Here’s something for improving everyone’s well-being, mental and physical:
The Wim Hof breathing method, scientifically verified and endorsed by everyone who’s taken it to habit. Helps to reduce stress, improve the body’s healing down to the cellular level, correcting pH levels (and much more).
My personal experience after one month of doing this about twice daily, three rounds: if I’m down, anxious, stressed, in pain, asthmatic, etc, three rounds of Hof will return me to the moment and I’ll feel much better. It has gotten to the point of being comparable to strong meditation (which it IS), with much less time spent of course compared to traditionally meditating. It is certainly psychoactiv(ating)e to the point I spend moments in actual bliss after exhaling. Oxygen, what a drug! Ok, ok…
Here’s how it’s done:
To make a point relating to music, it absolutely gives a very strong connection to music, even a synaesthetic one.
I’ve been practicing Wim Hof’s breathing and cold water submersion for a while now. Very beneficial, both mentally and physically. I absolutely dreaded taking cold showers in the beginning, but slowly I began to really enjoy them. Completely changes your mind set, and brings you into the here and now.
If you want extra oomph to your Hof method, try this (might not work for everyone, and I can’t guarantee it’s healthy but works for me):
In between the rounds, take three or four VERY full, slow lungfuls with full exhales, as in push all the air out, then breathe fully in and hold for 5 to 10 seconds. (Don’t stand up when doing this either, I once nearly broke my jaw.)
This in conjunction with the Hof method gives me a short period of sometimes extremely strong synaesthesia and essentially, let’s be honest, trips me out. It’s somewhat akin to nitrous, but shorter lasting. For me it works even without the Hof, I discovered this when I first tried an asthma pipe. Never heard of people reporting dissociative synaesthesia from asthma pipes, so dunno, could be that there’s a quirk in my nervous system. From what I’ve gathered it could be something to do with beta-2 receptor agonism, seeing that salbutamol potentiates this effect a lot, or, it could just be the oxygen.
I feel I have nearly a responsibility to “market” this method because it’s not BS, it’s totally verified and I’m being sincere, from all evidence it seems that this is one the easiest, least time consuming methods to improve your_overall_ health significantly.
When I first started I couldn’t stand the cold water for more than a 20 seconds. Had to build up to longer times. Doing the breathing technique before and during definitely helps.
One thing that kept me going through, was how great I felt afterwards.
