7 ms·

When a friend first told me about taking cold showers everyday, I thought he was incredibly motivated and a little crazy. Then when I finally decided to look in

When a friend first told me about taking cold showers everyday, I thought he was incredibly motivated and a little crazy. Then when I finally decided to look into it and did the breathing technique, I realized I might be able to take a cold shower. Now I've been taking 1-2min cold showers (after my regular hot shower), every day for the last 4 months. It gives me a huge boost of energy, way better than coffee. Also, I recently read a translation and comment of the first speech by Buddha after enlightment. At it's most basic, the Wim Hof and Buddha's teaching seem very similar: make a continuous effort to face the uncomfortable. The main difference is in the way they go about it and the end goals. Wim Hof is just providing a very straightforward method to systematically face discomfort (in the form of cold), whereas Buddha gives a slightly more complicated method, but with the goal of reaching full detachment (Nirvana). You can also do both together.

brnt 6y ago
When you wrote 'way better than coffee', I had to think of my favourite morning routine: getting up and going straight to work on my bicycle. In winter this gives me a sort of freshness shock that may be similar to the cold shower. There's nothing quite like it in terms of waking up: indeed it's better than coffee.
- gnarbarian 6y ago
  I agree except when I bike an hour to work at -10f I actually need a few minutes for my brain to defrost before I'm even capable of having a conversation. I'm not sure why, it's like everything I didn't exercise is stiff and needs to thaw out. Feels fuckin great though do recommend!
  - brnt 6y ago
    Like the cold shower, I think the effect is best when its not affecting your body tperature too much. When my commute went from 20 to 45 minutes, insulation became necessary and the pleasant effect was not enhanced.
  - elif 6y ago
    According to the Wim Hof philosophy, your cold exercise is activating a similar pathway to survival or even fight-or-flight if you approach it correctly. Your blood chemistry and neuro-chemistry are substantially different, and it takes time for your logical, civilized neural pathways to be preferred again.
  - Fricken 6y ago
    As soon as I transition from outdoor winter exercise to an indoor environment my nose runs like a faucet. I keep a hanky handy to deal with it. Otherwise I feel pretty good when I get to work and I'm ready to take on the day.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Thing with commuting by bicycle is weather and sweat. I don't wanna be sweaty when I arrive, nor have my clothes all wet. That being said an optional walk (instead of say a bus) of 10-25 min is my preference. Sitting, especially when its humid (summer, rainy/snowy), makes me tired.
  - erikpukinskis 6y ago
    On hot days when I’m going to sweat, I would just bring a change of clothes.
- Invictus0 6y ago
  My personal experience doesn't agree with this. In college I had a habit of waking up with the exact minimum amount of time necessary to get to class. I would throw myself out of bed, get dressed and brush my teeth as quickly as possible, sprint down the stairs, and then race my bike as quickly as I could to class--only to fall back asleep as soon as I was in my chair. In fairness, I was rather sleep deprived at that time.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I think you can commute-as-exercise, and commute-not-as-exercise. They're different engagements. When I lived in Berlin, I would run in the mornings in the winter... it'd be below freezing. 1st 5 minutes I'd be cold, but once I started running-running, I was warm and the temps didn't bother me. Then I'd come home, shower, breakfast and ride my bike to the office. I'd be cold.
vram22 6y ago
>Also, I recently read a translation and comment of the first speech by Buddha after enlightment. It's enlightenment. Interesting; got a link?
- PurplePanda 6y ago
  The first sermon is said to be recorded by the dhammacakkappavattana sutta. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu's translations of the pāli Canon are usually sensible: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_11.html https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_11.html or Bhikkhu Bodhi: https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut001.htm https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut001.htm There are also translations around that come via the Chinese cannon instead. The suttas are probably very hard to understand without background knowledge or commentary (or, really, actual practice), but of course I don't know which of the commentaries GP refers to. The dhammacakkappavattana sutta, being one of the important/famous ones, has truly voluminous commentary from truly voluminous sources. GP refers to "continuous effort to face the uncomfortable". I'm not sure that I'd use that sentence to summarise the Buddhas teaching to be honest. But I suppose that it could be a reference to the 6th limb of the noble eightfold path (right-effort), or the 7th (right-mindfulness), or to the 1st noble truth (the truth of unsatisfactoriness/ suffering). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path First sermon aside, his last words also, as given in the maha-parinibbana sutta, were to be "heedful" or to "strive diligently".
  - vram22 6y ago
