Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

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TopHatFox
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Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by TopHatFox »

https://www.mailing.wimhofmethod.com/cl ... u=QP4C&y=c&

Thoughts this was pretty cool. What else do we take for granted with our bodies?

prognastat
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by prognastat »

One thing I wonder is if they included people other than Wim having them perform the same techniques as Wim Hoff to see if they were able to achieve the same/similar results and if not by how much they differed.

TopHatFox
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by TopHatFox »

yeah same. I think there are studies with a control group and Wim Hof trainees too. Too lazy to find it though. ‘:D

fell-like-rain
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by fell-like-rain »

Just reading the abstract, it sounds like the findings boil down to
1. activation of brain regions associated with focus and pain modulation
2. increased blood flow/glucose consumption in muscles associated with breathing
3. no other bodily tissue affected.

This sounds like exactly what you'd expect from a 'method' that consists of meditation and heavy breathing. However, the conclusion they arrive at is that there are 'implications for lifestyle interventions that might ameliorate multiple clinical syndromes.' Which is basically what Wim Hof claims- pay him money for videos/workshops and all your health problems go away. The conflict of interest statement is paywalled, so I don't know who funded this study, but I think I could hazard a guess.

Also, it's hard to consider a paper neutral when it continually refers to its main subject as 'the Iceman'.

BRUTE
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by BRUTE »

interesting, too, how there seems to be a pretty fixed set of "lifestyle conditions/diseases", and multiple ways to approach them. the conditions seem to come in bundles. meditation, cold showers, Wim Hof method, long distance running, weight lifting, low-carb diets, low-fat diets, veganism, carnivore diet.. most of the proposed benefits are almost identical, with a few exceptions of course. certainly, most humans that suffer these days suffer from the bundle of "lifestyle conditions/diseases", and randomly try any of these methods that they happen to stumble upon.

hypothesis 1:
most modern humans suffer from a very limited set of problems, due to identical underlying reasons.
there are various solutions to the set of problems, any of which could work for any human
optimal strategy: find the "true" or "correct" solution amongst the sea of suboptimal ones. then promote it to all humans and improve it.

hypothesis 2:
most modern humans suffer from a very limited set of problems, due to different underlying reasons
there are various solutions to the set of problems, different ones working for different humans
optimal strategy: every individual human tries as many of these strategies as is viable, until an individual-strategy match is found. then, this human can congregate with similar humans that have found success with similar strategies, and collaborate/improve together.

brute obviously believes in hypothesis 2.

it seems to brute that humanity is going about this (==humanity's biggest problem maybe?) very haphazardly. once hunger and shelter are solved, the biggest problems (symptoms?) humans have are:
1.heart disease
2.obesity
3.diabetes
4.stroke

since these seem to occur in bundles, they probably share underlying causes. it seems to brute that humanity ought to be able to discover the underlying causes (different stresses? tempos, rhythms and frequencies of stress?), many of which seem to come with life in modernity, e.g.:
- stress (of the wrong kind? frequency? intensity? not enough recovery?)
- sleep deprivation (amount slept, at the appropriate time, appropriate quality and intervals?)
- (lack of) appropriate diet (for individual body, genetics, tastes, physical plus intellectual environment and demands)
- (lack of) appropriate physical exercise (same)
- (lack of) healthy family/friendships?
- (lack of) fulfillment?
- (lack of) spiritual things?

humans should then be able to catalogue the various methods, strategies, or attempts at fixing them, and find patterns, e.g.:
- low carb work well for humans with meat/dairy consuming ancestry that gain and lose body fat rapidly.
- vegetarianism works well for humans with grain/agricultural ancestry that are not used to consuming lots of meat or dairy.
- staying and getting up late works for humans who are natural night owls.
- going to bed and waking early works for humans who are natural larks.
- lifting heavy weights works for humans who have the natural body type, adequate recovery environment, and correct diet.
- long distance running works for humans who have the natural body type for it, an adequate recovery environment, and maybe a different diet.
- something something high stress work with frequent long vacations? or do humans just possess different levels of tolerance to stress? are there different types of stress tolerant humans, that respond to different types of stress, or different frequencies/patterns differently?
- something something time spent with friends and family
- something something time spent on exploration, creative expression, spiritual fulfillment..

unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of concerted effort, or even attempts to systematize/collect these strategies. it's every strategy for itself: Wim Hof solves everything! keto solves everything! waking up early, taking cold showers, and running marathons while fasted solves everything!

and there are likely humans for every strategy for which it does solve everything. but humans then like to conclude that, because it worked for them, it must be working for all other humans. and if it doesn't those humans must be doing it wrong/lying/lacking willpower/morally inferior. brute has done this himself, and it has happened to him too - e.g. on this forum. but brute's individual experience demonstrates that the exact same strategy, down to the meal plan, doesn't even work consistently for brute if other variables in his life change. thus, how could he expect that strategy to work for a random stranger, who's life, genetics, and environment brute does not know?

it appears to brute that it should be possible to create not only a catalogue of strategies, but also a sort of selection process, a kind of flow chart that humans can walk through to attempt and identify strategies that could work for them.

there are not actually that many different problems, and probably not that many factors. it seems entirely like a problem of social coordination, not engineering complexity or even complexity of the individual sciences involved (though most of them are not trivial - but it is easy to test out if, e.g. veganism or keto works for an individual human within a month or so). yet debates about these are rarely factual or scientific, they are religious wars.

brute is pretty confident that he could build a flow chart for diet, sleep, and exercise that would work for 80%+ of humanity, just because he's spent the last 10 years experimenting and reading in these fields. the fields of stress, community, relationships, fulfillment, and "spirituality" (brute cringes, but doesn't have a better word - transcendence?) are much newer to brute, or maybe they are inherently more difficult to explore.

TopHatFox
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by TopHatFox »

I’m just excited that it may be possible to climb a cold ass mountain in shorts

Do Italians and Ukrainians have a long history of agriculture and grain diets? 23&Me was on sale for $100 recently...

BRUTE
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by BRUTE »

Ukraine allegedly bread basket of Europe - brute is unsure about Italians. Italian diet seems pretty varied.
it's probably a lot more in the details than just vague ethnicity. plenty of geno/phenotype variations within ethnic groups.

SnailMeister4000
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by SnailMeister4000 »

Doctor Dissects the Wim Hof Method - Cold Hard Science Analysis: https://youtu.be/D6EPuUdIC1E (44 minutes)

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Bankai
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by Bankai »

TLDR?

SnailMeister4000
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Re: Wim Hof Cold Training now has peer-reviewed studies

Post by SnailMeister4000 »

It might be useful, depending on what you want to achieve.

Skip to about 33:30 for conclusion.

(Edited to replace "can" with "might".)

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