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Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

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Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#11

Post by Hnrobert42 »

s5300 wrote: post #6
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #4

If this is revolutionary, why isn't everybody following his method? My skeptic alarm is going off, but also all of the investigative content I read about it seems to support the claims. I'm puzzled on why this hasn't seen mass adoption.

Not saying this specifically about Wim Hof, the topic at hand - but: People are lazy. This is quite simply a truth, especially with regards to the USA. If you're not from the USA, we have this absolutely fucking unfathomable obesity epidemic going on. It doesn't get talked about very much. 95%+ of the time, weight regulation is one of the simplest things we know of. Calories in and calories out. Anyways, nobody reall…

The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#12

Post by calibas »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #4

If this is revolutionary, why isn't everybody following his method? My skeptic alarm is going off, but also all of the investigative content I read about it seems to support the claims. I'm puzzled on why this hasn't seen mass adoption.

I'm not sure mass adoption is a good way of judging anything.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#13

Post by s5300 »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #11
s5300 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying this specifically about Wim Hof, the topic at hand - but: People are lazy. This is quite simply a truth, especially with regards to the USA. If you're not from the USA, we have this absolutely fucking unfathomable obesity epidemic going on. It doesn't get talked about very much. 95%+ of the time, weight regulation is one of the simplest things we know of. Calories in and calories out. Anyways, nobody reall…

The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.

I find the sugar argument to be a strawman.

Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#15

Post by 7thaccount »

s5300 wrote: post #13
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.

I find the sugar argument to be a strawman. Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.

It's also legitimately hard to find foods without mass amounts of sugar. Just look at spaghetti sauce. Sugar is everywhere.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#16

Post by junius2020 »

s5300 wrote: post #13
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.

I find the sugar argument to be a strawman. Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.

It is not just Sugar, it's also the fact that most Americans live on a diet full of industrially refined sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, strange chemical preservatives, flavouring agents, artificial sweeteners to avoid the sugar, and "no fat' products that achieve this in strange way. For instance,

It's further complicated by the fact that there is no functional epistemology of nutrition in the US; previous attempts to create one such as the "Food Pyramid" were heavily financed by food lobbying groups and are now distrusted. This leads to things like people deciding that carbohydrates are universally bad because removing deep fried potatos from their diet makes them feel better; or people swearing by vegetarianism because for the first time since childhood they stopped eating "Meat.jpg" like you find in hotdogs etc. Or people swearing by low fat diets because they stopped eating icecream deep fried in margarine.

There is also no underlying national food tradition; I live in South East Asia and in this country there is a strong tradition of eating steamed rice and steamed chicken as a staple food, as well as steamed eggs and seafood (shellfish, pan fried fish,etc) This means that with no nutritional knowledge the diet here is considerably better than the average person in the US.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#17

Post by s5300 »

7thaccount wrote: post #15
s5300 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the sugar argument to be a strawman. Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.

It's also legitimately hard to find foods without mass amounts of sugar. Just look at spaghetti sauce. Sugar is everywhere.

I come from a family that was borderline of the definition of "extreme poverty" within the U.S.

This is a really poor argument.

Aldi spaghetti sauces have ~10g sugars compared to a bottle of coke having ~65g sugars. Look into how many people are using Aldi's spaghetti sauces vs how many people are guzzling coke.

Is over sugarized shit literally everywhere in the U.S.? Yes.

Can you genuinely not find anything without? No.

It is not hard. It's really, really not. As somebody else mentioned, lobbying in the U.S. e.g. the Food Pyramid was an obvious disaster that did nothing good for the situation.

However, that can't be a coverall excuse.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#18

Post by dilap »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #4

If this is revolutionary, why isn't everybody following his method? My skeptic alarm is going off, but also all of the investigative content I read about it seems to support the claims. I'm puzzled on why this hasn't seen mass adoption.

I'm skeptical of health claims, but I have definitely personally found doing 3 rounds of Wim Hof + a cold shower in the morning leaves me feeling pretty great.

I would say it requires a level of discipline and interest in "doing work" that most people don't have, so even if it is as revolutionary as claimed, I wouldn't be at all surprised that not everybody is following the method.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#19

Post by ta1234567890 »

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.

Re: Wim Hof’s teachings about breath work and the health benefits of cold plunges

#20

Post by mhh__ »

calibas wrote: post #12
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #4

If this is revolutionary, why isn't everybody following his method? My skeptic alarm is going off, but also all of the investigative content I read about it seems to support the claims. I'm puzzled on why this hasn't seen mass adoption.

I'm not sure mass adoption is a good way of judging anything.

Medicine and computers are pretty good by the looks of things
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