#WIM HOF METHOD OVERVIEW HOW TO#
One of the major benefits of breathwork is learning to read your current state – and then knowing how to change it to suit your needs and health. Step Up Breathing Putting breathwork to work for you They represent the different directions that you can actively shift your body and mind towards. associated with recovery and growth – try Bottomless Box Breath)įor each of these goals, there are dedicated breathwork and lifestyle practices. To downregulate your nervous system: create calm, slow your breathing, think more clearly and restore your resting physiological functions (e.g.To ‘find’ and regulate your current state: finding, grounding, and maintaining state either over time or in the face of a potential outside influence (stressor or depressant, e.g.).To upregulate your nervous system: increase your energy, improve mood and awareness, get you ready for a performance or athletic event (try Alternate Nostril Breathing or Step Up Breathing).3 Types of Breathwork: Up, Down, and Regulatoryīreathwork can be used in different ways: There are powerful anti-anxiety and pro-focus breathing practices that help reduce stress, tone down the ‘fight or flight’ response, and improve mental and physical wellbeing. You have to make sure that any breathing practice – Tummo or otherwise – helps you understand yourself better in the current moment.įortunately breathwork offers us a huge array of techniques. It’s important to learn how to read the state of you autonomic nervous system (how activated or deactivated you are) to determine whether your breathwork practice is serving you. Even healthy people who have no history of disorders could feel more on-edge and tense, without understanding why – all while doing it to themselves. Individuals who are dealing with panic disorder or generalised anxiety may find that WHB makes their anxiety more intense. To put it simply: Wim Hof Breathing is about temporarily increasing stress in the body, while many of us need to find ways to reduce it. If you’re already anxious, prone to overthinking, intrusive thoughts or have difficulty relaxing and letting go, WHB could be the opposite of what you need! It “hypes you up” by telling your brain to release stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline – which sounds cool but needs to be used with skill and awareness of how this affects you both in the moment and afterward. Wim Hof breathing is a very activating form of breathwork – it stimulates the ‘fight or flight’ response of your autonomic nervous system. Fight or Flight: Wim Hof Breathing and the Nervous System HOWEVER, if you are at all prone to panic or anxiety, you may accidentally be making that worse for yourself. This level interfacing with the nervous system and the mind-body connection is great to try. It can also help us improve our tolerance of carbon dioxide which has massive benefits to mental & physical health and stress resilience. Tummo or Wim Hof breathing can help us tolerate cold and clear our minds – or may even have some applications with athletes. These patterns of breathing can offer a reset to the autonomic nervous system. These breath patterns generate a great deal of heat in the body. Wim Hof breathing, or Tummo, is a pattern of rapid inhales (superventilation) followed by extended breath holds. Understanding How Wim Hof Breathing Works – and why! Wim Hof’s method is an interesting way of inteacting with your fight/flight response but might not be the best breathwork for you, depending on the state of your nervous system. If Wim Hof breathing is the only breathwork you’ve tried, you could be missing out on other benefits of breath training. Wim Hof breathing is a single pattern based on an ancient practice called Tummo originally practiced by Tibetan monks. In fact, this is just one end of the breathwork spectrum.īreathwork offers a big range of different practices and benefits.
People assume that all breathwork is like Wim Hof breathing.
Wim Hof breathing is popular at the moment – but there’s a problem with that.
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