life. Full stop. In this episode, Wimhoff is going to show you how to take back control of your nervous system, your emotions, and your destiny using a practice that is free, portable, and backed by peer-reviewed science.

You don't want to miss this one. Hey guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecca, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. You've heard me say this before about how excited I am for certain guests, for certain mentors, but today is extraordinarily special for me. And the reason is that in 2013, my mother, who's now 82 years old, she's

sitting right in the room with us today, my mother told me about this breathwork session that she was going to go to, or Orlando, with a practitioner named Wimhoff. And then we're going to pack him in ice up to his neck live at this event. She was going to be sitting in the front row. She's a rakey practitioner. And I truly thought it was a bunch of focus, and so I didn't go. In 2013, my mom, Judy Brecca, met Wimhoff, the iceman. And I regret not going that day because

this man, this guest, has probably had as a single unit, the greatest impact on my life and my family's life. I need to say that before we start to podcast because I have, uh, taken your courses, I have, um, practiced your, your breathwork, just as best as I can for, uh, five years now, it has as a single input in my life has had the greatest impact on my life full stop. I use it when I travel to accommodate two time zones. I use it to go to sleep. I use it to wake up.

I use it to really stress. And I just want to say thank you, um, for all that you have poured into the world. I am so excited around this podcast with you. Thank you for taking the time to come on to the ultimate of your podcast. So the one, the only the iceman, Wimhoff. Welcome to the ultimate human.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Why do I introduce amazing, especially, uh, it's coming from

real respect. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. I love it like science, non-speculative evidence based. There is more than we think is possible. I totally agree with you. And I want to dig in, uh, uh,

“right now because I think you got the right platform to bring out what I got. Yes. Already evidence-based”

proven, uh, for humanity is a great message. How to get into the deepest of our brain and physiology and change our lives and take over autonomy. Couldn't agree with you more. You know, we, we, we, we had such a great, uh, conversation and connection before the podcast started and one of the things that you and I completely align on is how in control we actually are. We're just, we just don't know it. And I think when we, when I was in the mortality space, we knew that isolation was the

One of the things that you have proven and I want to wrap back this story up a little bit.

“One of these things that you have proven is just how much control we truly have over our health,”

our nervous system, our cardiovascular system, our stress, our sleep, our waking energy. It is just

so fascinating how powerful the human body and human beings really are. And you've tapped into that

special innate power. I do want to rewind the clock a little bit though. So for my audience that may not be familiar with you, um, I want to say that your journey really began when you were around 17 years old. This was the first time that you broke the ice. Yeah. And, and, and got into the cold. And at the time, um, you were a student of, uh, you know, you were, you're studying like, was it religion philosophy, Buddhism? Oh, um, oh, uh, languages, traditions,

“esoteric disciplines, yeah, practices. So reading about it and doing it, but it didn't really”

fulfill me. Yeah. It, um, my illumination and, uh, had, uh, thinking brain just went on a Sunday morning,

very silent, everybody sleeping. I was out in the park and they're just thinking, so as I used to, about what, well, what this is all about. Yeah, yeah, trouble. Like, uh, confused, confused. And then I saw a, uh, by a gut feeling at the ice on the, it was wintertime and Amsterdam in a park and a thin layer on the ice and I felt, uh, attracted to go in. Why I did not know. But, uh, I looked around, I stripped myself, uh, of the clothes. I went in and there I felt, uh, without words, this is it. I was looking

for this without knowing I had found what I was actually looking for in books and that is the cold.

“The cold that opens up a deeper realm of the physiology, both in the brain and in the body. But”

back then, I did not have any scientific knowledge about this. Uh, uh, I just felt it that way. At felt a fork afterwards, the whole day long. The other day, I came back with the expectation, I was just maybe not going to feel so good. I like yesterday that it is just, yeah, a new thing and all. And I went in and it happened again. Wow. And since then, 17, there's, for fifth, almost 50 years ago, I am, uh, every day in the ice. When I can, yeah, when I'm traveling or something,

sometimes I cannot, but that's all right. Yeah. Because it changed my life. It changed the circuitry in my brain. I am able to do more than we think is possible. It's in the end, the power you can take over in your own mind. Yes. Because we have a brain and it works as you say separately, like over individualized we are. We are not living the life the way nature meant it to be. So we don't feel that food spirited being because it's not all together united within our, uh,

brain, which is the seed of the unlimited power of the mind. Yeah. But who, uh, who fell the unlimited power of the mind? Yeah. Who fell to omnipresence? And Omniscience and Omni-Poet is saying, "Who fell guard? You know divine. Great. Happy, strong and healthy. Those are the components. I live now by and I say it's accessible for everybody in the world." Wow. And, and, and along this journey, you know, I, I wouldn't say that you had an, an easy life. Um, you know, I know that you've had

some very traumatic events. Um, you know, I've also know that you've done some incredible, you know,

feats of, of physical accomplishment. And you have always gone back to the cold as a way to channel

that stress and to get re, back in touch with yourself. And, you know, for, for those of you that are not familiar, I, I really encourage you to watch this documentary, but, uh, and I'll put a link to it in the show notes below. But this man has, has run marathons in the Arctic, uh, bear foot in a, or shorts, no shirt, no water. Um, has run marathons in the, what is it? No, no, no. No, not being desert. Um, not, not exactly a hospitable place. Um, also, uh, you know, no shirt,

pair of board shorts. No drinking. No drinking. No drinking. Um, nearly scaled Mount Everest, had a foot injury and it had to, had to come off the mountain, but, um, scaled Kilimanjaro. Um, and so on. And, uh, the, the, the physical feats, um, packed in ice for, uh, an hour and

being packed up in ice solid ice up to your neck for almost two consecutive, unbroken hours.

