[pastrami_panda]

I'm happy to see these types of techniques hit the front page of HN.

Breathing techniques changed my life.

I remember convincing myself many years ago to take a leap of faith and to trust the process.

I've practiced for over 10 years at this point, and I've been in dangerous or even life threatening situations where I've remained mindful of my breathing throughout the experience.

It's an incredible feeling to be so deeply connected to yourself through breathing. It can become an extremely transformative experience.

I've had a couple of experiences with samadhi by 'accident' throughout the years which is the most profound experiences I've had in my life.

So what is the practice? Non-doing? Staying mindful? All I know is that words cannot really describe it, as soon as you're dealing with words and semantics you've strayed away from breathing again.

The ego ties into it a lot, but you quickly start to sound like a broken record if succumb to that gospel.

No one preaches that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow.

It's the elusive obvious, it's the old fish swimming by and saying:

"Morning boys how's the water?”

The two young fish give each other a puzzled look and ask:

"What the fuck is water?"

[bitexploder]

I have gotten into Wim Hof and other breathing techniques. There is definitely something more to it than woo and sentiment. The way you can interact with and stimulate your nervous system through breathing remains unique to me in the scope of ways to interact with the body. I have also been into cold water immersion for many of the same reasons. Can dig up some posts I did on wim hof cheat sheet and cold water immersion on my blog (see profile). In fact, that is about all I wrote on my blog thus far, mostly as notes to myself and for close friends when they ask what I am up to in the health and fitness realm. CWI and Breathing are my future and I find huge benefits to it in my martial arts pursuits (brazilian jiu jitsu, staying calm, managing my energy in tough sparring matches, etc.).

I find the breath work to be more useful than meditation. Now any time I find stress I immediately recognize my breath and start controlling it, almost sub-consciously. Driving, tough spots in matches, just getting deep into a problem and not getting it. The breath is always there. Okay, maybe it is a little woo, but the more focused breathing activities are not and actually trigger physiological response, and these reminders of the breath are reminders of those states.

[Kodix]

> I find the breath work to be more useful than meditation. Now any time I find stress I immediately recognize my breath and start controlling it, almost sub-consciously.

I'd just like to note that you're literally describing mindfulness meditation and its effects, there. That's what interoceptive meditation is all about - focusing on your internal state - and breath is an excellent medium for that focus.

Anyone that believes that Wim Hof breathing is woo should literally just spend the three minutes to do a round of it and see the effects by themselves. It is immediately obvious that there is a clear effect on the body from just breathing the right way.

For anyone wanting to try, here is the video I used when I started getting into it: https://youtu.be/lwlEJ2O-6HM

(Don't necessarily pay too much attention to that creator's other videos, he's not very science-based overall.)

Just do the first round and you'll see an undeniable effect on your body and mind. I mean undeniable, not something subtle and small.

Now, the specific effects of it all can be debated. I'm rather doubtful of some of the claims made of it, and it's very clear that a lot of non-skeptical people flock to this sort of thing, so that's expected. But there's something to it, for sure. Try it the next time you're about to do something high-stress, such as public speaking. The difference for me is night and day.

I also recommend people check out NSDR. Here is what I use: https://youtu.be/AKGrmY8OSHM

It's a bit subtler, but there's a definite effect. Supposedly it has similar effects on learning as sleep. Whether that's true or not, it's a tool you can try out yourself and decide whether or not it's helpful to you.

[bitexploder]

I did mindfulness meditation for many years. The breathing is similar. Maybe the years of that and now the breathing are all tangled in my brain. But the Wim Hof Method stuff just feels different. I have been doing 10-25 minutes of breath work and 3-10 minutes of 4-8C water daily. It fixed a broken part if me nothing else has.

[donclark]

The disappointing thing about the Wim Hof videos that I have seen (many), is that he does not warn about the risk of tinnitus - and how to avoid it.

[fnordian_slip]

Could you please expand on that, or provide a link?

I've never heard of tinnitus in relation to breathing techniques, and it sounds like something I should be aware of, before starting with the Wim Hof method.

[jazzyjackson]

I'm interested in what it says about the cause of tinnitus, since I know someone who suffers from it -- I've experienced ringing in my ears after deep breathing and it was a kind of spiritual thing, sounded like those singing bowls used in buddhism, lots of harmonics and tremolo. As I understand it, the tinnitus caused by hearing damage is not nearly so pleasant..

