The wrong way to do the Wim Hof Method, and how it relates to COVID-19
This is not a particularly fun article to write, and we’re not living in fun times right now.
I acted like an idiot yesterday and made a big mistake that put myself and my family in a compromised situation.
Thankfully everyone is OK, and there’s relatively minor structural damage.
Still, I feel terrible and I wanted to share it with you here to:
1) Emphasize the safe practice of WHM,
2) Help me get this episode off my chest, learn from it, and move on, and
3) Offer a lesson to keep in mind as we trudge through the COVID-19 nightmare.
“What happened?”
I broke the first rule of the Wim Hof Method (WHM), which I even highlighted in my article The Iceman Cometh:
Always practice breathing exercises in a safe place, lying or sitting down. Don’t do breathing exercises in the pool or an ice bath. Practice on the floor or on your bed so that if you end up passing out you won’t get hurt or worse.
Furthermore, on my Winter Expedition to Poland (recapped in the link above), the WHM instructors explicitly hammered that point home to our group.
They said that every year they tell their groups to practice the breathing exercises sitting or lying down to protect yourself and your family, and every year everyone in the group promises to follow the rules to protect themselves and their families.
They also said that every year there’s someone who writes back to the instructors after the workshop is over, say a few months later, with a story about how they broke that rule, put themselves and their families in danger, and feel stupid, embarrassed and ashamed.
I am that stupid, embarrassed and ashamed person.
Here’s why, and how it all went down:
I’m staying with my sister and brother-in-law at their house in Denver for the time being as the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis plays out. We’re making the best of the situation, and the silver lining is that it’s really nice to hang out and catch up with them.
It snowed in Denver all day yesterday, and by early afternoon the yard was piled with a soft, thick layer of fresh powder.
I saw this as a great opportunity for some fun cold exposure, and I was excited because I hadn’t done any ice dips in over a week.
I was also feeling pretty confident in my cold exposure abilities after a few strong performances toward the tail end of my recent Iceland trip.
Furthermore, I was excited to show off my weird skills and impress my sister and brother in law.
I would certainly leave an impression.
I threw on my swimsuit and had my sister time me while I laid in the snow for four minutes: two on my back, then two on my stomach.
I was feeling good and calm while I was lying there; however, I admittedly let my mind get carried away by mental distractions, mostly revolving around the over-confident and spaz-excitement I felt beforehand (listed above).
After four minutes in the snow, I got up calmly and walked back to the cement porch by the front door, and felt cool when my sister said how impressed she was.
At the same time, my mind was pretty distracted at that point, and disconnected from my breath and body, which is exactly the state of mind I was trying to avoid.
As I noted in Ice baths in Iceland, staying focused and within myself was one of my big takeaways:
Carve out time to focus on yourself. Caring for others is great, and you want to build yourself into the strongest platform possible; to provide the strongest connection and best support for others as possible. That means you need to be able to flip the switch between focusing on others to focusing on yourself like an icy ninja. Domesticate your wandering, thinking mind that’s consumed by the outside world and all that comes with it, and dedicate a portion of your time — solid, non-negotiable, prioritized block(s) of your day — to drop in to the inside world, your self.
Nevertheless, at this point in the story, I was very much not focused on my self; instead I was focused on my image and others.
My sister took a photo, I smiled for the camera, and she went inside while I stayed outside for a bit to do a warmup routine of breathing exercises and air squats.
I decided it would be a good idea to do some brown fat activation breathing exercises, which entails fast, deep breathing, holds and squeezes. You can see a full description of brown-fact activation breathing in the “Core concepts” section from my article, The Iceman Cometh.
The brown-fat activation breathing exercise is an exercise you especially want to make sure you only practice sitting or lying on the ground — because you may pass out.
I knew this beforehand, but I ignored it.
For some stupid reason, I did two rounds of brown-fat activation breathing exercises while standing up on the concrete porch a few feet away from the front door.
The first round felt good and sent a rush of warm energy through my body, helping me warm up.
The second round, not so good.
On a deep inhale, I held it, squeezed, passed out and woke up on the ground a few seconds later.
I heard the front door open behind me, and looked back to see my sister.
“What happened?” She asked, panicked.
“What happened?” I replied, confused.
I had fallen back into the front door of the house, busting up the door frame.
Fortunately, I somehow avoided both hitting my head and breaking the door’s big glass window.
I was only bruised on my upper and lower back, with minor cuts.
And the door frame, despite missing a few pieces, was still functional.
The real damage was to my ego.
Not only was it stupid to make such an egregious error in WHM protocol, but it was terrible timing and irresponsible to put myself in harm’s way considering the strained state of our healthcare system.
COVID-19 connection
At times like these the very least you can do is take care of yourself and do everything you can to reduce your risk of becoming a liability, for yourself, your family and your community.
At the most basic level this means doing things to take care of yourself, like staying home and washing your hands.
More importantly, it also means specifically not doing things that could either increase your risk of exposure to the virus, or compromise your health.
In this case, I failed the latter and put myself and my family in a situation that could have gotten ugly, stressful and risky, say if I had needed to go to the emergency room.
If that would have been the case, and we would have had to make an urgent trip to the hospital, I would have increased the likelihood of exposing myself, my sister and my brother in law to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Aside from that, who knows if I would have even been able to receive treatment, since many hospitals are running out of room in their Intensive Care Units.
Thankfully we avoided that scenario, but it was just dumb luck.
Takeaways
Despite this fiasco, I am still all about the WHM and crazy cold exposure practices I’ve adopted of late.
For other cold-craving crazies, let me reiterate the safety minute: always be sure to do breathing exercises — every damn breathing exercise — either sitting or lying on the ground. Assume you’ll pass out at some point, and do everything you can to minimize the risk of collateral damage.
For everyone, consider this a reminder that you have a responsibility — to your family, your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends, your community, your country — to do everything you can to 1) avoid increasing exposure to SARS-CoV-2 virus, and 2) stay healthy, safe, and out of the hospital.
This is a time for calm, considerate and conservative decisions.
Stay home if at all possible, and don’t act like an idiot like I did yesterday.