“And what it is proven is the amount of control that you have been able to take back”

into into into your own body. The most fascinating thing for me, um, as a data scientist, is that you have broken the mold of the autonomic nervous system. And science and medicine say you have no control over the autonomic nervous system. Um, you cannot influence your heart rate.

You cannot influence your respiratory rate unconsciously. You cannot, um, influence your immune system.

And yet you have proven, um, bi-actually the introduction of bi-o-toxins into your bloodstream

“with hundreds of other Wim Hof practitioners that even in the presence of deadly E. coli,”

which should inflame the immune system and immediately cause, you know, a dramatic immune cytokine storm, uh, response that through controlling your autonomic nervous system, influencing your own, uh, immune system. You, you actually didn't even react to deadly poisons. So I just wanted to set the stage for that. For those of you that are not familiar with Wim Hof and his work. I mean, it is astounding what this man has been able to do by taking back control of his

“of his own body. Um, so it, you know, let's, let's walk through some of the science, you know,”

um, from then until now, what has surprised you the most about what? So in 2014, we got the publications of, uh, uh, uh, uh, in nature in the end and the proceedings of National Academy, that you tell for a long to scientific world that inflammation, which is the cause and effect of any disease, cytokine storms, uh, that, uh, innate immune system can now be controlled. We can surpress through breathing techniques and faith, belief your intention, your willpower, consciously,

we can tap into the innate immune system, into the atomic nervous system, bring down inflammation, once again, the cause and effect of disease. Since then, they shoot the whole academic world, shoot have, uh, uh, gotten alarmed that we found a direction to gain a power over us, which prop, uh, which is a huge problem since ever disease. Yes. And why is it not? That is what surprises me, the most. Why is it not that the academic world is gone into this and, uh, and produces, uh,

a thousand studies because we are hitting on a primordial problem, humanity are always, uh,

has been suffering, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and, and now we found a solution. Yeah. And why did they not go into? That is the world where we live in. Yeah. We don't live in a world where we want autonomy for the people, freedom for the people, power in the people, to beat their problems, like disease and psychosomatic diseases and depressions and all, and energy levels and all, all those things can be controlled. And I just pointed out a direction, I came, I'm a drop out of school, I came into the scientific arena, first 80 minutes standing in the eyes, I showed no shivering, 200% more metabolic rate going up, just because I wanted to.

Talk to the people, their professors and all, while I was encased in a stressful environment of ice, and then they saw, I was motionless, that is the power of the mind, the power of the mind called is like emotion, is like heat, it's an impact, can we do something about it? Yes, we are the master, we are born to be the masters of our mind and captains of our soul. I go very fast, and we will go back, the thing is what's most surprised me is that that university has ten Nobel prizes, for having discovered a way, a natural non-invasive way, how to battle, inflammation, the course and effect of disease.

And you see it in the blood, the flammatory markers, the cytokines, the Isle 6, the Isle 8, also in COVID, it's the problem, it's the essence, and we just brought it down, and the Isle 10, pro-inflammatory, or anti-inflammatory, up, we turned everything around, what normally is like the cytokines, Isle 6, Isle 8, Isle 2, whatever.

“The interlocutes that cause the inflammation are up, and we could not do anything, and that's what makes it go down, is going down, we turn to table, and we should have had many more universities to study, and I know you understand what I'm saying.”

I understand it too, and it's so fascinating to me because when you get SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, you don't die of the virus or the infection, you die of the body's reaction to it, you die of the cytokine storm. The same thing happens with other viral pathogens, it's the over inflammatory response from the immune system, it gets hyperactivated, when we say that people are immunosuppressed or they have a weak immune system, it doesn't mean that their immune system doesn't react, it means that it overreacts very often, so you get a viral infection, and it takes so long for the immune system to lock in, that that virus has built up to such a level that when the immune system finally engages, you die of the inflammation.

And the fact that we now have a mechanism to control that cytokine storm, proven by the way, this isn't her probably, I mean, I'm going to link all of the studies that this man has done, with all of the, by the way, getting published in nature, and some of these journals, these are very, very prestigious, peer reviewed journals in the sciences there.

“And I think that academia fears humanity having control of their own destiny.”

And humanity having control over our own health, and we know that the Bible says this, so a man think at the show become, and when we get infected with disease with pathology, if we give up and say, I no longer believe in what God gave us, I believe only in what man makes us, I'm going to need a pharmaceutical, synthetic, a chemical, to fix this, rather than the deep belief that we can heal ourselves, and using things like cold and like breath work, and I want to talk about some of the mechanisms, because this is now no longer like a, you know, tree hugging society that's out, you know, breathing in the wilderness.

