Posted by Cross-posted on my Goodreads account.
★★★★☆
It seems to me that the 2 types of people attracted to the Wim Hof method (WHM) (very detailed explanation here) are athletes looking to push their limits and chronically ill persons seeking to reboot or hack their immune systems. I may be coming at this a little differently. As an experienced meditator, I’ve become convinced that getting out of the place where our thoughts dominate our experience and into a place where thoughts are not privileged above other sensory input is the most direct path to peace. In other words, the most direct path to peace and focus is to get out of your head and get into your body. I am a seeker of “body-fulness” and not just mindfulness.
My experience tells me that practicing certain meditation techniques or practicing strenuous, exhausting exercise can take me to this place. During a year in which I’ve become a practitioner of advaita/non-dual meditation (I highly recommend the meditations in Loch Kelly‘s “Shift Into Freedom“) and open focus (see my review of Les Fehmi’s “Open Focus” method), I’ve become interested in WHM as well.
Scott Carney tells the story in What Doesn’t Kill Us of how he set out to debunk Hof but quickly became a student. During the book’s journey he shares direct research into Hof’s methods and other approaches to extreme athletic training and immune-hacking. It’s a convincing book and a pleasure to read. It inspired me to complete Wim Hof’s 10-week course.