But if it can be activated by changing your O2/CO2 levels, maybe it could be deadened by some change as well?

[donclark]

There are lots of webpages/videos discussing it if you do a search for "wim hof" and tinnitus".

I cannot find the link, but what I have read is that when you inhale and hold, that the pressure needs to be held in your belly, not in your head. If you hold the air pressure in your head/nasal cavities - that it could lead to tinnitus.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BecomingTheIceman/comments/ls2d85/w...

This link (which I recommend) provides a different take on WHM: https://ugjka.net/blog/breathwork/2022/07/30/wim-hof-breathi...

[mettamage]

Fellow WHM practitioner here. IMO it’s not that woo’ie. Being connected with breathing means regulating the autonomous nervous system

I was a participant of the pnas article [1]. There’s quite a bit of science to it.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1322174111

[bitexploder]

I think almost everything Wim has promoted from the hard science side is accurate. There are just some elements of it that I know are mostly mental for me, but it is tightly coupled with all the the physiological in ways I haven’t bothered to articulate much :)

[anonymousnotme]

I also like seeing new breathing techniques. However, as other have pointed out; I would look to the yoga pranayama that has been used for 5,000 years or longer. As I have learned from pranayama, the description in the article tries to make everybody breath the same. Each individual has their own lung capacity and rythym that they should follow. ne should find out what is the natural amount of time for one to go from empty to full lungs then do the rest at the same rate. So, if it takes one 9 second to naturally go from empty lungs to full lungs, then hold it for 9 seconds, then exhale out over the course of 9 seconds. Then hold out for 9 seconds. Then repeat as appropriate. I would personally consider 4 seconds to inhale from empty to full lungs or 4 seconds to exhale from full lungs to empty lungs too quick and not relaxing. I would suggest find experienced yoga teacher that can guide one and tailor to one appropriately as the description in the article and following referenced page seems not giving full/accurate instructions:

https://www.verywellmind.com/abdominal-breathing-2584115

[rgrieselhuber]

I came across a rather unique essay a few months ago, and I checked out the author's podcast. He got me to look at box breathing and breathwork in general much more seriously. He makes the point that all of us have a trauma loop and it is reflected in how we breathe. By dealing with that trauma, whatever it may be, you can head off a lot of potentially long-term detrimental effects to your health because even if you ignore trauma that you've accumulated, your body is keeping the score.

[mikae1]

> I came across a rather unique essay a few months ago, and I checked out the author's podcast.

Link please.

[irrational]

What is a trauma loop?

[n4r9]

Don't know if this is what OP means by it, but I interpret that to mean the cycle of avoiding something that triggers a fear, thus establishing that fear even more.

[rgrieselhuber]

Yes. Avoidance behavior seem to play a big role.

[lazide]

A bad physical reaction primed from prior traumatic exposure that makes things worse, instead of better.

[irrational]

What is an example? I can’t think of anything that would cause a bad physical reaction in me.

[lazide]

I’ve personally been lucky enough to be able to process most (all, maybe?) of the traumatic events I’ve been exposed to, but I’ve known others who have not. I’ve seen a decent amount of blood in my time, and held more than a few folks hands as they died. But not a lot. And I’ve been lucky to be able to help them, most of the time, which helps.

I’ve seen folks go suddenly catatonic in high stress environments (and nearly die because of it), suddenly switch from friendly to literally attacking someone (in one case choking their spouse until they passed out - their legal situation got very unpleasant after that) due to a conversational trigger, and have seen someone’s eyes go ‘black’ in a screaming rage due to a combination of environmental factors that didn’t make much sense, reaction wise.

PTSD is a common thread here, but only about half of them were diagnosed with it that I’m aware of.

Each of them I remember showed significant physical signs of distress when it was happening, such as uncharacteristic pupil dilations, extreme body tension, breathing irregularities, distant stares or seeing ‘through’ what is there, etc.

I’ve been lucky to do a lot of meditation and mindfulness in the past, and when I’ve felt the physical reactions and related cascades, have been able to process what was happening in a way.. I could make use of? Understand without being hijacked by it? Feel without ‘being’ it? Guide to a more useful place?

Not sure how else to describe.

The full body pulsing heartbeat, the choking/crushing feeling in the chest, the need to fight right now, the overpowering rage that can happen, the near blindness from the tunnel vision, the punch in the gut. It’s different, depending, but it shares common themes.