    Thanks.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Thank you for the correction. Here's an amazon link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/159030764X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf_t1_JcXHFb5RJ56A6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/159030764X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf...
  - vram22 6y ago
    Thanks.
watwut 6y ago
I did the same excluding breathing exercises. It has come to be the thing I am looking forward. For some reason, I feel good after. I started because I was super sickly, getting common cold all the time. It seems to slowly get better.
prox 6y ago
That is because he got it from the Buddhist Tummo techniques. >It has similarities to Tibetan Tummo meditation and pranayama, both of which employ breathing techniques.[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo I won’t say he appropriated it, because he is quite open about it and adapted it, but it did not originate with him.
- mettamage 6y ago
  I don't think so. I know that he was interested in Buddhist stuff (source: some documentary). But when I talked to him, he told us (part of the Radboud experiment in 2014, I think) that he just jumped into cold water and was forced to learn how to breath in such a way that he wouldn't freak out. Note/edit: As you can see from my writing my memory isn't pinpoint accurate. Given that the article was published in 2014 [1], I'm sure I'm probably wrong in the year when I talked to him as it then most likely would've been April 2013 since I had to keep the results of the study a secret for at least a year. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379
  - prox 6y ago
    I am quite sure he mentioned it as inspiration (or he even learned it somewhere, on that count I am not sure) in some interview. Things do not exist in a vacuum, though. Especially something such as breath would be pretty universal despite in what cultural context.
- bmj 6y ago
  The article doesn't mention it, but there is a long tradition of hesychastic prayer[0] in Christianity, starting with the desert Fathers, and continuing in the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Some teachings about the Jesus Prayer which emphasize the importance of breath also include serious warnings about the possibility of bodily harm if the prayer is not done correctly. While early practitioners likely saw this as God's judgement on the unrighteous, current practitioners better understand the physiological effects of breath work, and the potential dangers if done incorrectly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer
Timpy 6y ago
I began thinking of grit and will power as muscles that get stronger with exercise. I don't know if it's actually true but I'm okay with placeboing myself on this one. You exercise it anytime you face being uncomfortable with resilience. When I go for long runs and I reach the point where I'm not enjoying it any more and I just want to be done I think to myself, "this is the best part, this is the part where I'm getting stronger." It affects every other part of my life, it's training my default mental mode to be "I can do this" even when things look hard.
throw1234651234 6y ago
I take cold showers. They do virtually nothing for me except if I am extremely sleepy. "make a continuous effort to face the uncomfortable" That's not the Buddhist teaching. The Buddhist teaching is apathy to everything via lack of desire. "but with the goal of reaching full detachment (Nirvana). You can also do both together." The stated goal of Buddhism is lack of desire. The stated goal of modern meditation is a reduction in cortisol/blood pressure(source: Altered Traits) and improvements in the frontal cortex(source: Kelly McGonigal). Neither of these work better than medicine for the former or say, athletic training, for the latter. Meditation is magic to HN. It's weird. I am also sure 90% of people claiming it's magic have it done it for a week of something - if you did it long enough, you would know it does nothing. Bring the downvotes (though I challenge you to try to reply what you disagree with, if you do). The author of Altered Traits, who spent a lifetime researching meditation, still ended up taking blood pressure meds after his retreats failed to lower his BP.
- SanderNL 6y ago
  > The stated goal of Buddhism is lack of desire. No, actually not as that is totally and utterly physically and mentally impossible. Your body and your mind are _made_ to desire and act, there is no sense in denying this and Buddha sure as hell did not. What you're looking for is lack of attachment. Desire is no problem, it's the attachment to it (and it's the same with everything). The belief in an I that is doing the desiring, that is what is causing trouble, not desire itself. It is nature doing its thing, there is no problem there.
  - throw1234651234 6y ago
    The Buddha taught that the root of all suffering is desire, tanhā. This comes in three forms, which he described as the Three Roots of Evil, or the Three Fires, or the Three Poisons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fo... This is the first random "source" I pulled up, every other will say the same.
    - 6y ago
hedberg10 6y ago
I did it because my water heater broke. Then I got used to it. Then I couldn't stop because my skin feels different, better. Now I tell everyone I Wim Hoffed the whole thing, so I'm cool.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
HiroshiSan 6y ago
If you're interested in reading a fantastic book on what the Buddha was really trying to get at, check out Seeing That Frees by Rob Burbea. He has a deep intellectual and experiential understanding of the Suttas.

