cold therapy
Er kulde faktisk godt for dig? Vi har alle hørt historier om folk fra Nordeuropa som har levet længe og den hærdethed som fra som lever i kolde områder på kloden, men kan disse fordele blive til rådighed for enhver? Kan du undgå sygdom og svaghed ved at udsætte dig selv for kulde? Hvad er de egentlige mekanismer for hvordan tilpasning til kulde påvirker den menneskelige krop? Disse er spørgsmålene som vi undersøger i denne uges Health and Wellness show: The Benefits of Cold Adaptation. Vi diskuterer også Wim Hof's enestående historie, og hører nogle vidnesbyrd fra folk i studiet.

Derudover er der som altid Zoya's segment om helbred for kæledyr, med snak om hunde som bider: hvorfor sker det, hvordan man kan være opmærksom på advarende signaler, og hvad man kan gøre ved det. Følg os hver fredag på SOTT Radio Network!

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Kommentar: Denne artikel er delvis oversat til dansk af sott.net fra: The Health & Wellness Show: The benefits of cold adaptation


Jonathan: Welcome to the Health and wellness show everybody. My name is Jonathan and I'll be your host for today. Today is Friday, March 18th. Joining me here on our very brand spanking new SOTT radio network are our fellow hosts; Gaby, Erica, Tiff and Doug, hi guys!

Everyone: Hi!

Jonathan: So this is great, we have a whole new interface and I know that I wasn't able to be here for the show last week, it was our inaugural show on the news SOTT network. The quality is much better, so welcome everybody. We see all of our chatters here, just a quick note that if you do want to call in, if you're listening through the browser here you can press the call button that's available there. You just have to have a microphone on your computer, and then you can give us a call. We welcome calls and also input through the chat, if anybody has questions or comments today.

Today we're going to be talking about cold adaptation which is quite an interesting topic; it's a little bit intimidating when you first get into it. I have essentially tried it; I would still consider myself a lay person in this regard. To use the religious metaphor, {Laughter} of course we'll get into all the details as we move forward. I wanted to ask first, we've talked a little bit about this in past shows but not in detail, have you guys tried cold adaptation and what was your experience with it? I know you Doug, you've tried it and it wasn't exactly immutable.

Doug: I wouldn't quite say that, I was doing it for a while fairly regularly just immersing myself in a cold tub, afterwards I was shivering and trying to get my body temperature back up. I found that when the weather starts to turn colder I was having a lot of issues, I'd have to go out and wait for a bus in the cold weather and it was just horrible because I hadn't brought myself back up to temperate yet. I wasn't able to get my body temperature back on track quickly enough, I guess, so I ended up stopping for the winter and I told myself I was going to get back into in the Summer but actually never ended up doing that. {Laughter} Since that time I've wavered a little bit, gone into some cool showers and stuff but I haven't gotten right back into the protocol, but I'm planning too, I will do that.

Erica: I've done it, probably in three to four month chunks. I got really into it where it got to the point where it became enjoyable and I would look forward to it, then winter would strike. I couldn't go through it throughout the whole of winter. I did notice good effects from it.

Jonathan: So you guys found that it was a little easier to accomplish during the warmer months.

Erica: When I could go out into the sunshine after doing it that was fantastic to warm myself up. It also helps if you do some kind of exercise afterwards or do something around the house where you're up moving around. It makes the warm up a lot better vs. just sitting in your chair or trying to lay in bed and warm yourself up, that's really, really rough.

Gaby: She got a head cold and that was that, still planning to start through summer, maybe summer is the big time to restart.

Jonathan: Yeah, it seems that way.

Gaby: My experience, I didn't start with cold showers or cold water. I started with cryotherapy which it is a chamber and it blasts very cold air and -130 degrees Celsius, I think that would be around -300 degrees Fahrenheit. It's very cold, yes it is for real! It is much easier to do than cold showers I later learned from my experience. It's just very dry air, its air, it conducts cold less effectively, but you really get the feeling of what cold adaptation really is. You can see results immediately after the session, you can feel better and you feel very happy or very energetic. I really liked it, afterwards I tried cold showers and believe it or not it was slightly more difficult than the -130 degrees Celsius dry air, it really helped to start the cold showers.

Tiff: I did the chamber too, but I've been doing the cold baths for a long time before I did the chamber, I just happened to be in Arizona and there was a place that had the chambers and I didn't really feel much of a difference or much of an effect. With the cold baths I did notice a spike in my mood, a dramatic spike and a lot more energy and I slept a lot better but with the chamber I didn't really notice much at all. But like you said Gaby, the showers they're awful. They're the worse! I'd rather just put myself in a cold tub and be done with it.

Doug: I felt that way too, it's like when you have the water rushing over you constantly it seems a lot worse for some reason I don't know why that would be. But putting yourself into an actual tub of cold water it just seems a lot easier than standing in the shower.

Tiff: Yeah because you get in and you're done with it, once that initial shock wears off. But with the shower you have to keep spinning around and this part of you is warm, that part of you is cold, I don't like it at all.

Jonathan: Yeah, It must be the kinetic impact of the water on your skin that makes it worse.

Doug: I know in some instances when people are standing under cold waterfalls to try and do some kind of cold adaptation. I think there were monks somewhere who would go to a glacier waterfall and then stand underneath it, that's got to be difficult.

Erica: But it's fun because you're in nature I'm guessing.

Jonathan: Maybe you and I have different ideas of fun.

Tiff: I've never done the cold adaptation but I have done the waterfalls, but it was in a tropical climate so I highly doubt that the water was freezing but it's fun, it's a rush on your head and it makes you feel very alive for sure.

Jonathan: Growing up where I did and where I live now on the coast of lake superior, which for listeners that aren't familiar that's the top of the great lakes, even in the summer it never gets warmer than 45 degrees Fahrenheit you just get used to it, there's always that adjustment period where you get in and you hyperventilate for a minute but then you get used to the temperate and you level out. I have tried the cold showers too, they are really hard to handle, most of the time I ended up turning the water off just because I couldn't breathe.

That I think leads into one of the things that we're going to talk about today which is a combination of this cold therapy and breathing exercises. We've mentioned many times before the Eiriu Eolas breathing program that everybody should check out if you haven't, you can just Google Eiriu Eolas. That's a very specific meditative breathing program that has specific laid out steps, it's not like you just breathe deeply and meditate you actually go through a set pattern and different ways of breathing that tie in with each other and it stimulates your vagus nerve and so then it kicks in a lot of processes in the body that we don't normally experience. Most of the time we breath into our upper chest, especially in modern culture where we're so stressed out all the time, you end up with the scrunched up shoulders and the high chest breathing and that really constricts a lot of blood flow, it constricts your muscles, it does not lend to relaxation. If you can get into breathing, more from your belly with your diaphragm, even that is very beneficial. If you get into a program like Eiriu Eolas, the benefits are immeasurable. We keep finding new things that it does good things for.

Doug: Yeah, definitely. Not the least of which is being able to withstand cold water.

Jonathan: So that's one of the subjects of our show, not a guest to clarify but one of the guys that we were looking into was Wim Hof. He is Scandinavian (actually dutch) guy, who has for some time now been doing cold adaptation combined with his own breathing method, he shows that you can actually influence your body's autonomic nervous system to withstand viral infections, and just for overall better health. There's a lot of really amazing things here, the stuff that they showed in the lab, they showed that he is able to control his core body temperature even when he's submerged in ice of up to 2 hours. To launch of our discussion about that, we have a clip with a documentary about Wim Hof that was on Iceland. There's a short clip from that, and then another clip right after that that's from a Ted Talk that Wim Hof did. Let's go to that audio and we'll come back and discuss.
Audio clip:

Narrator: It's all about breaking records, Wim's mission is to use his body as a laboratory, to revolutionise our understanding of biology. In 2011 he was injected with a bacterial endotoxin in an experiment that challenged our understanding of the nervous system. In normal humans the injection should cause a strong immune response leading to fever, chills and headaches but not in Wim, it appeared that he was somehow able to suppress his immune response by making his body secret adrenaline. Suggesting that his method can allow us to influence our immune system at will, scientists thought that he might just be a freak of nature. To prove this theory, he performed the same experiment on 12 subjects who had been trained in Poland and the same thing happened.

