Wim Hof Method

[Raina]

Hey, just wondering if anyone has tried this method and how it affected their PTSD??

Im considering trying it.

Thanks!

Raina

 

[Kubash16]

I had to look it up real quick because I’d never heard of it lol.

For grounding? It looks like a good option for some. I’m not sure on the ice stuff but I can see where it would bring you out of dissociation. The breathing is the key part though.

For PTSD overall? I wouldn’t do only this. Great for grounding but there is so much more to PTSD you’ll need to work on.

 

[hithere]

I think the cost is silly personally. I do find cold exposure interesting, because I have naturally been doing that since I was 18 to help me cope and it's effective. Increased oxygen is always helpful-and breathing correctly from the diaphram is something I had to learn, voice lessons helped with that. intense exercise helps with that. Already started meditating since I was a teen and in high performance competitive sports-- all of that can be learned without paying someone -- in my opinion anyway. But the stupid ptsd crapola I have to put up with and tolerate is not really touched by these things--they are just ways to cope. For me positivity and affirmations are more helpful tools to coping and keeping me functional. If you do pay for these sessions, please let us know how it goes and if it's effective for you.

 

[Raina]

Yeah, I don't have the money to pay for it that's cha-ching, I've been looking at the free stuff and the app. Its weird because the breathing almost feels like a panic attack, so not sure to continue. The cold showers seem to be helping when im brave enough to do it. Ill try it for a week maybe n see if it sends me more round the bend or helps me out of it!

Thanks guys!

 

[Sandstone]

the breathing almost feels like a panic attack,

I've not met this specific method, but I have found that with the standard breathing recommended. It took months of experimentation before I found a slow breathing pattern that works for me without hyperventilating. I had to slow the whole process, and increase the gap after breathing out. It is worth persisting to find something that works.

 

[shimmerz]

I think he is good and know of/about him. Breathing with PTSD is a big deal. So big that I couldn't breathe properly without throwing myself into flashbacks for almost a decade. Breathing is very powerful. Go slow and find your 'neutral' breathing pattern and work with it while building your PTSD tools.

I would be careful not to incorporate everything Wm Hof says/does too quickly. Go slow with your breathing.

 

[hithere]

the breathing almost feels like a panic attack, so not sure to continue.

In 3 of my cbt sessions i did breathing to hyperventilate to mimic a panic attack, then be curious about what Im feeling and what is happening. For me it kicked up specifics of traumatic event... I think it helped though for my brain to learn it can tolerate panic states and that fighting them or fearing them makes the experience worse, and just sitting through and experiencing it makes them pass through more easily and not happen then as frequently--it's weird the brain got somewhat rewired by doing that. I only the did "homework" of doing that on my own a few times. In the workbook on Panic the author describes the exercises much better. They helped me. No question about that.

 

[shimmerz]

Did you try it @Raina?

 

[Gwaihir]

The breathing is the point.

The breathing is how you would breathe if your body hit a body of ice water. It´s an automatic reaction of the nervous system - a healthy one. It is very much unlike hyperventilation, in that when you hyperventilate you are not breathing in much air at all, but when your body hits the ice, WHAM - your lungs suck in all the air that they can, and then this goes to your brain.

PTSD is very much neurological and connected to our nervous system. And the WHM is one way of starting to reroute the pathways in the brain and to rewire the nervous system. The whole point is to become grounded - which is fantastic for PTSD sufferers, who tend to operate in their head (just an observation in general, not universal truth). When you feel that connection with the earth, when you start to feel your body for real instead of the fleeing of fight/flight, then you can slowly get to know the person you really are again.

I wholeheartedly recommend this method. Am I doing it? Yes. Including the ice water bathing. Am I cured? Well yes, but I´ve worked hard on it and also did several other things that were very challenging, precisely because I needed my brain to get out of that particular corner it was operating in, and INTO my body.