Maybe I should have titled today’s blog post “Suffering On Purpose.” Suffering for no reason sucks. But, suffering for an improved future state is the standard price we pay – if we want to enjoy a “better” future state.
One habit that I have developed this year I call the Hot/Cold Wim Hof shower. It has three kids of suffering, all with a purpose.
First, there is overheating myself with a hot HOT shower. This is NOT comfortable. It’s my short cut to taking time in a sauna, since I do not have one in my home. My goal is to induce heat stress on my body that encourages the production of “heat shock proteins” within my cells which (according to research) helps manage other proteins in the body to reduce inflammation and suppress/address auto-immune related problems. Is it working? Not sure, but that is the reason for enduring this first “suffering.”
Once I am pretty well overheated, I begin the Wim Hof breathing method and hyperventilate until I am light headed, I then exhale all of the air from my lungs and wait for as long as I can stand it, until my lungs are spasming for a breath. This is uncomfortable! BUT, it has a purpose, it induces a physiological stress response with numerous health benefits. For example, it causes the endocrine system to release epinephrine and trains the circulatory systems to push and pull CO2 and O2 in and out of the blood. When I am in relative agony, dying for a breath, I take a huge breath in and hold it for about thirty seconds, then return to breathing normally. Wim Hof is the person who has used this breathing method to enable his body to cope with extreme cold, which leads me to my next discomfort. Cold Water!
I then turn the shower to COLD and chill my entire body down. This is quite a shock! But again there is a purpose. I believe that this “shocking” of the body in three phases (Hot, Breath Work, Cold) as a daily habit will ultimately improve my health and vitality. I also believe that I am strengthening my mental capacity to willingly engage in and cope with discomfort with less anxiety, and this will be generalized into a sort of mental toughness and baseline character development increasing my ability to manage suffering with purpose in other areas of my life like exercise, work, study and relationships.
So, now I have a habit whenever I shower. Who knows if it is helping anything?! At a minimum, I emerge clean because I do use soap during these histrionics. So there is that.
Ben Wagner (259)
Member The365Commitment
