Mastering Cold Showers with @JordanBPeterson | The Wim Hof Podcast

If you're in pain

and I give you a lobotomy

this was done decades ago for pain control

I cut the connections between the pre-frontal cortex and the periaquedcutal grey let's say

You still feel the pain but it doesn't matter anymore.

The emotional significance of the pain is gone

and so, you feel much better as a consequence.

Now, I'm not recommending lobotomies for pain

although modified leucotomies are still sometimes used for intractable pain

Now, imagine that...

maybe

you're in pain, so you have your hands in the cold

or you're in a cold shower, or you're in a lake

and instead of running away from the pain and distracting yourself

you start to focus

and pay really close attention to all the sensations that you're feeling

even though they're aversive.

Like, you're paying extremely close attention.

So, I wonder if that is what's producing the connection between the pre-frontal cortex and the periaqueductal grey.

Pre-frontal cortex is opening the gates and exploring all the sensations

and learning to...

that it can do that, and learning that perhaps in principle also to master it.

So, maybe when I'm in the shower and I do the 30 seconds cold exposure

I should do everything I can to concentrate

It's weird cuz I can feel myself fleeing from it in the shower, you know

it's like "God, when is this gonna be over?"

I don't want to feel the sensations of the cold water on the front of my body

I don't want to move it on to my back

It's like...

but I guess what I should be doing is

turning around and facing the dragon

in as much detail as possible.

I didn't know that was possible with pain.

I know it's possible with anxiety, that's clear.

The literature is clear on that.

So, pain, yes...

Pain is very primordial

and anxiety.

These breathing exercises, they help very good against anxiety.