brnt 6y ago

When you wrote 'way better than coffee', I had to think of my favourite morning routine: getting up and going straight to work on my bicycle. In winter this gives me a sort of freshness shock that may be similar to the cold shower. There's nothing quite like it in terms of waking up: indeed it's better than coffee.

gnarbarian 6y ago
I agree except when I bike an hour to work at -10f I actually need a few minutes for my brain to defrost before I'm even capable of having a conversation. I'm not sure why, it's like everything I didn't exercise is stiff and needs to thaw out. Feels fuckin great though do recommend!
- brnt 6y ago
  Like the cold shower, I think the effect is best when its not affecting your body tperature too much. When my commute went from 20 to 45 minutes, insulation became necessary and the pleasant effect was not enhanced.
- elif 6y ago
  According to the Wim Hof philosophy, your cold exercise is activating a similar pathway to survival or even fight-or-flight if you approach it correctly. Your blood chemistry and neuro-chemistry are substantially different, and it takes time for your logical, civilized neural pathways to be preferred again.
- Fricken 6y ago
  As soon as I transition from outdoor winter exercise to an indoor environment my nose runs like a faucet. I keep a hanky handy to deal with it. Otherwise I feel pretty good when I get to work and I'm ready to take on the day.
Fnoord 6y ago
Thing with commuting by bicycle is weather and sweat. I don't wanna be sweaty when I arrive, nor have my clothes all wet. That being said an optional walk (instead of say a bus) of 10-25 min is my preference. Sitting, especially when its humid (summer, rainy/snowy), makes me tired.
- erikpukinskis 6y ago
  On hot days when I’m going to sweat, I would just bring a change of clothes.
Invictus0 6y ago
My personal experience doesn't agree with this. In college I had a habit of waking up with the exact minimum amount of time necessary to get to class. I would throw myself out of bed, get dressed and brush my teeth as quickly as possible, sprint down the stairs, and then race my bike as quickly as I could to class--only to fall back asleep as soon as I was in my chair. In fairness, I was rather sleep deprived at that time.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I think you can commute-as-exercise, and commute-not-as-exercise. They're different engagements. When I lived in Berlin, I would run in the mornings in the winter... it'd be below freezing. 1st 5 minutes I'd be cold, but once I started running-running, I was warm and the temps didn't bother me. Then I'd come home, shower, breakfast and ride my bike to the office. I'd be cold.

vram22 6y ago

>Also, I recently read a translation and comment of the first speech by Buddha after enlightment. It's enlightenment. Interesting; got a link?

PurplePanda 6y ago
The first sermon is said to be recorded by the dhammacakkappavattana sutta. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu's translations of the pāli Canon are usually sensible: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_11.html https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_11.html or Bhikkhu Bodhi: https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut001.htm https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut001.htm There are also translations around that come via the Chinese cannon instead. The suttas are probably very hard to understand without background knowledge or commentary (or, really, actual practice), but of course I don't know which of the commentaries GP refers to. The dhammacakkappavattana sutta, being one of the important/famous ones, has truly voluminous commentary from truly voluminous sources. GP refers to "continuous effort to face the uncomfortable". I'm not sure that I'd use that sentence to summarise the Buddhas teaching to be honest. But I suppose that it could be a reference to the 6th limb of the noble eightfold path (right-effort), or the 7th (right-mindfulness), or to the 1st noble truth (the truth of unsatisfactoriness/ suffering). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path First sermon aside, his last words also, as given in the maha-parinibbana sutta, were to be "heedful" or to "strive diligently".
- vram22 6y ago
  Thanks.
ta1234567890 6y ago
Thank you for the correction. Here's an amazon link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/159030764X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf_t1_JcXHFb5RJ56A6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/159030764X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf...
- vram22 6y ago
  Thanks.

