Several years ago, I practiced cold showers with a high degree of success. I felt firsthand what it was like to have otherwise freezing cold water feel warm after a matter of seconds, and it became no issue to simply jump right in after a while.
As expected with an onslaught of life changes, I fell out of practice. As the years progressed and I matured, it finally dawned on me that there's a limit in terms of how much one can use life changes as a justifiable excuse. Eventually time will need to be made towards the things you mentally convince yourself you "want" to do, despite being clouded by circumstantial distractions.
There was a lengthy stretch of time where I was practicing the Wim Hof method with a solid degree of consistency, and I experienced the benefits of mental clarity, along with what I wanted most of all: fatigue mitigation.
Unlike before, where I had an abundance of time to put forth towards this practice, I find myself working full time and with added responsibilities that simply didn't exist when I was in college. In many ways though, I feel fortunate to have applied practices like the Wim Hof method when I was comparably more naïve, as I have rather clear memories of how I used to feel and know full well I can reach an equal if not greater level of tolerance going forward.
The question then becomes, how do I work it into my daily schedule? The Wim Hof method applies a breathing practice that involves the following key elements:
The method can be done either seated or lying down, and the means by which to fit it into my schedule would be to do it right when I wake up. History has shown me that harnessing motivation is a difficult endeavor right when one wakes up, so rather than adhering to an all-or-nothing mentality where I need to do the practice perfectly, I'll do at the minimum one deep breath, followed by the exhalation, breath hold and recovery breath.
I've personally experienced success using this "scaled down" version of the Wim Hof method in the past, and have found that I'm able to do more power breaths as I gradually re-introduce my body to this practice. This might prove to be a fun, interactive self-experiment as I blog my progress, and encourage others to do the same if you feel as though you need to put in some work to feel better mentally and physically.