Wim: Normally it's very difficult to increase your adrenaline levels by your own will, adrenaline is released by the autonomic nervous system and autonomic means you cannot voluntarily influence it. So if you walk outside and you are robbed on the street, you will have a heart rate of 160, your blood pressure will be sky high within seconds, but if I ask you now to increase your heart rate you cannot do that, you cannot voluntarily moderate that. The techniques of Wim Hof have shown that he was able to increase his adrenaline levels with very high concentrations, even higher than people that go bungee jumping for the first time. This was something that we didn't think possible before that.

Narrator: If we learn to influence our immune system at will, we could potentially use that to treat inflammatory disorders where the immune system is over active, including chromes disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Wim: In the third year of the university books in the USA, al the universities they've included a chapter calling the Ice man, it's about me. In the meanwhile, they explain a comparative starting as you saw these young people just trained in four days time to be able to influence deeply into the autonomic nervous system and the bacteria injected. Therefore, had no chance, within a quarter of an hour compared to thousands of test subjects before, who had no significant influence into the process of this bacteria on the immune system, they became sick, uncontrolled shivering, headaches. It was not nice to be there 3-6 hours, sick in the bed because you couldn't do anything into your system to block the reaction of this bacterium on your immune system.

These people, I have trained in 4 days. In 4 days they were very capable of enduring the cold to -27 on top of a big mountain in shorts dancing the Harlem shake. All of them! When we went down the slopes it was under the polish border, we walked up and it was -10 when we began, after one and a half hours we came to the reach, which is the border. These Czech soldiers came, military people, and they looked like ninjas, completely covered because it was -17, they came over to us and then they saw a group of people in shorts coming up, couldn't understand but we made nice selfie's.

We went on to the top, and yes at the top it was -27, then we danced the Harlem shake together. Then I knew I was convinced, these guys, they are back and have tapped into their deeper potential, the way nature meant it to be in every person. They did it and awakened it in 4 days time. 4 days later they were in the hospital, and yes they were injected and they had 100% control over the immune system in the deepest levels, not recognized by science up till then to be possibly influenced and they did it all. So I also did it with 26 people, raging to 65 years of age, from 22. Having all kinds of diseases like chromes, cancer, asthma, etc and going to 6000metres in 3 days, all the physiologists and experts, they told us, "it's not possible to do that! We don't want to link our name with your expedition, people are going to die, physiologically this is not possible to be done!"

Maybe they're right, we did it in 3 days, and we did it in 2 days. I don't hear these experts anymore! They thought it to be that way, we got these old ways of thinking patterns and they are laying it upon us, upon our children, you cannot do this!! You have to do this, you got to do this... industries who gave a lot of money, I don't want to be political, but this is the old way of thinking, the food industry and the Madison industry, they're really not here to feed us or to heal us, they are here to make money. That's the old way of thinking, possibly originated from being insecure, having fear to take care of my thing, this narrowing consciousness. I think right now, and it has been proven, that we are able to tap in to the endocrine systems and immune systems, deeply up till the autonomic nervous system level and it's in the books everywhere in the world now.

Maybe still, they have to come here substantially in the books. USA already is doing this, and soon we have new studies with Harvard, it's all in there and it shows that we actually are very capable of preventing disease, very capable of influencing into our energy management on cellular levels. Very capable to get into our DNA, very capable for us to intervene and direct our happiness, strength and health.
Jonathan: So I thought that was pretty interesting, the documentary itself was quite good, it was more like a personal story, they mention the science but it's about this young man who goes to try out Wim Hof's method and then climbs to the top of this mountain in his shorts with no shirt on; along with him, in these negative Celsius temperatures. The evidence is there, I know that Wim himself is trying to get this into the books, he's trying to have studies done on him in the labs and I think that that is extremely beneficial. I guess, personally I'm of two minds about it, because when I see something working and I see the anecdotal evidence so to speak, in certain cases that's good enough for me but it's not good enough for everybody. So it's really good to have the science to back this up.

One of our chatters asked, while that clip was going on, how the adrenaline might have affected the immune response because adrenaline is a flight or fight hormone. I don't have the knowledge for that, Gaby can you speak to that at all?

Gaby: Yeah, I was speculating also in the chat that maybe it was a immune response, maybe it was an activation of the vagus nerve, what Wim does he controls his autonomic nervous system through breathing, right? He says that the cold is his master, so he gets exposed to the cold, he breaths in a certain way, and that way he can control his autonomic nervous system. From what we know, the part of the autonomic nervous system, it's also the vagus nerve, at least at the relaxation response that makes you feel comfortable, makes your body go into restoration and healing. There's a very important section of the vagus nerve that stimulates the immune system, so yes maybe we see these stress response, noradrenaline or norephrine activated during cold adaptation, but maybe it's just part of the response to the exposure of cold but they're other things going on as well. Maybe they don't have the whole science yet, I'm speculating here.

Doug: Well, I might be thinking of cortisol rather than adrenaline, but I think cortisol does suppress immune response.

Tiff: I think that was mentioned in one of the videos, it said that cortisol is released in response to increased autonomic nervous system activity and it does suppress the immune response. So when they did that experiment in 2011 when they injected Wim and the others with the endotoxin, and we're expecting them to get sick but they never did. When they tested his blood afterwards, in Wim's blood the inflammatory mediators where much lower than the other subjects that didn't do the breathing and meditation beforehand.

Doug: So, whether the adrenaline is actually what is suppressing the immune response, or it might be a correlation, I guess they don't know exactly what the mechanism was there.

Tiff: Well, the thing about this is breathing and he demonstrated it in the podcast with Joe Rogan, he breathes in really forcefully and gets a bunch of oxygen in, and he just lets go of the breath, but he doesn't breathe all the way out. He's actually doing this about 20-25 times, and he's taking in more oxygen than he's letting out, and he said that that's the way to tap into the autonomic nervous system.

Erica: Yeah and in his method, it's called the Wim Hof method, he says there's 3 simple components, it's the breathing exercises, the training of the mind and concentration, and then the gradual exposure to the cold.

Tiff: I think mind and concentration plays a lot into this too, because Wim believes very strongly in the power of his body, I guess the people that he trains also have to have a certain amount of faith in that to. Or else they wouldn't volunteer to do such a thing; I think mind over matter plays a lot into it, more so than we think. He said in that clip we just played, the fact that the autonomic nervous system can't be consciously controlled is an old way of thinking. Not to say that he's special, or maybe his subjects are special, maybe that they're tapping into some kind of ancient method that we've lost over the years.

Erica: Well yeah, he said his breathing practice was based on his research into Himalayan monks, they call is a Tummo meditation practice. These monks do these practices and then can sit outside in their loin cloth and expose themselves to extreme cold. There was a study done by scientists in Singapore on these monks and they said that they mainly noticed it in their hands and feet, they could hands and feet warm but it sounds like Wim has taken it to a whole other level. He calls it the inner fire.

Tiff: Inner fire!

Gaby: What I understood from some of the commentaries, he didn't have a specific teacher or guru, or a monk teaching him how to breathe, he just tapped into these accidentally by being exposed to the cold. That's how I understood it.

Erica: Yeah, it said 'the cold is my only master; the cold is my only teacher'.

Tiff: At 17 or 18 years old, he was just walking outside by the lake and it just looked so inviting to him that he decided that he just wanted to get in, and that's how he started doing it. I guess it was years later after he had a wife, and they had children, and his wife was suffering from some kind of mental illness maybe schizophrenia, he said she had hallucinations etc. She ended up jumping out of a window committing suicide, I guess he was so distraught from that he was just trying to find ways to make himself feel better and being more in control of his body, this kind of set him off on this daredevil path.

Erica: Yeah he said as a result, he studied all these different metaphysical teachings. Yoga, that was all for the mind but not necessarily for his body.