This is data that has been done at some of the leading universities in the world, leading research institutions in the world. Let's, let's walk this back and for for people that are fascinated by the idea that they might have some control over their stress, over their inflammation, over their mood, over their emotional state.

“Where did they begin, like, how does the journey into breath work and the cold begin for them?”

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First of all, don't make it over complicated. Don't overthink.

We got a proven. It's there. It's a matter of choice. Do you want to have the power over your emotions, the regulation of your emotions? We did the studies. Do you want to power over stress? We did the studies, competitive studies, and it shows that we found a very effective ways how to bring down, for example, stress instead of stress being the absence of stress and health being the absence of stress. No, we face it. We have the power within it. Yes. To navigate the stress and to become a better human, then the stress is able to jeopardize us in whatever way emotionally physically spiritually doesn't matter.

It always comes to this nervous system, which is jeopardized by toxins produced through the stress.

And are we able to deal with that? Yes, we are. We are able directly to go into the adrenal axis, just to spike it and to get the shit out what should not be in.

Yes. Yes. And I'm doing the studies right now in San Diego. It appears to be that the brain waste, which is also capital infancy of thinking.

Yeah, the glimphatic brain waste clearance, this works 800% better than normal. Presswork. Time. Yes, sir. Hey, it's the cold and the breath. And you are able to activate the adrenal axis and make it go into the spinal fluid to that, cleansing the glimphatic brain waste, eight times better.

“That is one. Then we did a study recently published in Nature with 500 people 500 and compared to meditation and mindfulness in the corporate world.”

In the corporate world, there is one trillion a year and two thousand thirty about six trillion a year because it's cumulative. It's a real problem stress is the real problem not only in the corporate world everywhere else in the world too. The thing is we should not go like a like a ostrich into the sand. The stress is not there and I don't want it. It is there. The line comes and eat you. Yes, that is the stress. Now we are able very able with some natural non-invasive tools to battle that stress to create a coordinators.

The circuitry in the brain that is suddenly much more able than before thought possible to battle this stress and to be we are built to take on any way stress comes to us.

But we alienated from those mechanisms inside our body and mind. And so what they found was three hundred percent better cognitive awareness than mindfulness.

“Three hundred percent more resilience to work stress compared to mindfulness as a stress tool and four hundred percent more energy boost.”

This is what we use in the corporate world. The corporate world is like production and numbers and this and that and it's just production. We don't care too much about the people. We need to produce. We need to work.

is luring upon us. We got to be better. And oh, hey 300% better than the usual stress tool.

In cognitive awareness, sharpness of mind. And then 300% in resilience of to work stress, 400% energy boost. And then they found too. If you go into the cold and you use the breathing,

“the right way by which the adrenal axis is able to cleanse the whole body the way and then”

become clean without the absence or without a presence of cortisol long term, which is detrimental. Yes, we use hormesis, self-inflicted acute stressful exercise. And it doesn't take long. And if you just do that in the morning, you're going to produce better, you're going to feel better, you are sharper, and you learn to know who you are and what you are and what you can trust. And that's the study we did with a Harvard insight. Suddenly the people trusted,

trust themselves, trust themselves and from there there was no competition. There was working together. There was an open energy. And they talked to the authorities. Because they knew who they were. You are not going to tell me what I am or what I got to do. I know what I'm here for. And here it is clear, nice. Because that is the seventh neurological network within us. The sixth sense, seventh sense, is your purpose.

And this is the time we enter into the signs of the soul, the time for the soul. No longer, we are not here for the system. We are here to realize our soul. And that is when we are there, we trust back into God's presence. Even the Catholic church even comes with its PhDs to me. They say, this is a highly esoteric mystical discipline. And how long does it take? 20 years of learning? Half hour. Wow. So in this study with 500 people,

And then in the non-control group you have, they were doing a breath work and cold exposure.

“But what did that look like? Was it called first breath work after? Was it breath work in the cold?”

What did the study design look like? They did, they had all watches. So like, whoops or something to measure? Whoop watches? And so everything is registered. And they did breathing every day. They would start in the morning with breathing. Yes. What did that look like? Yeah, so what is it 20 minutes? 20 minutes of breath work. It's the way it works. It's very simple.

You create respiratory alkalosis by breathing of the CO2. The cell is not able to fill it up so quickly.

So the blood becomes alkaline. When it is alkaline, so alkaline, you don't need to breathe.

“There is no breathing trigger because it depends on the amount of CO2. So the CO2 is a little”

time absent. But in that little time of absence, we don't need to breathe because we are alkaline. It just goes back to the right homeostasis of alkalinity. And you feel like, nice. Parasympathetic nervous system is on. But it's sympathetic as well. It's a quite contradictory of it's a biohack. It has an ultimate biohack. We are able to get into the vagus nerve into the parasympathetic nervous system. At the same consciously, at the same time sympathetic

nervous system. And what now happens, that is the autonomic nervous system. What happens is we enter into the deep brain because we are not breathing. Where there is the breathing reflex mechanism is in the breath hold. Yes, in the breath hold. So it goes directly to the brainstem. And in the brainstem, you have the mechanisms to react on CO2 and alkalinity. But there is no CO2. So the brain thinks there is danger. The non-thinking brain thinks there are things.