Not sure if that helps?

Personally, one that stuck with me for years (but definitely was not the worst I’ve seen) was when I was first on the scene to a multi car accident. It was a three car pileup, and the last vehicle was a disabled person transport van. The first vehicle had stopped to make a left hand turn across oncoming traffic when I watched the van driver plow into the back of the middle car, which then got pushed into the car turning left.

The van driver didn’t even tap their brakes, and they were going almost exactly 55mph at impact. I distinctly remember the explosion of glass and the rear end lifting up like in a movie.

It was a 4 lane, undivided highway. I happened to be the car directly behind the van, and was going to make that same left turn as the vehicle they plowed into.

The driver had two passengers - a middle aged woman who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt in the front passenger seat who got almost scalped by the windshield and had some kind of closed head trauma, and a disabled woman in a wheelchair in back.

The impact was so severe, the woman in back broke several ribs and ripped the anchors for her wheelchair out of the van frame, partially impacting the back of the passenger seat and driver seat. She ended up turned partially.

The driver had an airbag and had been wearing her seatbelt and walked away uninjured.

I managed to come to a safe stop, call 911, stop traffic and get additional assistance from one of the other motorists, and started triage so when the EMTs arrived, they knew who to transport and why. I did initially fall for the (classic) ‘pay attention to loud one’ at first, but was able to snap out of it when the EMT who arrived started to do the same thing, and I was able to grab him and point him to the closed head trauma patient who was not able to form whole words anymore, and was being too quiet, and needed immediate transport or would likely die.

This was before I had my EMT certification, and I was running off old Boy Scout first aid training.

It was not a feeling that I was in control, though I was definitely more in control than any of the approximately 80ish people around me, until the county Sheriff showed up and took over the scene.

I don’t think I was able to actually calm down until the next day. I had no one to talk to at the time, I lived alone and only a couple hundred yards away.

For years afterwards, if I heard car tires screech, I could feel my muscles tense, my brain switch into emergency mode, my heart rate to shoot up, and everything start flooding back. I had disruptive thoughts about it, etc.

I still distinctly remember the way the passenger was acting and the distinctive halo of blood on the windshield where her head impacted, and the screaming of the disabled (but relatively ok) passenger in the back.

But if they can scream, they’re doing pretty good compared to the ones who can’t.

Good news is, I didn’t have to black tag anyone, and there were no kids. Also, the later training I got turned it into more useful and directed action, and therapy and meditation helped me process it over the years. It doesn’t bother me particularly anymore, and I haven’t felt anything like a Trauma cascade from it in at least 15 years.

It happened… 20 years and a handful of months ago.

I’ve run across some nastier ones and have processed those too. But I don’t think you want me to talk about those.

[irrational]

Yes, that helps. I guess I've just been fortunate to never have had a traumatic experience since I've never felt anything like "The full body pulsing heartbeat, the choking/crushing feeling in the chest, the need to fight right now, the overpowering rage that can happen, the near blindness from the tunnel vision, the punch in the gut. It’s different, depending, but it shares common themes."

[matthewatcd]

Great to hear about your journey. What sort of breathing techniques did you find most transformative and do you mainly practice today, 10 yrs on?

[WaxProlix]

Is there a specific technique that worked for you? I've done a bit of mindful meditation, which is breath-related, and tried box breathing, too. I have a specific breath pattern that I use when I want to fall asleep, as well, and it works wonders, though I'd be hard pressed to describe it at all.

Box breathing specifically doesn't do much for me, though.

[jimmux]

The most effective technique I have used is also the simplest. I came across it reading about how trauma affects the body. Under stress we tend to exhale more forcefully in short outward breaths, so when exhalation is quicker than inhalation the body responds accordingly. This means we can get a beneficial response if exhalation is longer than inhalation.

So the technique is to inhale at whatever pace feels comfortable, counting if that helps, and then exhale a little longer. It soon becomes natural enough that no counting is necessary and you can think about whatever pleasant associations work.

[matthewatcd]

Can you try to describe it? haha I'd love to know.

[spydum]

is this not a pavlonian response? i mean, its cool if it works, but makes me wonder if you are just training the behavior

[WaxProlix]

Totally possible, as it's part of a routine by now. Still, without it I notice a real difference in getting to sleep.

[lazide]

Nothing wrong with training yourself in a way that helps. It's a wonderful thing when used properly.