How to increase your resilience in 2 minutes a day (Wim Hof Method)

Apart from changing your mindset on it, there’s another highly counterintuitive and effective way to master stress: exposing yourself to it briefly and deliberately each day.

What to do

Spend 2 minutes each morning on deliberately triggering your stress response.

Why it works

By stressing yourself out on purpose, you can increase what scientists call the "stress threshold". That’s the level at which your stress system gets triggered. By exposing yourself to stress briefly, deliberately and regularly, you’ll raise the bar at which your stress system goes into overdrive.

The two most effective practices for pulling this off were popularized by Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof (pictured above). In 1995, at the age of 35, Hof lost his wife to suicide – and was left to raise their four children on his own. This traumatic event led him to search for ways to cope with grief and stress. 

Over the subsequent years, Hof experimented with many different practices. The most notable ones are a particular way of breathing and deliberate cold exposure (both are part of his “Wim Hof Method”). As plenty of high-quality research has shown, these offer highly effective ways to increase your resilience.

How to do it

The first practice involves a breathing pattern known as cyclic hyperventilation. It quickly activates your stress system – and trains you to remain calmer when real-life stressors hit. Here’s how to do it. First, inhale deeply through the nose, then exhale by letting the air "fall out from the mouth". Second, do 30 breaths (in and out) this way. Third, exhale fully through the mouth, and wait with your lungs empty for 15 seconds. Once you've completed that cycle, go for two more (for a total of three). According to groundbreaking research, cyclic hyperventilation is even more effective for dealing with stress than meditation. However, never practice it when driving or when in water – there’s a very low risk of passing out when doing it.

The second practice is deliberate cold exposure. Like cyclic hyperventilation, it was popularized by Hof, which is why he is also known as "The Iceman". Forcing yourself to embrace the stress of cold reliably increases your resilience. Here’s how to do it when taking a shower (while avoiding cold shock). First, start warm and turn the water to cold at the end of your shower. Second, go for a temperature that evokes this thought: "This is really cold, and I want to get out, but I can safely stay in". Third, begin with 30 seconds of cold – and work your way up to 2 minutes over time.

Apart from increasing your resilience, both practices have the extra benefit of waking you up. That’s why you want to do them in the morning, or whenever you’re less alert than you’d like. In any case, avoid both practices in the last three hours before bed to not compromise your sleep.

In short, cultivate spending 2 minutes each morning on cyclic hyperventilation or cold exposure. It won’t feel great, but that’s the point. The goal here, after all, is to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And if you can think of one person who could benefit from increasing their resilience, please share this post with them.

Until next week,
Christian