The cold is a noble force – Wim Hof
Tim enjoying the facilities at CryoBright
The above statement is a good one, and one which I had completely disregarded, precisely for the reason the cold, and being cold, was uncomfortable and took massive effort to experience. Not only was being cold miserable, but the journey to being cold was just as bad, because you knew what was going to be happening.
Of course, the whole point is not really about the cold, but about the mindset in facing the cold. The cold strips you bare of any pretension and is as fundamental an experience as you will ever have.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, warmth falls within the base of his pyramid of basic needs, along with food, water and rest. To survive we need warmth, arguably to live, you need the cold.
Because the cold is so fundamental, it encourages us to think in a more simplified form and makes us look at ourselves and what we can withstand.
We can withstand considerably more than we think.
I am of the opinion early humans and their tribes all came from Africa and then spread themselves through millennia around the globe. I find it interesting some tribes stayed in sunnier climes, whilst others took their exploration to the considerably colder climates of the Arctic circle, and not only survived, but thrived as they adapted readily to the conditions.
The Inuits and the Swaami from Greenland, Alaska and Finland all set up their roots in hostile environmental conditions. What was the mindset which made them do such a thing? I suppose for them, it was a very simple choice, to live or die. Here is our old friend the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), fight or flight…or freeze.
I am beginning to think more of these things, because my cold exposure adventures are becoming bolder.
I have spoken in a previous blog about a black cloud of melancholia which wrapped me in its warm and suffocating embrace a little over a year ago. It was a depression I just could not shake and arguably was the worst I had ever suffered in the previously short episodes I had experienced previously in my life. I have been very lucky in that respect.
There were two fundamental elements which pulled me out of that ever so slightly seductive hug. Breath work and cold exposure.
One man in particular to help, was of course, Wim Hof. Not personally, I have never met him.
This is not an exclamation about the crazy Dutch dude, as much as I do think he has extraordinary charisma and energy, no, this is about how breathing and specifically on this occasion the cold exposure has meant I have been able to keep depression at bay.
I have just realised as I am searching my head for euphemisms for depression that I have a physical living, although currently snoozing, black dog lying near my feet as I type.
Chewie is the antithesis of depression, and wind permitting, always comes for a morning swim when I go to the sea. We both don’t like big waves; I am neither a surfer or a strong swimmer and Chewie’s heyday of competing in the dog surfing championships in Cornwall are behind her. She still polishes her board every now and again though.
A third of the Wim Hof method (WHM), is the cold, and his way of introduction to this is quite simple, as all good things should be, and involves introducing yourself to a cold shower bit by bit.
Have your normal shower, then turn the tap to cold and gradually introduce your body to the cold water limb by limb. Then ensure you have 5 seconds full immersion on day 1. Day 2 it is 10 seconds, day 3, 15 seconds and so on. After a month you will be averaging 2.5 minutes of cold exposure with every shower.
Naturally enough, I ignored most of that and had my normal shower and started at the 2-minute mark under the cold shower. And sweet baby cheeses, it was cold.
I do breathing exercises to help regulate my heart rate and try to let the relaxing parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), take over from the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system.
I do not do the Wim Hof breathing, for me, this is a double stressor, as I am also fighting the urge to get out. I use a 3-5-7 count. Breathe in for the count of 3, hold for 5 and exhale for 7. The hold and the exhalation are key, as they regulate your heart rate and stimulates your PNS.
After the initial urge to flee, especially when I turn round and the cold surge hits the base of my neck, I am able to relax and enjoy the experience. This of course may not happen immediately, however, your body will build up a tolerance and your mindset will change within a few short days.
I know, I know, it’s all well and good doing this sort of thing but the benefits have to outweigh the negatives. Of course they do, I am not a masochist, this is about good health and taking control of it.
I can only really speak for myself, but you will find countless accounts online of like-minded people. At the end of every cold shower, and I have one every time I have a shower, unless I have been sea swimming, in which case I do not. Double cold exposure, not for me. That is a tinge of masochism just below the surface.
For those who have not read any of my previous blogs, I am slightly prone to digression. Rather than just sigh with exasperation, view it as a patience builder and just think what sort of digression actually goes on in my brain which I have to deal with on a daily basis.
After the cold exposure, you feel cold, naturally, you also feel alive and invigorated.
Why is this, I hear you ask?
It is because your vascular system has expanded. Your brain has sent signals throughout your central nervous system for your body to be on high alert as what is happening is not normal.
The vascular system goes into overdrive and starts expanding your arteries and veins to allow more blood to flow through filling your body with extra oxygen from the haemoglobin within your blood.
This tasty bit of adventure increases your metabolism, which helps to boost your body and particularly your immune system. And man-oh-man, it makes your skin feel magnificent, which if you do this on a regular basis, actually stays that way.
