Cold showers and learning to hold your breath are great. Some people get a little obsessed with the Wim Hof stuff but I think he is genuine, and most of the marketing and money type stuff is done by his son.
His information isn’t new by the way and has been around in various practices, he just took away most of the BS fluf and ritual around it, and also made it popular through his demonstrations.
Also be careful when doing hyperventilation under water as it takes away your reflex to breath in, which acts to let you know when you have excess carbon that needs to be released.
If you don’t know your limit, you can end up passing out and drowning, so you need to know your body well or do it with someone around for safety.
l was going to cold shower throughout this winter, usually I give up when l don’t feel well for some reason. This time it was Covid actually. Tried the breathing for a while, kind of amazing how long you can stop breathing after taking lots of breaths in quick succession. I always remember one comment under a Wim Hof video. “If this is so healthy, why does he look so old.” That gave me enough doubts to not really go further with that approach.
i have thought the same. ha ha. I will say that he is very fit and strong though. There are various videos around of people visiting him and doing some workouts and they always talk about how fit he is.
He smokes and drinks.
Having briefly worked as a therapist helping people to stop smoking, l regard that as a mega deal-breaker. A breathing expert who smokes is like a dentist who does not brush his teeth.
Is that a fact?
I’m just using YouTube. Lots of different breathing patterns available.
I’ve been suffering lower back pain, been extreme pain evening and morning.
I cold shower after cycling, I can cycle no pain until after. Anyhow cold showering every time concentrating on lower back, no hot showers for 2 weeks, back improving hugely, can’t say cold showers helping? I’m going to keep it up, worried if I stop pain will return.
He definitely does smoke, maybe not as much now, and he loves his alcohol.
I’d say it’s more of a testament to him that he was able to f his body up for so long and still came out pretty strong. He was ready to kill himself at one point in his life remember.
Probably not smoking any more.
can give those who want to quit smoking the willpower to do so"
Well…, no. If you need willpower to stop smoking you are doing it the wrong way. The right way is to fully understand how addictions work and then make an easy decision to leave that addiction behind you.
I know a lot of athletes use cold baths after their training sessions to reduce inflammation (in muscles and joints?). I also direct the cold water during my cold showers onto my knees for a while as there is often pain there from hiking. I hope you found a solution to your back pain.
Just a general comment on the breathing, I’m still doing this every day. I use one of two sessions labeled as “advanced” on YouTube. For example, one includes 40 breaths, and progressively harder breath holds ending at 3 minutes (the other one at 4 minutes but I can’t do that yet). I am starting to feel the benefits of Wim Hof breathing more than cold exposure. It’s great for my stress and anxiety. I mean with everything else I do (a good handful of other things), I’m starting to heal mentally from anxiety.
I don’t care too much about the faults of Wim Hof. I know the breathing and cold exposure work for me.
I plan to start a thread on anxiety and depression.
Don’t think I can go as far as cold 
bath 
I stopped hiking with hiking group as they was to long, 8 hour hikes my knees would kill me especially the left that I’ve damaged in cycling accidents. I found going down caused more pain than going up! Still do short couple of hour’s hike occasionally.
I’m confident the cold showers are helping me.
Breathing exercises.
I had asthma as a young person up into my teens.
We did breathing exercises as a group. Simple and work well, have to remember to do them.
Breathe in deeply slowly through the nose as far as you can. Hold for 10-15 seconds, breathe back out slowly through pursed mouth, as far as you can concentrate on your lower abdomen, even push in gently with your hand to expel all old air. Do this 3 times, 3 times a day. Work up to doing 5 breaths 3 times a day.
This does work, first time you do it can see 
I do it before exercise. Remembering to do it each day is my problem.
With the Wim Hof breathing (at least an intermediate level one involving 2:30 minutes of breath holding), I get tingling in my hands and stomach, ringing in my ears for a short while, and an overall numbing sensation over my body. Then I feel calm for some time afterward. I highly recommend it. I especially recommend doing it until you can work up to the longer breath holds, as that’s when I started to really feel the benefits.
I had these sensations too, but I always ended up starting breathing again earlier than probably necessary. There is this psychological barrier that makes you slightly uneasy when not breathing for like more than a minute.
I will try it again tonight~~
Don’t push it. It shouldn’t be forced. Try not to pay attention to the time.
I know, I am a responsible breather. 
Btw, because in Taiwan it’s kind of difficult to get a bathtub full of freezing cold water, I did ice foot and hand baths for a while. That’s kind of fun too. Boy does that hurt when you start doing it.
I’m totally paying attention to the time. I don’t see how else you can get to a 3 minute breath hold on the 4th round, which is where I’m at now. I’m playing around with a 4 minute breath hold on round 5. Nowhere near that but it will happen.
Intense relaxation happens only when I force things a bit. And I’m just weird when it comes to times related to exercise, and this is kind of the same in some ways.
I’ll think about it, not sure I’m ready to try 
2 minutes longest I’ve ever done swimming under water competing with a mate as adult teenager.
40 years later?
So I’ve been taking cold showers since January 31st. There hasn’t been a single time that my cold shower has not been preceded by some dread of the pain to come.
I take a cool shower while I shampoo and use soap. The last step in my morning showers is brushing my teeth. I start to get a bit nervous during that last step because I know what’s about to happen! Even though the temperatures are slowly rising in Taiwan, there’s still quite a shock when the cold water first hits.
I move around under the cold water for three minutes. Every day since 1/31.
And I don’t want to stop because it does feel good when I’m done. Also, I’m doing various things to help with my mood and anxiety, and I’m not sure which things in the combination I’m using are responsible for the healing that’s occurring. So I continue to do all 6, 7, or 8 things every day.
Anyone else taking cold showers daily or almost every day?