watwut 6y ago

I did the same excluding breathing exercises. It has come to be the thing I am looking forward. For some reason, I feel good after. I started because I was super sickly, getting common cold all the time. It seems to slowly get better.

prox 6y ago

That is because he got it from the Buddhist Tummo techniques. >It has similarities to Tibetan Tummo meditation and pranayama, both of which employ breathing techniques.[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo I won’t say he appropriated it, because he is quite open about it and adapted it, but it did not originate with him.

mettamage 6y ago
I don't think so. I know that he was interested in Buddhist stuff (source: some documentary). But when I talked to him, he told us (part of the Radboud experiment in 2014, I think) that he just jumped into cold water and was forced to learn how to breath in such a way that he wouldn't freak out. Note/edit: As you can see from my writing my memory isn't pinpoint accurate. Given that the article was published in 2014 [1], I'm sure I'm probably wrong in the year when I talked to him as it then most likely would've been April 2013 since I had to keep the results of the study a secret for at least a year. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379
- prox 6y ago
  I am quite sure he mentioned it as inspiration (or he even learned it somewhere, on that count I am not sure) in some interview. Things do not exist in a vacuum, though. Especially something such as breath would be pretty universal despite in what cultural context.
bmj 6y ago
The article doesn't mention it, but there is a long tradition of hesychastic prayer[0] in Christianity, starting with the desert Fathers, and continuing in the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Some teachings about the Jesus Prayer which emphasize the importance of breath also include serious warnings about the possibility of bodily harm if the prayer is not done correctly. While early practitioners likely saw this as God's judgement on the unrighteous, current practitioners better understand the physiological effects of breath work, and the potential dangers if done incorrectly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer

Timpy 6y ago

I began thinking of grit and will power as muscles that get stronger with exercise. I don't know if it's actually true but I'm okay with placeboing myself on this one. You exercise it anytime you face being uncomfortable with resilience. When I go for long runs and I reach the point where I'm not enjoying it any more and I just want to be done I think to myself, "this is the best part, this is the part where I'm getting stronger." It affects every other part of my life, it's training my default mental mode to be "I can do this" even when things look hard.

throw1234651234 6y ago

I take cold showers. They do virtually nothing for me except if I am extremely sleepy. "make a continuous effort to face the uncomfortable" That's not the Buddhist teaching. The Buddhist teaching is apathy to everything via lack of desire. "but with the goal of reaching full detachment (Nirvana). You can also do both together." The stated goal of Buddhism is lack of desire. The stated goal of modern meditation is a reduction in cortisol/blood pressure(source: Altered Traits) and improvements in the frontal cortex(source: Kelly McGonigal). Neither of these work better than medicine for the former or say, athletic training, for the latter. Meditation is magic to HN. It's weird. I am also sure 90% of people claiming it's magic have it done it for a week of something - if you did it long enough, you would know it does nothing. Bring the downvotes (though I challenge you to try to reply what you disagree with, if you do). The author of Altered Traits, who spent a lifetime researching meditation, still ended up taking blood pressure meds after his retreats failed to lower his BP.

SanderNL 6y ago
> The stated goal of Buddhism is lack of desire. No, actually not as that is totally and utterly physically and mentally impossible. Your body and your mind are _made_ to desire and act, there is no sense in denying this and Buddha sure as hell did not. What you're looking for is lack of attachment. Desire is no problem, it's the attachment to it (and it's the same with everything). The belief in an I that is doing the desiring, that is what is causing trouble, not desire itself. It is nature doing its thing, there is no problem there.
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  The Buddha taught that the root of all suffering is desire, tanhā. This comes in three forms, which he described as the Three Roots of Evil, or the Three Fires, or the Three Poisons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fo... This is the first random "source" I pulled up, every other will say the same.
  - 6y ago

hedberg10 6y ago

I did it because my water heater broke. Then I got used to it. Then I couldn't stop because my skin feels different, better. Now I tell everyone I Wim Hoffed the whole thing, so I'm cool.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

HiroshiSan 6y ago

If you're interested in reading a fantastic book on what the Buddha was really trying to get at, check out Seeing That Frees by Rob Burbea. He has a deep intellectual and experiential understanding of the Suttas.