There’s three primary components to Wim Hof Breathwork: the Power Breathing phase, the Retention phase, and the Recovery phase. 

Power Breathing Phase

The Power Breathing phase begins with a period of 30 to 40 deep, controlled, inhalations and exhalations. During this time, what you’re doing is expelling carbon dioxide (CO2) from your body and bringing more oxygen into your blood cells. As you continue to breathe, you slowly begin to max out your blood oxygen saturation level, which is a measurement of how much oxygen is in your blood.

Now, what’s cool is that as you’re pushing CO2 out, you’re actually increasing your body’s PH level and making your body more alkaline and less acidic.

The PH scale is basically a balance between how acidic versus alkaline you are. For the average individual, that number usually sits right around 7.38 to 7.4. However studies have shown that when implementing this breathing technique, patients have been able to increase that PH level up to 7.8 or higher! It may not seem like a lot, but that’s a pretty substantial change.

When your PH levels increase in your body, your blood oxygen saturation level increases, and your carbon dioxide levels decrease.

Retention Phase

Once you exhale your 40th breath you begin the Retention phase, which is where you will hold your breath for as long as possible until you get the natural urge to breathe (Remember, to hold your breath after the exhale, not the inhale).

Now what you’ll find is that you’re going to be able to hold your breath for MUCH longer than you normally would. This is because we get the urge to breathe due to a buildup of carbon dioxide in our body. And since we’ve just expelled so much of that CO2 through that period of deep breathing, it takes much longer for it to build back up and create the feeling of needing to breathe.

Now, you want to be careful.

This isn’t a competition. The goal is not to hold your breath until you feel you’re about to pass out. You hold it until your body starts slightly contracting, and it begins to feel slightly uncomfortable to continue holding. As soon as you can hold no more, you will enter the final phase.

Recovery Phase

This one’s pretty simple. Once you get that urge to breathe, you will take a deep inhalation and hold your breath for 15 seconds. You’ve just reached the Recovery phase. As soon as those 15 seconds are up, you exhale and you immediately repeat that cycle. Typically you will want to do between 3-4 cycles, each lasting about 4-5 mins long, to derive the maximum benefits.

Okay, now this is where it gets super cool, but a little nerdy.

As you continue to hold your breath and CO2 levels increase, that oxygen you had built up previously is slowly pulled out of your blood and into your tissues. When this happens, your blood oxygen saturation levels start to sharply decrease.

What’s crazy is that while blood oxygen saturation levels typically sit between 95-99%, during this time these levels can drop down to 50% or less! You might not think much of this until you learn that those low blood oxygen saturation levels typically mean someone is on the verge of dying or has already died. 

Now don’t freak out! Because this is happening in a very controlled and safe way, it actually induces something called Hypoxia-Inducible Factor in the body. This is what’s called a “hormetic stressor”, an intentional stressor that actually elicits all sorts of beneficial responses in your body (think of lifting weights as another form of hormetic stress).

Hypoxia-Inducible Factor activates a number of different gene pathways that influence the immune system and are very, very healthy for the body.

In fact, in 2019, three scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize specifically for discovering this hormetic stressor and demonstrating the benefits that it can have for our health. 

For example, when you’re in this Hypoxia-Inducible Factor state, it activates a kind of survival mode inside of the body where your adrenaline increases, your immune system is boosted, and old toxins are cleaned out & removed. 

All of these incredible physiological benefits are derived once you enter the state, and as soon as you take that deep inhalation in, oxygen levels are restored, your body returns to baseline, and you can then continue to the next round. 

I can say that after my fourth round of Wim Hof, my whole body is buzzing, and I get a warm sense of peace and euphoria unlike anything else. My thoughts are clear, and I feel totally centered and grounded. It’s been an incredible practice for eliminating stress & anxiety in my day to day life, and something I always do prior to any music festival I attend.