Shortly after this newer season of exploration finished, something strange began to happen, and I noticed that I was finding myself very tired and in a rut. For around two weeks, I did not find the motivation to do anything whatsoever. Every idea or plan simply felt boring and I did feel like doing anything at all. This was so frustrating because I wanted to have the craving of doing something but nothing worked. Around the same time, easter vacations came and I felt like this was the perfect time to step away for a couple of weeks from making music and just focus on working through this rut. At first, I had no idea of why this was even happening and this made me very confused but I didn’t want to pressure myself too much about solving this problem. At the same time, the deadlines for my final projects were coming up and I still had to do more than half of the work, and I still had no idea what I wanted to do. I had a couple of ideas but none of them excited me enough to want to present it as my final project; this was something I was very aware of, but I wanted to stick to my new philosophy of not living in the future and focusing on the present. And so I did, I decided to take a break from making music because I that this rut was because I thought overworked myself during the exploration stage, to be honest, to this day I am still unsure of why I had this rut. Anyhow, very few days went by, and I found something that would completely change, and I dare to say, my life.
I saw a couple of videos from Wim Hof and it astonished me the number of feats that he had done. One of his many feats was that he ascended mount Kilimanjaro with 18 amateur trekkers in a record time of 31 hours and 25 minutes with only their hiking boots, a pair of shorts, and a backpack! His goal was to demonstrate that people without any training could tackle Mount Kilimanjaro in less than 36 hours with his breathing technique (Wim HOf Method). I could make a very long list of the Guinness world records he has broken but that’s not what I want to focus on. What I want to focus on is breathing. You see, Wim Hof has developed the skill to have control over his body and his mind through conscious breathing. There are several breathing techniques that allow us to consciously gain control of our bodies on so many deep levels. Until 2011, scientist thought it was impossible to consciously control our autonomic nervous system; According to Joshua A. Waxenbaum from the NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, the autonomous nervous system is the system in our bodies responsible for involuntary physiologic processes such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, and sexual arousal. In 2011, studies were made by the Radboud University Medical Centre, because Wim Hof claimed he could consciously influence his autonomic nervous system. According to a very detailed article by these scientists, the studies on Wim Hof went like this: “His inflammatory response was measured during an 80-minute full-body ice immersion and practicing the Wim Hof Method concentration technique. In addition, an endotoxemia experiment was conducted to study Wim’s in vivo innate immune response. The results showed how the techniques of the Wim Hof Method seemed to evoke a controlled stress response. This response is characterized by sympathetic nervous system activation, which seems to attenuate the innate immune system. Here, Wim Hof proved he was able to influence his autonomic nervous system.”
-Authors: M. Kox, M. Hopman, P. Pickkers. et al. - Radboud University Medical Center Summary.
Later in 2014, another study was made in the same university, this time according to an article posted on PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America): “A group of twelve people was trained with the Wim Hof Method before undergoing an experiment to induce inflammation, normally resulting in flu-like symptoms. Compared to a control group who were not trained in the Wim Hof Method, the trained participants showed fewer flu-like symptoms, lower levels of proinflammatory mediators, and increased plasma epinephrine levels. In conclusion, the trained group was able to voluntarily activate their sympathetic nervous system”.
The reason why I became so interested in this topic is that for me, it makes me very upset to see so many people dealing with so many psychological problems. I am aware that many of these problems are difficult to solve, mainly because we think they are not physical tangible things that can be treated with modern medicine like a headache, most of them are psychological problems that need a different type of medicine that aren’t pills. Many of these psychological problems end up ruining people’s lives and oftentimes these problems develop into political, environmental, and social conflicts. Most of these problems (if not all) develop from unhealthy mental health, mainly caused by chronic stress. So now let me explain how this relates to the breathing exercises; According to Yale Medicine, chronic stress can be caused by a number of reasons mainly, it is caused by trauma, dysfunctional family or marriage, and/or ongoing constant stress due to a deeply unsatisfying job. An article posted by NCBI (National Centre of Biotechnology Information) explained that long term or chronic stress “Practically affects all organs and tissues”, this is because when we are stressed our bodies have an automatic response (also known as the fight or flight response) to breath faster when we are under stress. Rapid breathing and shortness of breath cause our airway between our nose and lungs to constrict causing a lack of oxygen, creating imbalances in our entire body which directly affects our blood.
Breathing exercises such as the Wim Hof Method balance the level of ph in our body. In simpler terms, stress causes acidity in our bodies creating a disbalance in the ph of our blood which negatively affects our entire bodies. With these breathing exercises, we can learn how to consciously gain control of our bodies creating an intimate relationship between mind and body that will help us with physical and mental problems. In the simplest terms, we learn how to control our chemistry, because that’s what we are, we are an immensely complex mix of chemicals.
I genuinely believe that this can alter the course of humanity in an immensely positive direction.
I have always liked to spread good energy, and because of that, I make music that I consider it to be “Happy Music” because I want to provide value, and good energy through my music so that I can help people by making them happy because I know that so many people aren’t. Because of that, I feel like I have found a personal mission to help humankind by spreading more awareness about the power of breathing with the goal of becoming our own source of happiness.