Tiff: He said he needed to get that information from his body, mind can only go so far, but he wanted to tap into the wisdom of his body.

Gaby: It's amazing that he claims he can train anybody in 2 days, and they can do this, at least people can have endotoxins into their blood and they will not have an infection. I find that like, wow! I'm not sure if I volunteer, it's something serious to claim! {Laughter}

Doug: That really is the amazing thing about it, 2 days?! It's mind blowing. It makes me want to sign up and see if it's possible!

Tiff: He's such an engaging speaker in the Joe Rogan interview, its two and a half hours, his energy is very electric and magnetic. It does inspire you, and what I found really interesting was that he was saying he's not afraid to die, because he's done all these crazy things. He's afraid of not living fully, fully is to go deep, for that any challenge I will take on, and he does, he takes on some pretty intense challenges but getting back to the strong belief, really in your body, the whole mind over matter thing.

Doug: There was one thing he was hanging suspended from a cable from one finger, oh my god.

Tiff: He did a marathon run, one of the driest desserts in the world without drinking water; he said he just had 4 cups of coffee beforehand. The funny thing is, he's not following any kind of special diet he says he doesn't till after 6pm and he likes to eat a lot of pasta, and he likes coffee.
{Laughter}

Gaby: That would just kill me.

Erica: He likes alcohol too, he's Dutch.

Doug: He did say that he was like partly vegetarian, I don't know... so much for that idea.

Jonathan: I think it just speaks to the idea that everybody is different; this is certainly not an endorsement, from my part anyway, of binge drinking or anything like that. For his own physiology and his own makeup, I don't know if he binge drinks or not. He seems to be able to handle it and be in pretty perfect health. So I think it maybe because he's so intense into the cold therapy and into the methods that he's able to handle that in some regard. We know objectively that alcohol is damaging to the body, he just maybe working hard enough to be able to handle that damage. That's how I think about it, everybody should obviously be able to make their own choices in what they do, and we have pointed out many times that the benefits of the low carb, high fat diet. Whilst we see here, in looking at Wim Hof, that he took a pretty high carb diet but he does this cold adaptation and it works for him. I would tend to think that if you did the cold adaptation along with the high fat diet, you would essentially be in that much better health.

Doug: He's kind of coming from it in the opposite direction, he's coming from it in that he has the ability to control his autonomic nervous system, most people out there, I think I can safely say aren't able to do that. So it might be that coming at it from that angle, he can mitigate any of the effects that a non ideal diet might have, where as everybody else who has come at it from an opposite direction who has modified their diet for an ideal human can take in. Maybe until you get to the point where you are actually able to control the autonomic nervous system you, might have to make the dietary changes that we promote here.

Tiff: That's not to say that there's anything wrong from coming at it from both angles, there's no reason that you can't do the meditations and the focused breathing that's happened to your autonomic nervous system and then still do a paleo/keto diet.

Gaby: I was just going to say that if you think about it, most people never do conscious breathing, not at all. So it's really amazing to see the effect that conscious breathing has on even in the E.E. classes, people feel like wow! This is so powerful; it's a tool you can take with you everywhere.

Erica: One thing that was really interesting in that movie about him, where he was training those other people to do it, when he started introducing the breathing one of the women starting crying uncontrollably and having a release, which for those of us who have taught E.E. have actually seen people go through. What inspired me about Wim was that he went on this journey because of the suicide of his wife, and it was almost like he was going through a dark night of soul, he had lost everything and even through all his reading he knew that there was something that he could find that would help him work through this grave internal suffering that he was going through. It basically changed his life, I found that inspiring.

Jonathan: One of the things that I think is interesting is that there are different factors that work here, he's doing cold adaptation which will kind of get into in a minute with the benefits of that. He's doing a breathing exercise which we know stimulates the vagus nerve, increases the adrenaline, increases and regulates the core temperate of the body, apparently suppresses the immune response. I think that the breathing exercise allows him to be exposed to the cold, and then the cold adaptation on the other side of the equation has its own benefits. In prepping for this show and reading about it, I was reading about brown fat. How there is the brown adipose tissue and the white adipose tissue, babies have a lot of brown fat tissues in the body and it's really thick with mitochondria and it stimulates a healing within the body. As you're growing up, you grow into young adulthood you bring to lose your brown fat because you needed more of that when you were young. Cold adaptation can essentially give you back more of your brown adipose tissue. Even people who are overweight can convert weight adipose tissue to brown. So, that is one of the effects, I mean there are others as far as increasing blood circulation, but I think it's interesting. He has this one technique that allows him to expose himself to the cold, as he's more and more cold adapted he reaps the benefits of the cold adaptation. So, it's not just one aspect that's doing this whole thing.

Gaby: They actually did tests, they measured his fat and yes it showed that he has brown adipose tissue and that is pretty amazing because he's now 56 years old or something, and you're supposed to lose all these brown fats by adulthood. It's just babies that have it basically to keep warm, by your teens you start losing it and when you're an adult you're supposed to have none. But yes, apparently you can definitely get it back.

Tiff: I think that's the issue that he had, the amount of brown fat that a young person has.

Jonathan: There have been studies into brown fat being helpful in people with diabetes, they think there's other benefits too that they've showed that having more brown fat can actually be extremely helpful in a lot of different conditions, metabolic conditions in particular.

Tiff: Yeah, they showed that it uses up more triglycerides and stored sugars, so people that have type 2 diabetes can really benefit from the cold therapy.

Jonathan: To take the psychological aspect, it's pretty interesting. You were talking about with Wim, he has this belief in the power of his body, I think it's a sticky topic to talk about because you have the new age world that says you make your own reality, whatever you believe in happens. By that logic, I should be able to levitate the ashtray in front of me, meditating on it, or to essentially change anything in my physical universe by the power of my mind. It's not that simple, I think Wim Hof touches on that by showing that he can connect, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not just the power of the mind that makes things happen, end of story. In order to do certain things, you have to actually connect the ability to concentrate and focus your will power onto a specific physical aspect of your existence. He's focusing on a specific thing, connecting those wires between his will and his physical being. Then, that gives him a boost.

Tiff: It's not just like the power of the mind, that focus that you have when you decide you want to carry out some experiment; it has to be followed up with action. You can't just say o I'm going to think my way healthier, if you focus and attention is strong enough I guess, you eventually start behaving in a way that a person who is healthy does. That is how it manifests, if I'm making any sense.

Gaby: What you say Tiff, reminds me of some information shared by Katharine Shanahan, she's a family doctor who wrote a book called; Deep nutrition - why your genes need nutritional food, she was sharing that fat has amazing properties, it has like stem cell properties which is a cell that can depreciate pretty much anything in the body. She shared some studies showing how fat cells can convert to muscle cells, and back to fat again. They can also convert in feversides and she called that process trans-differentiation. It's amazing, we have so much fat in our bodies and we can transform it in anything that is needed if we only knew how, perhaps we are learning how now.

Tiff: That makes me thinks of Gabor Mate's book of, "When the body says no" he basically says that your thoughts can contribute to your illness, in reverse, why can't your thoughts contribute to you getting healthier?

Doug: Well it kind of brings in the whole epigenetic thing; the popular notion is that we're a prison of our genes. If you've got a genetic predisposition to something, then oh that's it too bad, that's your luck of the draw. When really more recent research on epigenetics shows that your environment actually changes what genes get activated, there's like on and off switches. That by manipulating your environment this includes, diet and cold adaptation your thoughts and your emotional state. Those things all can affect what genes get activated and what ones stay dormant.

It just brings to mind that the idea that yeah, you can create your reality. Like Jonathan was just saying, it's not kind of a one - two process where you just meditate and suddenly your reality is completely different. It requires that you're doing things, manipulating your environment to effect you epigenetic expression. It might be true, but it's a little bit more complicated than what the new age tends to attribute to it.

Jonathan: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I mean, it's like you said you start thinking a certain way, you begin changing your behaviour which then allows things to manifest. If I wish, in wishing myself to be thinner and healthy yet I continue eating things like Cheetos and sitting on the couch playing video games, it's not going to happen.