This increased internal activity carries on after you have gotten out of the shower and are towelling yourself down and continues for a while afterwards.
All this for just 2/2.5 minutes in a cold shower.
This upsurge in metabolism helps to stimulate the chemicals in your brain, releasing all the good ‘ins, endorphins, seratonins and oxytocins.
Over time these hale and hearty chemical fellows dampen the spirit of the cortisol of toxic stress and relieve the tensions in your mind and body, thus helping the black dog, sorry Chewie, of depression reduce.
Of course, I would hate for you to feel as though simple cold showers or cold exposure was the panacea to the world’s issues with mental health and depression. It is not. Depression comes in all shapes and sizes and there is not a one size fits all approach. Each case must be taken on their own merits.
I would absolutely say though, cold exposure, helps with the body’s homeostasis, it’s balance and it has helped me and hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Goodness, I realised I have just written over 1200 words and have not really got to the crux of what prompted me to write this in the first place.
If you have got this far, A, well done and B, it won’t be long, just go and stick your hand or face in a bucket of ice, that will pep you up.
Open water swimming. If you can do it, absolutely bloody do it.
I have lived most of my life near the sea, again as mentioned in a previous blog, I have to be near a large body of water, no matter what standard of swimmer I am. I guess it might be a tidal thing, who knows. I just know I love it. So, it really begs the question what was stopping me going into the water on a regular basis? Well, I live close to the English Channel, next stop is France and no matter what time of year it is, it is crunchingly cold.
As with the first paragraph, just the journey in can be tortuous. If you can imagine a man with every step shivering and cursing and waiting for the wave to hit his scrotum, for his nuts to shrink and feel numb and then move to his warmer upper chest and be just bloody miserable…that was me.
Again though, precisely the same as the cold showers your body adapts. Does it stop you from shuddering, take several uncontrollable breaths and wondering what the fuckity fuck you are doing? No, it does not, especially with a chill winters north easterly wind blowing in.
But here is why the cold is a noble force because it shows you what your mind and body can do. And if I can change from being that shrivelled, goose bumped, shilly-shallying, wide eyed with terror, just wanting a warm towel, some mittens, a big furry hat, a big cup of hot chocolate and probably his Mummy of a man, then anyone can.
I am here folks, at the reason for writing. My new and my bolder experience.
I received a present from my wife over the 2021 festive season of a voucher for a relatively new business not far from where we live.
It was a voucher for a session of Cryotherapy. I had to look it up also.
Cryotherapy is a process used by people to increase their metabolism and get their body to heal quicker. For example, athletes will always use an ice bath to speed up the recovery process. The principle is the same, except quicker.
Of course, this does not have to be strictly for athletes. This is for everyone. When I attended, there was a gentleman attending daily sessions to help with his psoriasis. The owner of the business showed me the before and during pictures. The cold exposure has helped boost the client’s immune system and is helping renew his skin. The psoriasis has nearly disappeared and above all, the client states there is no itching, which obviously exacerbates the inflammation on the skin.
Whether this treatment is to be used to aid inflammation, reset the chemicals in your mind to help stave off anxiety or stress, improve pain relief and healing of the muscles, helping with the symptoms of eczema or treating migraines, cryotherapy deals with the same cold exposure as cold showers and open water swimming. The only difference being this is colder…..much colder.
I went to a place a short bike ride away in Brighton & Hove called CryoBright. It is a family-owned business and have only been officially open for 8 months. The pandemic annoyingly having a good laugh at their expense for much of the past 2 years.
The owners Rob & Shelly were brilliant with me from start to finish. I was made to feel most welcome, you think, surely that’s normal, alas, not always, so it is always a great surprise when it happens.
As an opening offer, they said I could have two complementary treatments, a leg compression and also CryoFace, a mask which you hold to your face and the cold air begins to work its magic.
Before all of this, I had filled out a questionnaire asking various questions of any ill health I may have which might hinder the process. I was then asked to take my blood pressure and here was the sticky point for me.
I suffer from white coat syndrome. Some people feel this is a made-up syndrome because, well, it sounds like one, but it is very real.
What this means is, whenever I go to the doctors, or it seems anywhere that resembles anything to do with my health, my blood pressure goes through the roof.
This is not a good thing.
I had had a crappy morning before I went and I cycled to the location, so my blood was pumping quite reasonably. Also, I found out afterwards your BP spikes around mid-day. My appointment was at 12.30. Reasons for a high reading.
Your blood pressure is taken as a precaution. There are parameters in which you must fall into naturally enough. As the cryo chamber acts as a vasodilator, which means the cold tells your brain to open up your arteries and veins, so more blood can get through to circulate around your body to keep you warm, explained in more detail above.