There are acts as if they are chemically. There is danger. What happens? Hypothalamus, a pituitary gland adrenal glands, a adrenal spike. After 90 seconds of not breathing after acceleration, you got five times more blood flowing, flushing into the heart and brain. It's all survival reflexes. The thing is, anything that should not be in the body is being exposed because it hits direct to the greatest of possible functionality of our being to survive this situation. Well, you feel great.

Yeah. And this was over a 20 minute controlled period. So is it controlled hyperventilation

“and then a long pause? Then controlled hyperventilation and a long pause? I think we demonstrated maybe”

you got a lack of words and definition about this. I say hyperventilation is a kind of state, a wrong state of breathing. What I say is a deep breathing. So is in light. Very simple. So very simple. And this for 30 or so breaths. One month ago, I was with where the strongest guy

in the world, the strongest man. It's an adi-hole. He was the first one. Oh yeah, you lift him.

Five hundred kilos. That is a thousand pounds. He was the first one. So I was with him. And I said, "You're good. You might be better than others but who says you are the best of yourself. So let's go into the breath for that." So first you do dumbbells. 60 pounds here, 60 pounds here and go like this. As much as you can to complete failure. Yes, 60 times he went. Yes, it's a 60 pounds. So here's 60 pounds. 60 times he did. And last, you know, that way. Then I took him out.

So we talked a little drink tea, water, something destructive out of his mind. Still the soarness was still in the arms. After 10 minutes, we went back to the same place. They say, "Now we are going to do deep breathing." Not hyperventilating with a deep breathing.

So and do one thing with your mind. You follow the breath, nothing else.

“Just just tune into your breath. Give the better. The better nose or mouth. He is the best”

and the best is able to come. That is all. nasal or mouth or mouth doesn't matter. Just get the air in. Just get the air in. It's nothing complicated about it. It was somebody else. You mean, do I have to, through my, it's not true. That no, the diaphragm or the lungs, the belly. Do I have to sum it to a, a, a, a. Use any hole you got. Just get it. Just to make it so over complicating things. It is the breath. The breath is the life.

Yeah. Life force itself. Just get it in. Yeah. And so I told him that and he did that.

And instead of said, and then he say, and now you take the dumbbells again, the same dumbbells. 60 pounds, 60 pounds and you go again. He still had the so on as of the exercise 10 minutes ago in this body. And he did 90. Wow. And he was not tired. Wow. It was not tired. What is that? You can be better than somebody else. But I, you the best of yourself. And that is the power of the breath. Wow. And we who should bring this into the secondary schools. Yeah. To the children.

Because if they know that then you become the best of yourself. You learn to cleanse yourself. Hmm. Completely. They are adrenal access. Then any emotional conflict you have because you have talents, but maybe not for this system. So you don't get conflict with yourself because you know how to cleanse yourself of the difference. You are exerted to be. You got to do this. You got to do this. But maybe you are a carpenter. Maybe you are a woodworker or a doctor or a painter or musician.

And about the systems demands or this and this are the careers. This is the way you can make money. And this is the way the system survives. No, we are sold. And we have talents to realize what our soul is all about to get into the depth of our physiology of the mind and body for that we have

“talents. Those are the way to deal with matter. And if you want to get into psychology,”

over physiology, mind, over matter, you will have to learn to regulate your emotion in the depth. And we did the studies there in Detroit. I've seen them. We are in state. And they say, and now we got the compelling evidence of the key components of the autonomous processes in the brain. Autonomous is outside the world. Now we found the key components related to mulch regulation. Hmm. That is emotion. Emotion is the expression of our soul. It's very simple. And once you are

able to cleanse or because of the stress accumulated from working in a system which is not necessarily exerting your talents. Yeah. Yeah. You get proper. You learn to deal with that stress. Yeah. And your emotion stays clear. And with that the soul stays clear. You can use anything in the world to get to the soul. If there is a system, you can abide to the rules of the system and have a position in the system without losing your soul. And use it to use it like the Buddha principle

in the old ways of martial art. Use the power of the appellment and lock them up and there you bring peace. And that is within us. And we don't know how to do that. But it is not difficult. It's just simple. Yeah. Use any hole you got. Man. I just get the air in one of my favorite bioaxe outside of breath work. By far is mineral salts. Baja gold sea salt. It's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs. Most of us are not just protein deficient, meaning amino acid

deficient or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral deficient. So a quarter teaspoon of this

“and water first thing in the morning will make sure that you get all of the essential minerals”

that you need. It tastes amazing. In fact, I made a date today. I actually made a grass bed

steak with grass bed butter and I put just mushrooms and a little bit of rosemary and I sprinkled baja gold sea salt all over the top. Try it. It'll be your new favorite for cooking too. It's the cheapest and one of my favorite bioaxe. I don't know. It's $15 or $20 bagadis will probably last

ultimate human podcast. You know what I find so it just is fascinating is I can't think of