Tiff: Because those aren't things that healthy people do!

Gaby: There is no free lunch; it's not really like magical thinking. By being aware and simulating this knowledge on how cold therapy can really help you, then you start to switch your belief centre, like ok I'm going to be more experienced to the cold and have these cold showers, see what happens and breath consciously. That's when the changes start to begin.

Jonathan: I don't think that should change what's fascinating about the power of the mind; we're not trying to say its only action that does this, its action and will power tied together intimately. I think it's still fascinating that the mind has this ability because it takes that honing of your concentration and of your efforts in order to manifest those things around you. Getting to that point it's no small feat, as anybody knows who has ever quit anything or changed a habit, who has ever tried to learn something new, it's not easy. But when you actually go through the process and discover that you have that ability and you're like whoa I can actually do this, that's the fascinating part about the power of the mind. We kind of see as maybe less fascinating than they should be, that's my point.

Erica: In one of the documentaries, it was called; "Altered state, the Ice Man" he talked about his first time of going in, when he was about 17 or 18. He said it was the first time that he felt connected deeply within and that he felt an overwhelming feeling and after 30 seconds he felt great. One of the first moments where his mind got still, there was no side effects anymore, there were no thoughts, there was just feeling.

Gaby: Yeah, I understand that part as his chatter was turned off, he was able to pay full attention to his environment and to his body, you know.

Jonathan: It's kind of like one of our chatters here, had mentioned that brain stimulation is an important part of health. A lot of sicknesses, the brains are a great part of sickness in the body. I think that's a great point, the state of your mind, thoughts and intent has a lot to do with the state of your physical health. So, changing the two in conjunction with each other is very important, and not trying to over focus on either side of the equation.

Erica: Especially when experiencing yourself to the cold, I'm speaking personally here, you're outside and you're like, 'Oh, my god it's cold, so cold!' and your brain starts on that loop and you get colder. Wim talks about that inner fire, with the Himalayan monks, they imagine themselves as an empty vessel filled with light, it's like if the mind can go there and not focus on the external elements of how cold you are, rather go with it and find that heat radiating. Talk about creating your own reality in that moment! I'm not a Popsicle; I'm on a beach with the sunshine.

Doug: I think there's something to that, when I've been outside in very cold situations I've noticed that there's a tendency for the body to tense up and almost fight against the cold by getting really tense. I found that if I just calm myself down and relax the body, and be there, I can resist that cold a lot easier. There's definitely something to that internal landscape that changes how you react to the cold I guess. I think that's an important part of it, maybe not being completely tense and trying to resist at a body level, just sort of relaxing into it.

Tiff: You just know you're not going to die. This winter I never wore a coat, I'd go out in the morning to get some sunshine if there was any, get some fresh air, I wouldn't have a coat on and it'd be really cold like winter weather. I didn't feel cold, a lot of the time I couldn't tell what temperature it was, I'd always overestimate it, it might be like 20 degrees and it'd feel like 40 degrees. I'd come back in the house and check the thermometer, and I felt really warm.

Gaby: It does seem that we have physiological mechanisms to withstand bitter cold, like for example you can submerge your face first in cold and it will activate scuba diving reflex, which is basically stimulating the vagus nerve and your heart rate starts to go slower. Then, you can withstand a cold shower much easier if you do that.

Erica: Especially when you psyche yourself out!

Tiff: That's the worse part, preparing for it, once you get it and get it over with its like ah, not that bad.

Jonathan: Its distress tolerance, if you do a reading online with various sources about cold adaptation they all mention distress tolerance. I think that's a very important psychological factor because we are now, so programmed to be comfortable or what we think of as comfortable. We live in insulated houses; we regulate the temperatures in the winter and the summer. We are very adverse to any kind of physical discomfort, so in encountering that discomfort creates an extreme psychological reaction which then ripples through your whole body. As you get into cold adaptation and begin to experiment with it more, you find, even in other areas of life, you have a much higher tolerance for distress, so you can stay calm in stressful situations, you can be much more level headed. You can approach things with more of an objective view point instead of a subjective notional view point. I think that's another interesting thing that speaks to that mind-body connection. As you train your body to become more able to withstand things that we think of as uncomfortable, you also find that you can also withstand what we think of as uncomfortable, emotional or psychological situations as well.

Erica: There was a good article on SOTT, about that called; Seven reasons to take cold showers and one that really matters in it he talks about what you were just saying, being uncomfortable is what it's all about and getting used to discomfort on a daily basis is important. You can achieve anything, discomfort is going to play a massive role, conditioning your brain to accept, survive and embracing discomfort is one of the practices that can greatly impact the rest of your life.

Doug: It's like taking on the right attitude towards it, that what I got out of that article. He was saying anything you do is going to have some level of discomfort, if you're going to try not to be a lump on the couch you want to push your boundaries and grow as a person, there's going to be a certain level of discomfort there. The cold showers speak to that definitely, once you've kind of accepted the fact that anything you do is going to bring with it a certain level of discomfort, it's having that right attitude towards it and being more willing to take on that discomfort.

Gaby: A lot of people say it's for psychological reasons, once they've done it it's not a big deal, but it's more psychological. Woo, Cold!

Tiff: Just tell yourself "I love the cold, I love the cold"

Jonathan: Wim Hof says, the cold is my master!

Erica: It's my only teacher. {Laughter}

Tiff: There was another interesting thing that he brought up in one of his interviews, he said that when he does his breathing techniques that it raises the P.H. in the blood and makes it more alkaline, it helps with pain control. He said something interesting, when you're at the brink of death and you're breathing very rapidly and you get that alkalization of your blood and it makes death a painless process. I thought that was pretty interesting because most people are afraid of dying, it could be the most painful thing they ever have to go through in their life. Is that one of the biggest lies we've been fed? Besides, we can't control anything in our body; all healing has to come from the outside. Death is an awful process, when it really isn't.

Jonathan: That makes me think about inflammation too, I don't know if you guys have had a similar experience, if you have some minor irritation in your body. Last year I had a wart on my foot, sometimes it was painful and sometimes not, I noticed if I was slipping on my diet, I could tell if I was more inflamed because it would hurt. When I would get back on track, I'd do better, my inflammation would go down and it would hurt much less. The cold adaptation as well, reduces the inflammation in your body, that's why you put a cold pack on a bruise to reduce the inflammation. So, that can also help to regulate the pain along with the breathing exercises.

Doug: That's a fairly conventional view on the cold therapy too, all these different athletes, especially professional athletes, they're bringing in this cold therapy as a means of dealing with post-exercise inflammation. You've got football players that are going into the cold tub after game, Olympic athletes going into these cryochambers, that's a relatively main stream perspective that you can mitigate the inflammation response using the cold. That's interesting in of itself and fairly I'm controversial at this point.

Jonathan: Well I think if you guys don't mind, this might be a good point to go to one of our other audio clips. This one is funny, it's something I found whilst I was looking for stuff for this show, it's from YouTube and its part of a clip of this guy who's speaking from a bath. He's talking whilst he's in the cold bath, he just talks about his experience with it, how it helped him and some of the basic points of cold adaptation. Let's go to that clip, and then we'll discuss

Audio: How's it going everybody, its Chad coming to you from an ice bath tub. I'm going to talk to you about cold thermogenesis, it's something I do with regularity during the warmer months, and I do it in a bathtub during the colder months, I will go jump in a rover or jump in part of the lake that isn't frozen and more or less. I started doing this; well I've always been into the cold for some strange reason. I got into this years ago when I started to read about Tummo Tibetans, they do a meditation where they stay warm doing breath work and a whole bunch of others, there's a lot more to it than just breath work. They train their bodies to withstand extreme colds. I got even deeper when I first found it out from Wim Hof, also known as the Iceman; I would practice it on and off, and a few years back I got really sick. I think it had a lot to do with mold toxicity, I had mercury amalgams taken out, my whole system went to shit, during this whole trying to get better I was extremely inflamed. My whole face would just well up, it was like a histamine reaction but I can't quite call it that. I would just use ice baths, I would come home every night from work and get in here and keep myself, chill myself down. I would hang out for about 30-45 minutes. That process, I was able to keep inflammatory markers real low, in fact if I remember correctly, my HSCRP, highly sensitive celiactive protein, which is a cardiac marker. That was down to about .3 which is extremely low, which is a good thing.

