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Alkalinity, Deep Breathing, and Wim Hof

"Feeling is understanding", Wim Hof's quote to Joe Rogan as Joe is performing the Wim Hof method of deep inhalations and exhalations during the JRE podcast. After 35 or so breathes, Wim asks Joe to exhale and hold for as long as possible. During the 35 breathes, Joe has highly saturated his body with oxygen and the cells have enough energy to allow him to abstain from breathing for 2'30" on his first round, and this would rapidly increase with subsequent rounds of the technique, states Wim

Wim is a dutch daredevil, he holds 26 world records primarily for feats involving extreme cold. He has climbed Kilamanjaro in record time wearing only shorts and hiking boots, he has run a marathon above the arctic circle bear foot, and he has swam under a metre thick sheet of ice in ocean water in Finland. And the list goes on

He is now at the point where science and medical institutions are taking a seriously hard and intriguing look at his ability and its implications for the health of millions of people. Wim's techniques tap into the most powerful systems we possess in the human body; the endocrine system which comprises hormone control and many regulation procedures in the body, the immune system which is our defence system, and our autonomic nervous system which deals with the response to our environment, something which before Wim was believed to be autonomic and out of our control

The method comprises of three parts, deep breathing which saturates the body with oxygen, focused meditation, and cold immersion. The most prominent being the breathing. Whenever meditation is spoken of there is always the focus on the breath, they are symbiotic, and whilst I understood this fundamentally, I sometimes find myself distracted or returning to breathing, but what I find so interesting and enabling about the Wim Hof method is that the breathing is completely the focus and the inhalation/exhalations are deep and full. There is no way to distract from the task at hand, you breath fully in and fully out. I time two minutes breathing and then exhale after two minutes and hold, I don't fully exhale to the point I've emptied my lungs completely, but relax to a comfortable point and then hold.

The clam and serenity that immediately comes over you when you exhale is really noticeable. Its rare that we stop breathing for a long period of time, and definitely not with the breath exhaled, and in fact it feels much nicer than whenever you hold your breath fully inhaled for example just before trying to swim to the bottom of the pool. Because of the oxygen saturation your body doesn't need oxygen, there is no feeling of shortage of breath and you are in a very zen state. After a few repetition of the method I've noticed increased serotonin levels, feeling of oneness and connection to everything around me, and intense happiness which is really remarkable and enjoyable.

There is so much science surrounding this technique and what it induces in the body that is pushing the boundary forward at a rapid rate,


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