“another singular practice or singular supplement or singular ritual that cleanses the body of”

toxins, which in and of itself improves our immune function. I was asked on a podcast a few months ago. If I was to put all of the top leading anti-aging longevity experts in a room and have them agree on one theory of aging, what would it be? And I said, we would all agree on the theory of immunophotic, just to slow progressive overwhelming of our immune system. We're micro poisoning ourselves all the time and it may not be just the glyphosate or just the fluoride and the water

or just the chlorine in this and just the process foods, but those things accumulate and eventually

the collapse of the system. And so through breath work to be able to detoxify, but you also impact the mental side, you know, the mood, the emotion to get rid of stress, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions that are conditions of the mind, the conditions of the psyche and to be able to cleanse both of those with a singular practice that is free that you can do

“anywhere in the world that's portable. And I think this is why it doesn't get the adoption that”

it deserves, because it's so accessible. It can't be that good, you know, or else, you know, somebody would have a pattern on it, you know, Pfizer would sell it in a bit, you know, in a pill. And then when you add the chromatic stress and you think I'm cleansing, I'm releasing trauma, I'm shifting the state of my nervous system. We talked about this on the balcony earlier, how 82% of all autoimmune disease is found in females. It's not because autoimmune

disease is selective by sex. It's selective by weakness. And very often, women don't feel safe in their own bodies. When you don't feel safe, you're trapped in this sympathetic state, the state of fighter flight, and the immune system doesn't work in that state. And so what happens

“is it weakens and you're susceptible to attack. And so I mean, if there's no other message that”

comes out of this podcast is that breath work just has to be a part of your daily routine. Full stock. Absolutely. So I want to go back to this study. So they did 20 minutes of this controlled breathing. At the end of either 20 or 30 rounds of breath, they did, they did a prolonged breath hold. And it was during this breath hold that the CO2 was building up. They felt fine. CO2 is the main vasodilator in the body is dilating the microvascular

nature, which by the way, our heart is only circulating 30% of the blood in our body, 70% of the blood in our body is circulated by vasomotoractivity. So there's no pressure in those vessels. So if we can dilate and relax them, just think about the amount of blood flow that's going the tissues that previously we're not getting any nutrients and the oxygen, we were trapping inflammation in there and not getting it out. So they would do this 20 or 30 minutes of controlled breathing. And

then when they go into cold water, they would do cold water immersion. Yes. And this whole shower and lunch week coming together. As you mentioned in the beginning, we are over individualized in this society. We are social human beings. Yeah. And that is not just a flower power. It is energy. Yeah. And it interacts with our nervous system. It just surrounds better. When I get people, hundreds of people, doesn't matter. They are age, profession, background, even conditions.

In four days time, just exposing these people to elemental, environmental forces like cold and and breathing, they come together. And then in the last day they go climb the mountain,

never been in the cold before, but they all do it in their shorts and bikinis. Outside for four

five hours, in freezing temperatures and they feel humanity. They feel great. They feel purpose a depth of spirituality, which is goes beyond what we think it feels. And that brings the people all so together that they get lifelong friends just in four days. Yeah. Well, there's something to be said for that because doing hard things together really brings a bond. And I agree with you. We are so star for connection, community, and purpose. And the digital age has made us more

that if you want to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half, at any age,

“you put them in isolation. You know, broken heart syndrome in the elderly is a very real thing,”

married 50 years, 60 years, spouse passes. It's real, it's quickly, it's very real. It's it's immediate isolation. Death, I, I suffered it. Yeah. No, I know you're going to heart syndrome. Oh, yeah, but I do not stop. Yeah, I could not stop because I had four children. No, money. And now you have seven. No, no, no, no, it's all prosperous. But how, where did that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love it. The call is not only good for your call. It's a fertile system. Clearly it makes you

fertile. Oh, yes. I got my oldest son is 42, and my younger is 16 months. Oh, wow. So amazing. Yeah,

and we are just fully in love. My wife is 30 years younger, but it's energy. My energy. I

“got a child like energy. Yeah, me too. I have read. It's a infectious man. I'm getting energy”

from you right now. And my head's going to blow up. It's there. And about the digital age and the isolation through that, it's not only that. I talked to several neurosurgeons. They put me at their dilemma, their problem. And their problem of the new generation is going to be that their brains are shrinking because they are too much on iPads and those devices while we are human beings that need to be stimulated from old sites. Yeah. And then everything is growing. And a brain

is working, which is the central nervous system. And if it doesn't work, if you don't use it, you lose it. So that is all happening. And I told this neurosurgeon, one of the authorities in the world, where there are huge institutes in Germany, very meticulous and great, but not knowing what to do, how to tackle that problem for the new generations to come. And I said, it's very simple. You do the breathing. Because what you do, you utilise the blood. Yeah. You ignite a adrenal

axis. It goes into the spinal fluid. You squeeze to the head as if you got a poo and it doesn't want to get out. And you cleanse the brain of its brain waste and anything that was not flushed with blood flow and neural activity. Right now, or the blood flow, the spinal fluid, fluid, cerebral spinal fluid, suddenly is everywhere. And we showed this in brain scans, how to activate 100% of our brain through breathing exercises. So it's a disco. It's a disco, and you will dance

afterwards. Because you feel good. Yes. You don't need alcohol for that. Get high on your own supply. Yeah, I love that. That one's going to go viral. So what I love even more about this is the individuality, the portability of it, that you do it anywhere. You suggest, or would you suggest. For somebody that's convinced that they want to go down this road, would you suggest that they just take 15 or 20 minutes in their morning and get outside and just do some breathing?