I was able to keep that thing really low, many others who do this are able to reduce their HSCRP, and it can also be useful for weight loss. I'm pretty lean so I can't really say that I've had any, what it does it will actually convert the fat in your body to what is called brown adipose tissue. It's essentially brown fat, which is what babies have, a lot of brown fat. This brown fat is very dense in mitochondria, it gives off a lot of energy, and this particular brown fat helps people to lose weight because your white fat which is what most adults have. That is what can be problematic; especially visceral fat, that's the fat around the organs. A lot of the time you'll see people with popped out bellies, their actually fat on the outside is their stomach area. In a lot of cases, even if they're really obese, it might only be that thick but their belly is gigantic, that's because this misrule fat is around the organs, the intestinal tract. When it really becomes problematic is when it's around your heart because that's when it has contractive actions.

It's a fun thing to get into; I've found a lot of benefit to it. I find it at this point very relaxing, also if you live in a cold environment; it makes it a little bit harder. So if you want to start doing this, a lot of people just start taking a cold shower, then work your way into getting into a cold bathtub, and start to add ice. Right now, most of it is melted; tonight I would say I had about 20lbs of ice in here.

Tiff: Hey, we have a caller guys, can we pause for a moment and take this call? Hi caller are you there?

Scottie: Yes, hi how are you?

Doug: Very good! How're you?

Scottie: Good, not too bad. I just wanted to make a few comments; I want to give a little testimonial cold therapy, adaptation. I've been doing it for a couple of years, I started last winter. I really found that it helps in a lot of ways, pretty much all the ways that you guys are talking about. I started off with cold showers, first of all I wanted to say that the initial shock that you experience, especially if cold water hits your head, it's really unpleasant. A lot of people they run out of the shower and never do it again, I found that it's the initial thing to get over and the thing that helps is just breathing, your heart races and you go a little crazy. You have to regulate your breathing and force yourself to breath slowly and steadily. After you do this a few times, in my case, I could take cold showers; in fact I take them all the time.

Anyway, after that, we have a little pool filled with water. I started going in, merging myself into near freezing water. I know it sounds bad, I just wanted to say a few things to testify a little bit because I'm sure that there are many listeners thinking, "Oh my god I'd never do that!" The benefits that I've found health wise. Since I started I've never really had a serious sickness like a cold or anything so it really does seem to stimulate your immune system. The other big benefit is I feel much, much calmer after taking a cold shower or submerged in a pool or pond, or wherever you have cold water.

I just wanted to, maybe, give some tips and reassure any other listeners who might be freaking out at the idea. It's good!

Doug: Did you notice any, effects on mood at all?

Scottie: I did yes. At first I think, the effect is basically, thank god I'm still alive! It's like your body is in shock and when you get out and warm yourself up gently as well as you can, as quickly as you can I think, after I was doing it for several weeks maybe a month or two. I was actually looking forward to it because I knew if my day had been stressful, or whatever. I could get in and chill myself, when I got out I was in a great mood and I was full of energy again, I think it really does help, at least for me.

Jonathan: Awesome!

Tiff: How long would you stay in Scottie?

Scottie: Well if it's a cold shower, as long as it takes me to shower. If I'd be in the pool, if it's say like 5 degrees I do 5 minutes, if it's 10 degrees I do 10 minutes. The coldest I've ever done is the water was 2 degrees Celsius, and yeah. I only stayed in for 2 minutes, though, so not so bad.

Erica: So you're not working up towards the 2 hours like Wim Hof? {Laughter}

Scottie: I'm fascinated by his story and his videos and all that stuff, but I've also never, I don't put on my Speedo and got for a trek on a mountain top or anything like that. {Laughter}
I might try it, it could be interesting, I'm mostly on a Ketogenic diet, so I use it as part of my normal health regime and that's about it.

Tiff: There's much more possible ways to apply Wim Hof's method, you don't have to go in underwear and climb mount Fiji, injecting endotoxins, and you don't have to do anything crazy afterwards.

Scottie: I was just going to say, one of the most interesting things is, when I started going into our pool I noticed that after a few weeks of doing this, I would, say the water was like 7 degrees or something. Various joints would start hurting, like in my hands or especially one of my knees and it would really ache a lot for about one minute. When I got out of the pool I was kinda stumbling, it wasn't painful it was just an achy sensation for a minute or two and then it subsided and I noticed that problems that I'd had with the joints because of a past injuries, they seemed to go away. They seemed to bother me less, if I was doing a lot of physical work or something, in addition to the boosting of the immune system, it seems like it's also stimulating your body to repair all kinds of stuff.

Doug: I know that there are a lot of instances of people who are using the cold therapy for specific injuries. I think I read in one of the articles, about a dancer who had injured themselves, I think it was like a boy band or something like that, injured himself at a dance routine, he had a concert coming up so he used the cold therapy to treat that injury.

Jonathan: Scottie, did you notice too, after you'd done it for a while, do you get cold? Obviously you get cold if it's very cold outside, but do you notice more resilience to the cold during the winter time?

Scottie: I was already pretty fond of the cold; I don't do very well in heat. I know a lot of other people said that suddenly they could go outside without wearing a jacket. I didn't really notice any change in that department, I found that was kinda odd actually.

Jonathan: Yeah maybe you were already naturally adapted in some way. I have a similar thing, I don't like the heat at all, I really have a hard time with hot weather but I don't mind the cold.

Scottie: I don't know, I do know a few other people who really hate the cold and after doing the cold adaptation they did actually see the benefit. Like you say, maybe it's just that I was naturally warm blooded, who knows?

Jonathan: Yeah.

Tiff: If you're lean you might have more brown fat than the average person anyway so it could make you fonder of the cold too.

Jonathan: Sure.

Jonathan: Thanks for sharing that!

Tiff: Any other comments Scottie, before we let you go?

Scottie: No, that's about it.

Tiff: Alright, thanks for calling and doing your testimonial.

Jonathan: Yeah, thanks.

Gaby: You'll inspire somebody!

Scottie: I hope so!

Erica: I wonder what people mean when they say chill out, go take a cold shower and chill out!

Gaby: It will inspire people because I think the minority, right now are in the cold shower phase. We have still tried the cold swimming pool, cold bath tub with ice.

Doug: Yeah.

Tiff: I think it takes a lot of convincing to get people to switch from showers to a cold bath. Cold baths are much, much better, from a personal experience, trust me on this one.

Gaby: Ok, I will!

Tiff: The oracle has spoken! {Laughter}

Doug: I thought it was interesting in that video clip of the guy in the tub, he seemed completely calm, and he didn't seem like his voice was trembling, he was talking about haves 20lbs of ice in the tub with him, wow! There is obviously a point where you did become adapted to it.

Tiff: I would put ice in my bath; I couldn't do it if I could sing. If I didn't have my musical device with me, I wouldn't be able to get in that tub without singing, stimulate my vagus nerve, thereby making the cold bath easier.

Erica: So that's your meditation?

Tiff: Yes.

Gaby: My meditation will be the Siberian kids with their swim suits in the middle of winter, with the cold water.

Erica: Well it makes sense too, when you were kids, you'd be outside in your swimsuit and the sun is going down and your Mum is yelling to you, "Come inside its cold, come in!" and you don't even feel it.

Tiff: Ok, guys it looks like we have another caller here. Hello caller, are you there?What's your name?

Joe: Yep, my name is Joe.

Everyone: Hello Joe!

Joe: How's it going?

Everyone: Good!

