Freeze The Fear With Wom Hof | Interview with Wim Hof aka ‘The Iceman’

Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof got his nickname ‘The Iceman’ by breaking a number of records related to cold exposure including: climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, running a half marathon above the Arctic Circle barefoot, and standing in a container while covered with ice cubes for more than 112 minutes.

Using ‘cold, hard nature’ as his teacher, his extensive training has enabled him to learn to control his breathing, heart rate and blood circulation and to withstand extreme temperatures. There are three ‘pillars’: breathing techniques leading to more energy, reduced stress levels and an augmented immune response; cold therapy to reduce inflammation and fortify the immune system, balance hormone levels, improve sleep quality and naturally elevate mood; commitment – armed with focus and determination to master both body and mind.  It’s a practical way to become happier, healthier and stronger.

Armed with his motto ‘What I am capable of, everybody can learn’, Wim Hof is convinced that everyone can tap into their inner potential without having to invest the same decades worth of study, travel and daring.

Wim has made it his mission to share what he’s learned with the rest of the world. He teaches people from all over the world, from celebrities and professional athletes, to people of all ages, to control their body and mind and achieve extraordinary things.

Warning: This Q&A includes a discussion about mental health and suicide. BBC Action Line provides information and support for issues covered in our recent programmes.

Wim, for those who haven’t come across you before, tell us how you first discovered your passion for the cold?

When I was 17 years old, I was walking through a park one quiet winter’s morning and I felt an attraction to the thin layer of ice on the water, and I just undressed and got in. I didn’t stay in long, maybe a minute, but the cold water had an unexpected effect on my body and I felt so good. And then when I got out, the rush of endorphins on my way home felt great! So I went back again. I soon learned that if I breathed deeply, I no longer felt the instinctive urge to gasp each time I immersed myself. The deep breathing made my body tingle and it felt amazing. I was only 17 but I felt so alive and excited and I’ve kept doing it ever since, each day, for the past 46 years!

I truly realised the benefit of the cold when I was grieving the death of my wife, Olaya, in 1995. She had depression and had spiralled into darkness. I was left alone with four kids to look after and no money, dealing with the deep emotional agony and yet needing to be strong for my children. It was devastating. The children made me survive but it was the cold that brought me back to life. It healed me. Instead of being guided by my broken emotions, the cold water led me to stillness and gave my broken heart a chance to rest, restore, rehabilitate. That is the message I want to share. This is what I found. I want to share the love. I don’t want anyone else to be in the same stressful situation that I was left behind in.

And you’ve achieved some impressive feats to earn yourself the nickname The Iceman, and you have a big celebrity fan base too?

Yes. If you count Oprah Winfrey lying on the ground in the grass, doing the breathing, being astonished at how long she can hold her breath. Or Justin Bieber – he’s got all the money and all the fame. Matt Damon is doing it. You cannot buy health and your fame will not make you healthy, you have to work on it. And this works. That is what all these celebrities are saying. This is something you cannot buy anywhere, you don’t get it through fame or name, this is about health. The most valuable thing is happiness, strength, and that can be accessed by anyone, and it is the wealthiest thing to do. Health is the wealth of the future. 

Can you explain to us why exposure to the cold works?

As humanity has evolved and developed ways to make our lives more and more comfortable, we have lost our ability not only to survive but to thrive in extreme environments. The things we have built to make our lives easier have actually made us weaker. We wear clothes all the time which de-stimulates our bodies. But what if we can re-awaken the dormant physiological processes that made our ancestors so strong? 

We go to the gym to work our muscles, but inside our bodies we have millions of tiny muscles in the cardiovascular system – and we can train them by simply taking a cold shower. The transformation you get through doing this just once a day is enormous. It’s really shifting. Of course initially people have difficulties getting into the cold shower, I know. But the benefits far outweigh the investment. As the tone of your vascular muscles improves so does your blood flow, which gives you more energy so your energy levels go up and your stress goes down. That is what a cold shower does. All the stressful activities we do in our work and emotional life leave behind a biochemical residue. By breathing deeply, belly breathing, we cleanse the body and break down anxiety. That’s what the breathing does and it works.

How does this translate to Freeze the Fear? What can we expect from the show?

Through the cold, through deep breathing, you can master control over your mind, your body and your fear. ‘Grab the bull by the horns’ as we say in the Netherlands! The first big challenge for the celebrities is jumping into the icy water of a frozen lake. Most of these celebrities hate the cold! Think of a thick layer of ice and disappearing underneath it into a totally different world. Once you’re down there it’s scary, claustrophobic. You lose control. It’s too cold! It takes over – and that is very scary. But it’s all about facing your fears and getting a hold over them. In the end of course it was a great experience. Later in the series, these celebrities were spending10, 11 minutes in icy water, no problem. Fully tranquil, fully serene, in control. This is the way to deal with stress. And they showed within a couple of episodes how to tackle that. It was majestic! The change is transformational. It was a beautiful setting in the middle of the mountains in Italy, with the snow, valleys and frozen waterfalls, but I want people to know that the dramatic challenges on screen also relate to people sitting in their living rooms and the challenges we all face in our daily lives.

And you were their mentor and taskmaster, is that right?

After 46 years of cold exposure, I am the man who has done all the field work, who is tranquil, peaceful, powerful. It’s an entertainment show, of course, but my role is instructional and I hope it will make people at home think about themselves too – and maybe even start practising the breathing on the sofa. 

How did you get on working with hosts Holly and Lee?

It was so great working with Holly and Lee – we were like the three musketeers! They are both funny people.

Holly is so professional and yet a very emotional person as well. She really understands my mission, that I’m sharing tools to help people deal much better with their emotions in day-to-day life. This is a show about life and the celebrities are immersing themselves in their deepest fears and going deep into their own emotions, so Holly is the perfect person to be asking them questions and leading them through – she’s like the golden host with her sweet voice.

And Lee is a great guy. He’s wired to be funny. This is no ski holiday for the celebrities; they face the darkness within themselves through the cold, through challenging themselves. He was impressed by them, and he does his beautiful, funny take on it all, making it light – because sometimes it can be heavy when you have to face your fears – but a person like Lee is able to make it funny by saying something witty which works and it makes it lighter and brighter.

What were your impressions of the celebrities?

We have many different personalities, powers, angles in the group but, in the end, you will see that all these people are not just celebrities, they are real people, you can identify with them.  They have vulnerability, deep fears and traumas that come up, as it does with everybody. You cannot say you don’t have it because you’re a celebrity. They have it like anybody else! In the series you see these celebrities going from 0 to 1000 by showing that they are able to break through, where in the beginning they have so much fear. They jump in there, gaining control, overcoming the cold, suddenly connecting with an eager potential within.

What do you hope that people will take away from the show?

A cold shower a day keeps the doctor away! Anybody can do it! That is the message of the show. Try it and see for yourself. Get into a cold shower and do some deep breathing. The cold trains the cardiovascular system, stress goes down, energy levels go up, that’s the BOOM! And deep breathing calms your anxiety making you feel more confident.

Stress can come in many ways: emotional stress, mental stress, bacterial stress, viral stress, inflammation, the stress of being isolated in covid times, the stress of having to meet goals at work. And by using these tools you will be much more in tune with your body, have much less stress and much better energy, more confidence in yourself so you can conquer your fears.