Yes. And just that change. And what could they do? What could they expect that they just did that 70s a week? What might they expect that? I bring it back. It's a Kilimanjaro, it's a amounted. It's a big one. And six kilometers or less than half to oxygen. And it was a man coming to me suffering from Lyme's disease. And 76 years old, he was 76 years old and he said, "Can I come with you to climb to Kilimanjaro in the record time you proposed?" Because this is

a mountain that can be done between five and nine days because of acclimatization. We cannot

“produce enough oxygen at those altitude. That's why we have to go slowly, but surely.”

So the body is able to adapt to the thinner air to produce enough oxygen inside, is producing more red cells. More red blood cells. And that is called acclimatization that takes five to nine days.

And then only 40 percent will be able to summit fully dressed because up there it's also a

Arctic cold. It's Africa, but at six kilometers it's the wind and ice and snow and it's really and with half the oxygen you don't have the fuel to combat to create energy. So those predicaments

And this man 76, he wanted to climb the Kilimanjaro within 35 hours, 35, not five to nine days,

“in a short. That's what I said. The people who are going to come with me in this expedition,”

they're going to go, we are going to do it within 35 hours. And with that we beat any physiological law of alpine acclimatization and high altitude sickness and all that. All that physiology, nah, we can do that a lot faster and better. And so he came and when he came he had no experience in mounting climbing at all. He was 76. He was suffering from the Lyme disease. But what I saw in

this man was motivation. So that is every time I ask first to the people if you embark

in this journey of breath and cold, have motivation. It is scientifically endorsed. So it works. It is a matter of choice. Go wholeheartedly within it and you will see the wonder of life.

“Because the life is a miracle and miracles happen all the time if you only go to life.”

And that life force you are able to control into the depth as this man did. He did it in 31 hours. He didn't at 31 hours. No mountain climbing experience. 76 years old, suffering from Lyme disease. But what had he learned? He was a student of yours. Had he, had he, had he, had something? Do some breathing. Do this. It is not complicated. So how did that a sense look from a breath work standpoint? How did you continue to acclimate at such an accelerated rate?

The only thing we do on the mountain different than others, we don't wait until the lack of

oxygen is there. We breathe consciously. So we are never getting trapped by a sneaky coming

in deficit that builds up and subtly you get high altitude sickness. No, you go and do conscious breathing. What I say is this, just breathe more than you feel you need. You know I'm all about optimizing performance and lately I've been using the ion weighted vest during my workouts and it's been a game changer. It isn't your average weighted vest. It's designed to fit like a second skin, activating your core and proving blood flow in even helping you with recovery while you train.

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smarter today. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So you're just your attention is on your breath. That is conscious. So you're consciously attentive to your breath and while you're ascending, you're maybe taking deep deeper breaths, more frequent breath. So you're not letting your autonomic nervous system regulate your breathing. You are in control of your breathing. Yes. That is consciousness. Consciousness is

breathe more than you feel you need. That makes you conscious. And then you feel when the deficit is coming in. You compensate with deeper breathing. And it is not for a night egg. It's not paranoid. There's not a way you go. Just a little bit more creates that consciousness that knows how to detect any deficit that is going to happen. And if you're just past that deficit and it

never occurs, you can definitely walk to the top. You know, my wife and I have a home in Colorado

that's a 10,500 feet. We have a long cabin. It's a favorite place in the world. And the first few

“days that I'm there, I always see 3% less oxygen tension in the air. Yeah, yeah, I think it's”

13.7% something like that. At atmosphere or at sea level, it's what 21%. So that altitude, it's about 13.7-ish. Which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a huge deal. I mean, it's 7% reduction in oxygen is like a third, like you say, less oxygen. And if you're not conscious of that, and you're just breathing normally, which is what happens to me when I sleep,

I always wake up with my old headache. It's not in my grain, but it's a headache, and I'm foggy,

“and slow to get out of bed. And the first thing I do is I get outside, and I do three rounds of”

30 breaths with a breath hold in between, and not only is the headache gone, but I feel so alive, and so connected. Just it takes me maybe, I don't know, 12 minutes or something. And I go back inside. I don't even feel like I need coffee. And then when I'll put a rucksack on, and I'll just I have this little four mile loop in the woods. And when I get back from that rock walk, I'm telling you nothing makes me feel better. You see all the fancy stuff I have here in Miami.

Nothing makes me feel better. Not red light, not hyperbaric, not sauna, nothing makes me feel better than that. Round of breath work, a little bit of weight, four and a half miles through the woods. And I tried to just draw my attention to what's going on there. There's a funny little squirrel.

“He's been there for years, and he hates me. And he really does. He's like an angry little thing,”

and I've taken videos of this on posted on social media, because I'm like this squirrel, like legitimately, doesn't like me. And so when I start going in the woods, he starts chirping, and then then he's chirping to all the other squirrels. And then I kid you nice to tune off egg corns and he holds him in his paws and he throws him. He literally throws him right down at me. And then he'll follow me in the tree tops and throw egg corns down on top of me while he's like

if I spoke squirrel, there's some f-bombs going on up there. He's a angry, angry little thing. And every year or a few years, but you know, it's like I connect with him. I'm like, hey, I know, I'm in your space, man. I'm like, I'm not going to mess with anything. I'm just passing through, but you know, I come at peace. But maybe one day, I'll do some breath work with him, but really connect that nature. Right story. But you know, it's truly one of my favorite things,

and I don't know how to describe it or emphasize it. Physiologically, I'm not even sure why it works so well, but I'm so, I'm so happy. Like sometimes I get back to the house and I tell

sage, I'm like, I'm so happy right now. I feel like I could burst. Like I might be the first person

“to die of spontaneous happiness. Sometimes I need some bad news just to take the edge off. Right?”