Joe: All this talk is making me feel cold. That's got a different rating though hasn't it? Anyway, I was just inspired by Scottie's, your previous caller Scottie's testimonial. For me, cold therapy is really good, I don't want to have too many elements that I can cite as having been cured by it, but I know other people who have had long term issues, mechanical issues in their bodies. Pains in their shoulders or back that they have cured more or less with this cold therapy, but for me, there were a couple of things that are in my mind that I remember about cold therapy. Somebody is calling me Joe the Ice plumber on the chat room, what the hell does that mean? I have no idea what an Ice plumber is, it's not even the proper spelling of plumber, and I collected plums in the winter or something?

Anyway, yeah what I notice is that now and again I would have, depending on when I would eat and the type of food, particularly if I ate too much fat, I would get an upset stomach, nausea and pain in my stomach. When I went into the pool with that pain it would literally, just go, I don't know what is happening there on a biological level but maybe it's that it is so cold that it distracts me from the nausea. I don't think so because it doesn't come back afterwards, I would only be in there for 5 or 10 minutes. It would immediately cure an upset stomach; the other thing I noticed was that when there's times when you should go in and when you shouldn't.

In terms of how you're feeling, I've noticed when you feel a little bit under the weather, not that you're coming down with something, just if you have that feeling of being under the weather going into the pool can really give you a boost, stimulates your immune system or whatever. That can really make you feel better, perks you up if you're feeling worn down. On the flip side of that, when you're really not feeling well it's a bad idea to go into a cold pool because that can make you feel worse. I think it does probably tax your immune system, or your body in general, it's a bit of a stressor. If you're on the right side energy levels and stuff, it can give you a boost, but if you're a bit low then it can make you feel a bit worse. Not that it's going to do anything chronically bad to you though. That's just the other thing that I noticed, in terms of getting a cure, if you're fine get in the pool, but if you're getting a cure you should be careful about how you're feeling and your energy levels. If you're feeling a little bit low on energy, it's probably not a good idea to drop yourself into an icy bath or pool.

Tiff: Maybe because your reserves are so depleted when you're sick and you get in the pool, and you get back out you don't have the reserves to bring your temperature back up to where it should be, that's just a guess.

Joe: Yeah, because it is quite a stressor on your system, it's not something your body is used to when you're first doing it. It has to do all sorts of new things to deal with this. We're talking here about effectively creating a state of mild hyperthermia, and that's stressful - you do need to be in a decent enough shape to do this. Like I said, it can help and as long as you're physically, in terms of your general health, if you're well enough and have enough energy it can be really helpful for lots of different mechanical problems depending on what it is, sore back, and sore leg. Even muscular injuries, this is used a lot in sports, they put an ice pack on things, but I suppose it's logical then to think that, well why stop at just an ice pack, get the whole lot in there you know?

Gaby: It also reminds me of the contra conditions for the cryotherapy and the chamber, if you have low thyroid function you might not be a good candidate because you cannot warm up afterwards.

Tiff: So don't get your old grandma out of the bed and throw her into a cold pool. {Laughter}

Doug: Don't do that?

Jonathan: Oh, okay!

Joe: Don't do it without asking her first.

Doug: It's interesting what you say there Joe, because the whole thing about having mild nausea from over doing it on the food, I was reading some of the stuff for the show, they talk about how by immersing yourself into cold the blood is drawn away from the extremities and collects in the organs. Then, once you get back out it circulates again and it's supercharged blood at that point, so I wonder if by getting into the cold and when you're feeling that nausea its bringing blood to the stomach and supercharging the digestion, helping you getting over that hump. I'm just speculating, I don't know if that's actually true.

Tiff: Makes sense.

Gaby: Or like we were speculating on a previous show on water, is that very cold water forms EZ water, which is exclusions of water, structure water. It's very healing, so I wonder also if cold adaptation has to do with structure water in your body.

Tiff: That's a good point!

Joe: It's all good though, it's just a pity that it tends to be a bit unpleasant in the initial stages. Then, no pain no gain and all that business.

Jonathan: Joe, how long did it take you to get used to it? To where you didn't really dread the initial shock anymore?

Joe: I think probably about, I was doing it for once a day for 2 weeks and then every other day, probably after 5 or 6 days going in my body just submitted and said, 'Ok, I see you're going to continue doing this so'... what am I doing? Complaining is not going to stop you from doing this, so it kind of gave up. Whenever you're doing something like that, that it doesn't like... but also there's a sense that it's painful, to a certain extent there's tingling but it's not horribly painful, it's just uncomfortable.

There's also a sense that it's good for you, some part of you knows that this is good. 5 or 6 days I think, it wasn't an issue anymore, and that's not a long time it just takes a bit of will power. There was one day when I was really cold and I got into the pool, it was probably 5 or 6 degrees, a grey rainy day, I was in there for 5 or 6 minutes whatever the temperate was. I got out, I'm usually sprinting to the fire or sprinting to warm up, but I just ran around for a little while like the headless chicken, cold therapy energy and then I decided I was going back in so I ran back in and got back in again. That was extreme, that was one of the examples, of how good it made me felt if once was good maybe twice would be better.

Doug: Wow!

Joe: I'm going to go guys but thanks for the show it's really interesting, keep up the good work!

Tiff: Thank you for calling, Joe!

Joe: See you!

Jonathan: See you, awesome. Some clear testimonials to the benefits. I know a few of our chatters here have been talking about, is it better to get that initial shock and just jump in or can you ease into it. I think easing into it is ok, whatever you do in terms of healing your body, you want to be gentle to yourself, and you want to withstand the pain and the discomfort of it for the benefits. You also need to take care of yourself; you don't want to shock yourself too crazy right off the bat.

We have another audio clip if we could play this in a minute, it's Dave Asprey who's the bulletproof matt guy, he's talking about how to bio pack the cold bath and how to ease yourself into it, it's what Gaby had mentioned earlier about putting your face into cold water. He talks for a few minutes about how to do that and how to acclimatize your body.
Audio clip:

Dave: You probably heard about people taking ice baths, maybe you seen videos of professional athletes sitting in tubs of ice water thinking it doesn't even affect them. It doesn't, at least not that much other than improving their performance but that's because they're adapted. If you want to get adapted, it's not that easy, if you want to jump in ice water it actually hurts and it can cause a cold shock, it's really uncomfortable, you get inflamed afterwards and it's just not a pleasant feeling. The way to get yourself into ice water, or if you're like me and you're just kind of lazy and you don't really have the time or resources to go out and buy 20lbs of ice every time you want to sit in a tub of ice water, it's expensive and it takes a ton of time.

You can do it, at least some of it, in about 2 or 3 minutes, you can take a pan or dish about the size of your face and you fill it with about that much water and then you put it in your freezer. Then, you add water to it; stir it up, so you have really cold ice water in the thing. Sit it in the counter, take a deep breath, bend forward and stick your face in the cold water. The first time you do this it's going to hurt, you're going to be able to leave you face in there for about 5-10 seconds before you take it out. It's a horrible shock but if you do this every night, after a week, you find you can leave your face in there for at least 20 seconds and you're ok. Then after about a month, you're like I guess I should get a snorkel because I can stay in there for 4 or 5 minutes.

And what's going on there is that the nerves in your face are tied to the rest of your nervous system, particularly to your vagus nerve. Just by getting cold adapted on your face you can do this, it changes you metabolic rate and your sleep quality dramatically. I sleep on a chilly pad which lowers the temperate of my sleeping surface, which dramatically improves sleep on the metrics that I use for my sleep. So does soaking your face in ice water before bed, even if it's just for 30 seconds, this is almost free because you're using the ice that was already in the ice, you're not buying ice, you're not filling the tub. It's not as big as sitting in a tub full of ice water, which is a profoundly amazing practice.

If you like the bulletproof sleep induction matt, you lay on the thing and god it's so sharp and all of a sudden you just melt, the same thing happens when you get in a tub full of ice water, after you have adapted using this face technique. All you need to do is get this part of you inside water and you're on the path.
Jonathan: So that was an interesting technique for easing into it I think.

Tiff: That's the same method that Jack Cruise advocates too, starting with dunking your face and maybe moving to cold showers, then going to the cold baths or lakes or rivers.

