It might have been the first time Wim Hof ever wore anything resembling an insulated wetsuit. The Dutchman famous for swimming underneath ice for over 200 feet wearing only shorts was being loaded into a functional MRI machine outfitted in a special suit shot through with cold and hot water in five-minute intervals. The scientists from Michigan’s Wayne State University were scanning his brain for the effects of Hof’s trademark breathing technique on priming the body for cold exposure — certainly a new spin on proof of concept.
The results showed how Hof can hack his physiology to feel ecstatic when his body should have been feeling the shock of mild hypothermia. Hof called it mind over gray matter, though the researchers were more precise, finding it had to do with inhibiting brain signals and releasing the body’s natural painkillers: Brain over body.
READ MORE: The Man, the Myth, and the Method: Wim Hof Is Changing the World! (strixus.com)