Right. Is that possible? Can you dive into this happiness? So again, I want to now go back. We've talked about the the breath, and I want to go into the cold, because some of the feats, the physical feats that you've done, that you have accomplished in the cold. I mean, I think, you know, I ran 18 miles in Antarctica, and my son ran a full marathon in Antarctica. He did the Great World Race, seven marathon, seven continents, seven days.

It was freaking miserable, first of all. And I had size 14, Timberland Boots, three layers of

socks. I had longions. I had wind breakers. I love he gear. I looked like the Michelin man. Remember the Michelin tire man? Okay. That was me in Antarctica. And I marched 18 miles. The thought of actually touching that snow barefoot, taking all my clothes off down to a pair of board shorts, and going six more miles than what I did in this full gear, is mind numbing to me. So there's something else there, something that you're able to tap into, something you're

able to access, because physiology says your feet would freeze, you would give frostbite. You would not be able to keep the pace, which was just over two hours, which is a phenomenal pace at sea level in the best Nike running shoes. What else was it that allowed you to reach that level of physical feet? Yeah. I like the squirrel story. Maybe if you go with me, it'll be nice, but he's there every year. We're going on four years. I'll send the gym to get it there on the

altitude. Yeah, I've been a mountain guide for 10 years, and I know I did some feet over there. Running and breathing makes me able to go faster than normal and in high altitude. And so I did it with 26 people, with Crohn's disease, arthritis, cancer, asthma, we did it all in record time, just using the breath, using the breath enabled us to go deeper into our physiology and to be just a little bit upfront, the impact of nature itself. Whatever that is, and one of them is the cold.

just breathe a little bit more than you feel you need. That is consciousness. That consciousness

“I use. I use a, for example, in a scientific experiment with a purviewsion vest, which is used”

by firefighters to stay a cool. They get icy water flowing through right in their, in Jesus Christ. That's the need for the vest. And then they use that in a thermophysiological experiment, in Detroit, in the hospital, to test to see if people are able to use parts of the mind that cope with stress, called is stress. So what they do is pumping a cold water into the vest, into the tubes, and they measure the skin temperature. And they look inside the brain what is happening,

how the person is dealing with stress. And nobody could really do something against that. And what I was doing, there was this, I'm talking squirrels. There's not so tall. It looks like Napoleon, professor. And he swims every day. He swims every day. 800 meters butterfly. You know, that is this, he's into breathing without knowing. He's got a lot of energy. But he had difficulties purpuring ice cubes in the container, which was pumping water, being in the FMI, motionless,

because it was warming up the water. And I was, so my skin temperature never went down.

Wow. And it came in and then warming the water again. And then ice cubes again, cold water, a cold, and you see fluctuation of skin temperature. And then you look inside the brain. What did I do? I just said, I just set my intention. I don't want to call today, because today I got the chance to show that we can do more than we think. That is so powerful. I want to just lock in right there. You set the intention. Yes. So you determined your susceptibility to the cold.

“That's what's so fascinating. Yes. You took control of that. And that is what I did in an all these,”

I learned that in all these records, I did. And all these challenges in the cold. And we all have that power in terrorception, top down, regulated, in terrorception, which is part of the central nervous system. And it commands the central nervous system to do what you say. And a cold is emotion. You can learn to deal with emotions. You want to feel good. Yeah. You can. Do you want to feel good? Yeah. And train your, and you believe that you can feel good. Yes. That's the thing. Train your

nervous system like you train muscles. You can train the nervous system very rapidly. It's actually awakening. We get back to the demotivated. That is the way to start. We got all the evidence. It's already there. Don't mind about that. Yeah. Just do it. Yes. And I was before Nike, was, which just do it. I did that for four years ago. Yeah. When Nike was not there. No,

yeah, or at least it was not out there. I always said to the people. It's a mountain guide. It's

what do I have to do? I said just do it. Yeah. And that is the belief in yourself to pacify yourself in very stressful situations. Yeah. Because we did upcycling and bungee jumping and going

“into rivers and to all. And don't mind. Yeah. Use the mind. I think it's so powerful because I think”

you know, the vast majority of society is has a victim mentality. You know, these things are happening to me. They're beyond my control. I'm where I am in my life because of this or because of that or from this person or from that person or, you know, I just haven't had a chance or I have a luck of the draw. You know, then then motion turns to things like anger and resent and hatred because either somebody has something that you want that you feel that you deserve. And we just

feel like we're not in control. And what I love about your teachings and the breath work and

your destiny. You know, for me, my my entire life changed when when I stopped the pursuit of happiness