Jonathan: One of our chatters says it's a good wakeup call too, first thing in the morning to wake you up.

Gaby: He said before going to bed, there's actually studies, if you sleep in a room which is 16 to 19 degrees Celsius, around 60-68 Fahrenheit, you will sleep much better, it actually enhances sleeping.

Tiff: I like sleeping in cold rooms, with blankets!

Doug: Yeah, with blankets. It's interesting though, the idea how to get yourself into it, to maybe make things a little bit easier, to transition before dumping ice in tubs and getting in there for 20 minutes. The phase method sounds like a good way to adapt to it slowly; I know there are some different opinions on this. One of the articles we were speaking about earlier the, seven reasons to take a cold shower and one that really matters, the guy actually discourages easing into it he says, don't go from a warm to a cold shower, and just get into the cold shower. I think you have to measure things on your own and see where you're at, not just take advice on that, I don't think you can go from 0-60 in no time at all, you do have to ease yourself into it. You'll maybe have a good idea where you yourself are at, what kind of state of health you're in, whether you can take shocks at all. Maybe the phase method is the best way for people to start out.

Gaby: He does have a logical base; it's actually called the scuba diving reflex.

Doug: I think it's just the diving reflex isn't it?

Tiff: A million diving reflex?

Gaby: It's the autonomic nervous system, so if you condition the autonomic nervous system you have more control over it.

Jonathan: I'm curious about going from hot to cold thing; I suppose maybe it makes a difference when you're in water. Where I live we have a really strong Finnish culture, there are a lot of Finnish immigrants from back in the day, as a result everybody has a sauna, it's really popular to take a sauna and then go jump into the cold lake or the snow. Cool off, and then get back in the sauna, and do that repeatedly back and forth. I know more healthy old Finnish people that I do of any other culture.

Tiff: I bet that really helps the circulation going from hot to cold and back again, as you get the blood going through your core and then goes back out to your extremities, then goes back to your core again. I think we have another caller. Hi caller!

Harrison: Hi, Hi everyone, this is Harrison! I just wanted to share a little anecdote about that last topic about going from the hot to the cold. This is a just a little historical tippet; it may mean something or may not. Gurdjieff the guy that we have talked about on the other shows fairly often every once in a while; he was a big fan of the sauna, so when he set up his institute for the harmonious development of man in 1924 or something, In France. So he built a sauna and that's one of the things they did, all the guys would go out every evening or once a week, just from reading one story about that and the way Gurdjieff would do it, he'd bring everyone in and there was 3 chambers.

You'd go from the relatively cool night air into the very hot sauna, then afterwards, the guy that was writing this troy about his experiences with it, he'd immediately want to go and jump into the ice water because that's what a part of it was. Gurdjieff would stop him and say, 'No you can't immediately jump in the ice water', they'd go through the stages where'd they naturally cool off, and only then could they jump into the ice cold water. For some reason, Gurdjieff didn't want people to go from the immediate hot to the cold, maybe it was a psychological test, and maybe there was a physiological reason too. I'll bow out now, thanks guys.

Jonathan: That does make sense, because obviously if you're really hot and you jump into ice water your blood does not instantly go from your organs to your extremities, blood has to move at a somewhat slow pace so maybe that's part of the reason for that is to not shock your system too much, and allow it to move at its own pace.

Gaby: It sounds more like a shock to the system really, than any more conscious awareness of your body and doing it progressively.

Doug: I will say though when I was doing Far Infrared saunas, I could get into the cold showers without much of an issue, but it might not have been the best thing to do, it might have been too much of a shock. Going from a hot state, to a freezing cold state I found easier. You probably shouldn't do that.

Jonathan: It's interesting.

Tiff: Speaking of Gurdjieff, I think somebody mentioned on our forum that maybe Wim Hof is pursuing the way of the Fakir. Gurdjieff said that the way of the Fakir is the way of the struggle with the physical body, the way of work on the first room; this is a long difficult and uncertain way. The Fakir strives to develop physical will, power over the body; this is attained by a means of terrible suffering and torturing the body. The whole way of the Fakir consists of various, incredible difficult exercises.

Gaby: So, I don't think we should.

Tiff: Balances on point and all things.

Jonathan: Just to be clear, Fakir is F A K I R. Not faker as in falsifier. I always thought it was Fakir (pronounced differently) that's me being pretentious about my pronunciation.

Doug: Yeah I did.

Tiff: There are important aspects to work on, not just the physical.

Jonathan: That balance is very important; the other ways were the Monk, Yogi...

Doug: So, the Fakir was the master over the physical body, the Monk was emotions and the Yogi was the mind.

Jonathan: ...so then the allegedly best way, what they refer to Gurdjieff fourth way as a kind of balance between all those things.

Doug: I guess the Fakir would do things like sleep on beds of nails, contorted themselves into very difficult poses, stand with their arms over their heads for months at a time just to completely get the body subservient to the will, I guess.

Erica: Walk on hot coals.

Gaby: It's really like tatter says, the cold is gentler than the nails. {Laughter}

Jonathan: So if we're to combine some of the stuff that we've been talking about recently with Iodine, and then water, and then cold therapy... that makes me think that maybe a good way to do this. Gaby was it you who mentioned that if your thyroid is low, you want to be careful about cold therapy because you can't warm back up. So if you're doing the Iodine therapy that may help with that.

Gaby: That's another thing; I had hyperthyroidism, that's when I stopped doing cold showers. Since I've been doing Iodine I just naturally craved cold showers again and I did it naturally, it wasn't like a day I said, "today I must do a cold shower, or else!" I was just like; I really want a cold shower today.

Doug: Cool. I haven't reached that stage with the Iodine yet. {Laughter}

Erica: I'm still at the stage of the Iodine where I ask my body does it even want it today. {Laughter}

Jonathan: So then with our study on water and we're talking about EZ, exclusions on and the idea that contains information or more readily available information. So, would it be more beneficial to set up your ice bath and speak loving, tender phrases to the bath before you get in?

Gaby: Do it with breathing and meditation, there!

Tiff: Call it a hot tub?

Jonathan: That's the health and wellness method.

Doug: Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan: Alright well I think we're at a good time to go to Zoya's segment if you guys are down. So let's hear what Zoya has today with the Pet Health segment, and then when we come back we'll wrap and we have a recipe today for bacon chicken. I've done one like that on a pass show, but this one is slightly different. Here's Zoya with the Pet Health segment.

Zoya: Hello and welcome to the Pet Health segment of the Health and Wellness show, my name is Zoya. Today I'm going to talk to you today about canine behaviour and why there are so many people who are being bitten by dogs each year, and what you can do to protect yourself, and your children.

The thing is, when a dog bite incident occurs, many people think immediately that animal's behaviour or temperament has something to do that, rather than some sort of precipitating event. However there is almost always a precipitating event, whether or not the people who are involved are able to connect the dots. Animal behaviour experts often say observing how people behave around dogs can be really scary, from hugging and picking up dogs, to sticking their faces right by another dog's face. Or even bending over a dog, there are plenty of really scary moments. As it turns out, these particular behaviours mentioned over and over in the retelling of dog bite stories. Even if it isn't about placing blame, it is about helping people to learn how to lower the risk of being bitten.

A study was conducted when researchers sent out to discover what human behaviours immediately preceded dog bites to the face, they also wanted to gather data on the age and gender of bite victims, their sex and size of biting dogs, the location on the face they were beaten and the need for medical treatment.

The researchers analyzed 132 incidents of dog bites to the face, they reported these findings: in 76% of cases, the human was bending over the dog prior to being bitten. Over 75% of the bite victims knew the dog; however none of the victims was an adult dog owner. In 19% of cases the person has put his or her face close to the dogs face, 60% of the bite victims were female. In 5% of cases, the human and dog were gazing at each other, only adult dogs bit the face and only 2/3rds were male dogs. Over 50% of the bites were to the central area of the face, around nose and lips. Only in 6% of cases was the dog observed to growl or show teeth as a warning before biting.

