Mike Posner: "Wim Hof breathing is like a cheat code"

My name is Mike Posner.

Today we are at the Wim Hof training facility.

Give it all you’ve got.

Good morning!

Give me twenty!

No!

I’ll give you hundred.

Without breathing...

The first time I heard of Wim Hof...

was when he was featured on the Tim Ferriss podcast.

Fast forward, maybe five years later,

a friend of mine, Lewis Howes, invited me on a retreat to Poland,

to train with Wim himself.

And I thought “I better show up to that pretty special invitation.”

I’m from Michigan. It gets cold there.

We swim a lot in lakes there, we have some big lakes.

And when I was younger,

I just noticed that I always felt good after I came out of that water

and so just on my own, I started to take cold showers

because I just felt good after. I felt alive.

I'm not a coffee drinker, but I always say that that’s my ‘coffee’.

Of course, but then when we practiced with Wim,

the water was much colder and we were in there much longer.

And I felt...

high from it.

Easy money!

Yes!

It was really a life changing experience.

Learning from him was so powerful

and I took their practices with me.

I certainly know what it's like,

to just feel uninspired and to not really...

be excited to get up in the morning and this kind of feeling.

And when I'm in those seasons of my life

and my meditation mantra feels like sand in my mouth

and nothing's working...

The cold and the breath. They seem to penetrate.

when other things don't.

Fully in. Belly, cheast, head...

The first time I did the Wim Hof breathwork seriously with Wim and these guys

in a workshop environment...

The way I felt and the way I do feel,

We did the breathing today and I felt it again,

It's damn powerful.

It's damn powerful.

Fully in.

Let it go.

It felt like I was putting a cheat code into my body or something,

we would play these old video games,

when I was a kid on a Nintendo 64...

And If you’d hit certain buttons in a certain order it give you some special power.

This is kind of what it felt like.

It's like if you breathe in a certain way, you know, three times, and then like...

BANG! You get this special power.

And...

It’s like...

Well how did I not know about that?

I’ve been in this meat sack for 33 years now,

and so it's pretty surreal.

His zeal...

It's not even a belief, it's a knowing,

and his enthusiasm is infectious.

With the limited time I spent with him...

I've seen his enthusiasm...

supersede people's own beliefs about what they can do,

what their limits are,

His knowing in what people can do,

transfers over to them.

People that are just terrified of cold water and cold in general...

their hands always get cold.

And I watch them sit in the ice bath for ten minutes.

And they're fine.

Staying at Wim’s Place is fun.

and because I met with him before,

I know that we just go with the flow I’m not going to get a schedule

or itinerary, or anything like that.

Crazy...

Cannonball exercise.

Yeah

Ass jump.

There is a whole host of characters that come here every day,

and all beautiful people.

I recommend to people all the time.

Just because it feels so good.

And it's a way of reclaiming your sovereignty,

especially if you're someone who thinks “I could never do that.”

This water is looking a little...

Murky.

That’s from our feet.

Through the garden we accumulate

the Earth soil...

and it’s getting in there.

When it comes to the cold a lot of people have this kind of aversion to it,

then the opportunity is even greater for you.

Not only will you feel how it feels, which is really fricking good

after you get out of ice baths, you know you feel a real...

kind of body high for many hours after.

But also you have the added benefit of...

breaking through this self-imposed limit.

This story which is...

“I'm not one of those people” or “I could never do that”

I believe is just a thought we think repeatedly over time.

Breaking through of that belief is powerful.

It builds momentum

and you start to get better at doing hard things by doing hard things.

And this is a power that you take to other parts of your life.

When I met Wim, I was training to climb Mount Everest,

which is the tallest mountain in the world.

And the higher you go it get’s pretty cold up there,

the more you expose the body to cold it acclimate.

I was living in the mountains

and training,

and I lived right by this icy river.

And so after I'd learned the

cold immersion from Wim, I would just get in that river

and take really cold showers and all of a sudden,

zero degrees Celsius is actually pretty warm temperature to me.

After doing this for months and months.

Acclimatizing

Wim Hof

at 19.000 feet

When I was on Everest I was a lot more comfortable.

Obviously, when you get up on the mountain,

it gets to negative 15, negative 20.

While I'm still in all the gear.

It's important to be safe.

But I know that it felt warmer to me,

than it would have if I didn't do that cold immersion work.

It’s pretty high...

Do you feel good though?

I’m out of breath for sure...

Mount Everest is really high,

and the higher you go, the less oxygen there is,

you need to take three to five breaths to get what you would from one breath.

And it's really intense.

This won’t be here...

In a week...

I used the breath work to help myself acclimatize,

because my body was lacking oxygen just by being alive there.

thanks to those practices.

Also my team, I gotta shout them out...

Dr. Jon Kedrowski, Dawa Dorje Sherpa and Dawa Chirring Sherpa

I was able to summit Mount Everest.

Get up there Mike!

Touch the top of the world baby.

Touch the top of the world!

This took everything.

It was a nice sunrise up there.

And more importantly,

we got down safely with no injuries, all our fingers and toes and...

Here enjoying life now.

It’s not very high but it’s still scary.

To me at least.

Not to Wim...

That’ll do it.

Powerful look at this.

You let it happen.

It's been a real blessing

to spend time with women, both in practice and conversation.

There's no, like other Wim Hof is only one of these guys

is a gift to the world, you know, and all these things that he teaches

you figure it out on his own, you know, a lot of it.

Of course, he's

had many inspirations and influences, but I guess what I'm trying to say,

this is just a real, real blessing, real privilege to be here and learn.