If your BP is already high, this could have a negative effect on your body and you may faint, or even worse have a stroke. This is why it is so important to check your BP and know your body.
Whatever we tried, my BP would not come down sufficiently. We did the leg compression, which I liked a lot for 20 mins, with me doing some relaxation breathing exercises, we did the CryoFace, which made my skin feel incredible, although supremely cold around my eye sockets and the BP still wouldn’t go down.
Not only was I massively disappointed, but I was really concerned about my BP. I mean, for goodness sake, I meditate, eat very well, hardly drink, exercise, do cold exposure, and regulate my breathing. All the things I teach people.
And there was my BP as high as a kite.
This story is not about my BP, suffice to say, when I got home, I blood pressured myself with my little machine for the rest of the day and the evening. I must have taken my BP ten times, every single one was in the green zone and averaging in the 120s for my systolic and 70s, early 80s for my diastolic.
Another digression. Years ago, I developed high BP because I was not eating great food and not exercising enough. I was advised by the doctor to go on a pill, after all, thousands do. However, if I was in a cowboy film, I would be called a ‘cussed son of a bitch’, and I said I would change it myself.
I gave myself a month and went on a diet, changed the way I ate and exercised more. At the end of the month, I had to have a BP monitor attached to me for 24 hours, which took my BP every 20 minutes or so. My BP was only over the limit twice, when I picked the machine up from the doctors and when I took it back.
Since then I have always been cognisant of my BP and done everything I can to keep it in acceptable limits, exercising etc notwithstanding.
I do not want to take pills unless I have to.
This public health warning has been brought to you today, by cussed son of a bitch productions for all your cussed needs.
Back to CryoBright.
I made another appointment with CryoBright for the next day at half ten. Rob & Shelly were really accommodating
My BP was taken again, it was still high, but closer to the cut off points. We took it a second time and, on this occasion, I remembered your arm had to be supported. I mentioned this to Shelly, who brought some towels for me to rest my arm on.
Bingo, huzzah, this seemed to do the trick, I came into the taking part zone.
This meant, I was now to get into a chamber which was going to achieve a coldness of -85 degrees Celsius for 4 minutes, wearing a pair of shorts, gloves, socks and small booties and a head band which protected my ears.
It had been explained to me beforehand that as the chamber was a dry cold, our bodies could withstand considerably more. Unlike if we were in the open and exposed to water, ice or wind.
Rob took various different temperatures around my body for a before and after comparison and then asked what sort of music I required to listen to in there. The question flummoxed me, so I said anything generically relaxing. It was only 4 minutes after all. Rob said he will tell me when 2 minutes had elapsed, one minute, then 20 seconds.
And then I was in, excited and intrigued.
Instead of standing there waiting as though for a bus, I did a horse stance and started to move my arms around, knowing this would get my heart pumping the blood around the body.
It was interesting to see icicles forming on my arm, chest and leg hairs. I was also wearing a mask to reduce the breath freezing.
The two minutes went by really quickly and I could really sense my skin and extremities getting colder. I also noticed the top of my baldy head was beginning to brain freeze me. It was like cycling down a hill in the middle of winter without a seasonal bike hat underneath your helmet and your helmet channelling the cold air onto various points on your head. Too cold for words.
The four minutes were soon up and I was standing outside the chamber with a massive smile on my face and an enormous amount of energy and the icicles melting on my hairy bits. Rob took temperatures of my body and naturally enough, my head, arms and legs had reduced in temperature. My core temperature on the other hand, only reduced marginally. What was also odd, was I began to feel the blood warming my hands and feet as I stood chatting. Weird, but curiously lovely.
I felt fucking fantastic.
If you have access to CryoTherapy near you check it out. There is an expense, naturally enough, but it does do wonders for your mind and your body and is quicker and less hassle than going to the beach of a morning. If you are out and about doing some shopping, you can pop in beforehand, the rest of the day will pass by in a delight. I had a damned decent night’s sleep that night as an added bonus.
You have to give cold exposure a little time to take effect. View the longer game, whether you use cold showers, ice baths, open water swimming/dipping or a -85 degree chamber, view the initial discomfort as just a means to an end.
I have spoken to many people online or in person, have viewed the many people who have followed Wim Hof, shared a live online ice bath with him, and I have yet to come across anyone who has not benefitted from cold exposure in one form or another.
As I said above, if I can do it, and get used to it, there is no reason why you cannot also. I also walk into the sea with a greater degree of bravery these days.
I would be really happy to hear anyone’s thoughts, experiences about the subject. Please leave a comment under the blog.
Thank you for reading and I wish you some great cold experiences.
Catch the BBC 1 series Freeze the Fear with Wim Hof starting tonight (Tuesday 12 April)