Over 2/3rds of the bite victims were children, and 84% were under age 12. The age and gender of the human didn't detect the location of the bite on the face. 43% of the child dog bite victims were with their parents, and 62% were with the dogs' guardian. Bites by large dogs were more often medically treatment than bites by small dogs.

So the researchers concluded that risk factors such as bending over the dog, putting the face close to the dogs face, and gazing between human and dog should be avoided. Children should be carefully and constantly supervised in the presence of dogs. This warning is relevant regarding all breeds, and not only breeds that have a bad reputation. But what about the precipitating event, notice that only 6% mentioned some sort of warning from the dog. Does it mean that in other cases there was no warning? Actually there is always a warning, it's just that some people don't notice or fail to remember the warning. There are almost always signs before dog bites, some dogs will suddenly freeze in place and hold their body, others will stand with front legs splayed and head low, gazing at you. In many dogs, a deep growl or curl and show their teeth.

So, what can you do when you're in a situation when you feel threatened by a dog? In such case, you should stand motionless, with your hands at your sides. Avoid eye contact with the dog, if the dog loses interest, back away slowly, if the dog comes at you anyway, offer him anything you're holding, a purse or jacket for example or anything that may distract him. If you wind up on the ground, curl into a ball, put your hands over your ears and stay still. Resist the urge to yell, scream or move around.

Well, that works for emergency situations, but what could you do to minimize or avoid this threat of being bitten? Here are some tips. Make sure your puppy is well socialized and trained to obey basic commands. Proper socialisation is the single most important thing dog owners can do to reduce the risk of winding up with a pet with behaviour problems. Make sure your dog gets plenty of exercise; you can combine it with play time, but avoid games that make your dog too aggressive. Never put your dog in a situation where he feels teased or threatened, always use a leash or similar restraint when you're out in public with your pet, you must be able to control him in public it's time for additional obedience training. Take responsibility for your dogs' behaviour; take proactive care of your pet's health. Feed species appropriate nutrition, make sure they are well exercised, brush their teeth, bathe and groom them regularly. Make sure that you take them at least 2 annual wellness visits to your veterinary.

A point that's worth mentioning is proceeding with extreme caution when it comes to vaccinating your pet. Apparently there is evidence mounting that vaccines, in particular the rabies vaccine, contributes to problems of aggression in some dogs. Since rabies vaccines are required by law, insist on the 3 year vaccine and avoid the 1 year shot. Dr. Karen Becker also recommends taking homeopathic rabies vaccine detox, after each rabies vaccine. Also discuss with your vet the best time to sterilize your dog, beyond reproductive concerns, in kept pets are sometimes more aggressive than animals who have been nurtured. Timing of this procedure is critical and should be decided based on each dog's health status and personality.

Last but most importantly, teach children, yours and any others who come across your dog, how to behave with an animal. Children are by far the most frequent victims of dog bites; they must learn to be both cautious and respectful in the presence of any dog, including their own. Never under any circumstances, leave a baby or small child alone with a dog. Just yesterday I read an article about the fatal dog attack on a 6 day old baby, and it wasn't by the usual suspect breeds like the Pit bull terrier. The breed in this attack was an Alaskan malamute, which was rescued a few weeks before by the baby's father after being told the previous owner was going to have it destroyed.

Malamutes are similar to Husky's, they're very beautiful and normally sweet natured and loyal. We should never forget that they're really powerful; they're actually one of the closest breeds to Wolves. They need constant exercising, owners need to take them for long walks twice daily, and there are even running and sledging clubs for Malamutes so they can burn their accumulated energy. If such considerations are not being taken into account, sometimes horrible tragedies can occur. So, be aware, take responsibility, and never forget your companions' ancestry, with some breeds like retrievers or collies, some breed like this has a lesser chance of it occurring. All dogs have basic instincts, and better to treat them with respect.

Well, this is it for today; I hope this segment was interesting. Have a great weekend, and goodbye!

Jonathan: Awesome. Thank you Zoya, that was really great! That was definitely something that people forget about when they encounter dogs. Not all dogs are aggressive, but there is always sort of that, danger zone possibility when something might happen, especially if you approach them in a way that they interpret as an aggressive, so just exercise caution. It's good to keep that in mind. I know for myself, unless the dog is clearly like, 'get the hell away from me', I usually just put my hand out and calmly hold it there and allow them to smell my hand then maybe proceed, but if they don't I just leave them alone.

Doug: I think it's best to assume that the dog is overly friendly until they've proven otherwise, just to be on the safe side.

Jonathan: Let's see, for today's recipe this is called Bacon Chicken. I know I've done a recipe similar to this in the past but this one is slightly different. So, your ingredients you want, 1 half of a head of cabbage, give or take 4 cups of diced cabbage so you'll dice it up on the cutting board. 1 lemon, 6 garlic cloves, 1 yellow onion, a whole chicken give or take 3/4 pounds, take the gizzards out depending on how your chicken comes.
Often times, the chicken will come with the gizzards in a plastic bag, I did actually once cook a chicken with the plastic bag inside. 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper, one sprig of Rosemary, and 10 strips of thick cut, good quality bacon cut in 1/2.
So, you dice up the cabbage, 1/2 the lemon and the garlic cloves and quarter the onion, you don't necessarily need to peel the onion, set them aside. Pat the outside of the chicken dry with a towel, get the skin dry, sprinkle the salt and black pepper inside the chicken cavity, rub the seasoning gently into the outside as well. Then you want to stuff the cavity of the chicken with the lemon, onion, garlic and rosemary, get it all in there, then take the bacon slices and weave them in a basket weave over the top of the chicken. If you have patted the skin drive, the bacon should stick to the chicken stick to keep it in place. The weaving isn't really necessary but it looks cool when it comes out the oven, you can choose to not do that.

Then, spread the sliced cabbage evenly across the bottom of an oven proof pan or baking dish, cast iron works really well for this. Then, set the chicken with the bacon and everything right on top of the cabbage, roast for 250 degrees Fahrenheit, anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how large your chicken is. Make sure you check that it's cooked through, usually 350 for about an hour and a half does it for me, about halfway through the process check to make sure that the cabbage is not burnt, and you can stir it around the edges if it is.

The fat from the bacon and chicken itself will drain down onto the cabbage, when you serve it you can slice up the chicken and serve the cabbage on the side and it's really delicious. You can also take the bacon of the top of the chicken before you slice it up and mix it with the cabbage; it mixes nice like a fatty mixture. That's Bacon Chicken!

Doug: Wow, sounds awesome!

Jonathan: It's not that hard, a friend of mine had an experience a while back whilst they were at the grocery store and the person behind them in line said, what do you do with that?

Doug: So mysterious, what do you do with that thing?!

Jonathan: I thought those were for restaurants.

Doug: Well they're used to their meals coming in a cardboard box already partitioned out. What do you do with that thing?

Tiff: If it's not a nugget shape they don't know what it is. {Laughter}

Jonathan: We do quite a lot of roasted chicken here, it's really simple because basically you prep it and throw it in the oven, an hour and half later it's done and you're good to go.

Gaby: Bacon is good on anything!

Jonathan: True. Alright well that's our show for today, thanks everybody for listening in, thank you very much to our callers for calling in and adding your testimonials about cold adaptation. Thanks to our chat participants on SOTT radio, we really appreciate the work that SOTT has put into to setting up this new service, the audio quality is much better and it's just better overall, so we're really happy with that. Thank you guys, and be sure to tune into the other 2 shows on the SOTT radio network, the Truth Perspective tomorrow which is at 2pm Eastern time still. Then the Behind the Headlines on Sunday at noon, Eastern Time.

Tiff: That'll be at 1pm.

Jonathan: Yeah, you're right, because of the change of times.

Gaby: Strange couple of weeks!

Jonathan: Yeah, we have till the end of March when the European time change happens and we all sink back up again, little changes until then, then we'll all be back on the same schedule. Alright, well thanks again everybody, have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next Friday!

Everyone: Bye!!