“and I realized the happiness was in the pursuit. Right. I said, what are the things that make me really”

happy? Well, my family, you know, my wife, spending time with my parents, spending time with my kids having them in my sphere. And so I designed this life that included those things and now from from an outside or looking in, they're like, oh, you're so busy. You travel all the time. You're not for home. You know, you're all over the world. But I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Right. Because no longer, I don't have a destination in mind. Like I don't have an end day,

don't have an exit strategy. You know, but I will say a whim that this was largely due to you

and your teachings. And my son and I, both six, six years ago, you used to have this course

“online. I don't know if it's still on there. It was about a 10-week course. And we completed all”

of the modules. At one point, we were, we were going to sign up to go to the Pyrenees, mountains and do this retreat with you. But that was one of the more material changes in my life. It was right about the time that I decided I would schedule all of my meetings and travel around sleep and exercise. It was the day that I decided when I finished that course that

breath work would be non-negotiable. And there hasn't been a day in my life ever since,

no matter where I'm in the world, that I haven't done it. I do it on airplanes. Like people think I'm, I was on Emirates Airlines, you got the little lounge in the back. Everybody's standing around the bar. I'm sitting at the table doing breath works sound like I'm, you know, about the Pyrenees pass out. And I'm awake the entire flight and I'm functioning the entire flight. It's just so fascinating. So it was the breath that allowed you to mitigate the effects

of the cold. Absolutely. In breathing exercise, we are able to activate 100% neural activity in our brain. That means anything that is deprived of blood flow and glimp, glimp fabric presence, the right way, the right home of your stages, creates a non-accessible pathway. We cannot enter with our will when there is a less blood flow. So what we do, we cleanse the brain of brainwaste, through doing a breathing exercise. And then we activate all the brain the way nature

matters to be. It's our brain. It should be 100% in a possible contact with our will to use the brain for whatever we are our path demands. And there comes a fearless state of being. A fearless state where the whole brain is serving with that. The brain is the seat of the unlimited power of the mind. It's certainly with the whole brain, possibly functioning, not being older. It's like a house.

“You should be able to get into any room of your house. You should be clean. So you clean up the”

house and then you should be able sometimes there, but not all the time everywhere. It's a brain. Yeah. Leave it. It's the seat of the mind. And the seat of the mind is there. Connected to the unlimited power of the mind. What is that? That is, we are Sanders and receivers. It with the omnipresence. And the omnipotency is there. We just sand a signal, not only into our own bodies in their reception, central nervous system, but out there into the omnipotency, omnicinds, and omnipresence is

all there. And then God is revealed. It's no longer a person this and that is died on the cross. No, it's here. And now it's divine. That power. Wow. And I want just to show the directions that that is there. You are the owner of your rightful owner of your own mind, your own brain. But are we schooled that way? For that we are here talking, common sense to the people, look at this logic. It's based in a neurological studies, immunological studies and whatever studies,

it shows that we can do much more than we think. And one thing is to have trust back, confidence back, creativity, empathy, the love of life itself. I say that it is composed by be happy, strong and healthy. That characteristics of our soul. Once that happens,

way we can, if we show this neurologically how that all works and immunologically, how that all works,

how to beat inflammation, how to improve your dopamine. So there is no depression. And that is not only thing. It is giving people the power back the way nature meant it to be, to live up to your purpose, to feel the depth and be driven by love for life. And it is free and accessible. So for for for my audience who is just on fire right now after watching this, where do they find out more about you?

“Where do they go to take the next step? It's all free in the end. If you want to see me,”

man, you've got to pay. Because you've got to take something like that. If you want to hear me talk and run down stage, I'm in. I'm good at it. I'm a good joke. He is funny. I will get to do it. So many of you roll and laughter. Five minutes after you walked in. But is there a place where I can say, you know, people to learn more about breath work, to learn more about cold exposure, to follow your teachings, to read, you know, some of what you walk through. Absolutely. We say do it safely. Yes.

“Do it gradually because we got a decondition from the conditions state where we and we are kind of”

trapped and we show the keys how to get out in the brain and in the body. And I just follow these steps. Go to the Wim Hof method. Wim Hof. They gave me that method today. People told me I'm the Iceman. No, I'm just a nice man. But easy. It's okay. I like the name. I'm the Iceman. People think called way worse. It's not Superman. It's the Iceman. Yeah. I'm not a Marvel, but Marvelous. Yeah. So something like that. I love life. I want you to love life. Yes. That is what I want.

So I just get into it. I'm the only guy who has never been on his own website. That's me.

But everything around me is being arranged. Hey, and there is a lot of information there by which you are able to go gradually into something unbelievable. And that is who you are. That is so great. So when I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. There's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? Yes. Remind me to breathe. Yeah. I just take in the

life force to live to my purpose to change the world, to bring about a world where my children are able to enter into a paradise. And that is this world to stop the war, to stop disease, to stop darkness, to stop depression, to stop pollution is living in harmony with nature. That means the harmony of the inner nature with the omnipresence and field God every day,

every moment has amazing. That may be the best answer I've gotten on on the ultimate human.

“When I cannot thank you enough for giving me a slightly precious time. I think we only started”

because there's so much work to do spiritually. We got to stop these wars and inflammation and all and you are the right man to bring it out. I thank you from the heart, but also from as a man. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Wow. Until next time, guys, that's just science.