You're doing it wrong. Not catastrophically, but inefficiently. The thing you've been doing since birth—breathing—is probably undermining your mental health, energy levels, and capacity to handle stress. You're not broken. You're just breathing like someone who's never been taught.
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you're doing it right now and you have for your entire life but there's a good chance you're doing it wrong or could do it better we're talking about breathing that's what today's guest is going to enlighten us about his name is dan voss and he's the host of a new way of living podcast as well as a coach in the ways of breath work and cold therapy coming up today on the fit mess just being able to be more aware and more present by literally bringing it back to our breath which is so fundamental to being a human it's more than just staying alive and it's more than just what we did when we first entered this this world it's really more about maximizing our our life that's dan voss he's the founder of nova now mindset emotional health and breathwork coaching he's also the host of the podcast a new way of living today we'll talk to him about why breath work and cold exposure are two ways you can milk the out of life but first i'm jeremy and i'm zach we've spent years pushing ourselves to learn more about our own physical
to learn more about our own physical emotional and mental health and picked up a few coaching certificates along the way but really we're two guys who got sick of our own and started making changes to be healthier happier and live more meaningful lives and each week we talk to world-class experts with advice to help you do the same zack you already said what is probably my favorite part of this interview we're about to hear tell me more about milking the out of life how do i do that oh if i could tell you i'd be a rich man but i think you know breathwork and cold therapy is definitely one of the things that will let you milk the out of life i just love that phrase i really want to put it on a poster we are we're totally going to steal it and we're not going to give dan any credit even though he's the one that's about to say it in a few minutes but yeah breath working cold therapy are two just absolutely essential parts of my tool kit whenever i you know bother to get out the tools and play with them and i was actually was making a list the other day of all the things that that i want more of in my life and cold therapy was on top of the list is i i want more of it because it just
of it because it just it improves everything every time i go drop my body in some freezing cold lake or river or some natural body of water i come out feeling incredibly better there are just so many physiological benefits to it there are so many just spiritual and just mood benefits to it that i i can't get enough of it and i hope that you'll hear today some of the reasons why if you're not doing it you should add it to to your daily routine yeah and i think even just beyond that like we touch on in the interview the discipline of it right if you can just do that one thing with cold therapy you just apply that to everything else like if you don't want to do something you don't think you can do something yeah you can i literally did that really do it i literally did that i was at the dentist yesterday and and they're like you know they're getting me all prepared oh it's gonna hurt a little bit and it's gonna be a thing and i literally in my mind went i've i've been in the snow like without clothes on i can handle an injection like i literally called back to that
like i literally called back to that piece of evidence that i can do hard things so i have no problem you know having you numb my face for two seconds this is no big deal it's it's incredible how many of those little moments that otherwise could be super anxiety-inducing or make you just overthink and worry when you can call back points in your life where you've done hard things especially if you did it this morning it makes those little things throughout your day so much easier to overcome yeah one of my favorite yoga teachers cassie there's this one phrase she says all the time during class we'll be doing like planks or like something really hard and then we'll move on and then we'll come back to that same movement again and she just says this phrase of we've been here before yeah and then and that actually like plays through my head occasionally when i'm doing things like cold therapy or breath work or something like that yes i've been there before and yes i got through it i didn't die and i actually got you know ended up like being better at the end of it so
like being better at the end of it so yeah the discipline of this is just amazing and breath work i think is different i mean there's definitely as we'll talk about in a few minutes there are some hurdles to the setup of when you're told how long you're going to do it and what your body's going to do in reaction to it there's parts of that where again you need to sort of remember you can do hard things but it is such a different practice it is a very healing practice in a lot of ways i i will never forget when i got my second covid vaccine that was the the only one i really had any sort of physical reaction to where i didn't feel i started feeling kind of fluish and felt kind of crappy and i went and did some breath work for like 40 minutes and by the end of it i was 100 better like whatever side effects i was having i kicked them literally by laying down and breathing the way i was told to for 40 minutes now sure it is entirely possible that had done nothing my body might have also just gone oh we got this and dealt with the side effects but but i truly believe that what i did through that act of breathing helped me get through that and
breathing helped me get through that and i've used it in other ways when i've gotten sick to just get through stuff faster and every time i don't regret it because i i'm certain that i get through those illnesses and those bad experiences faster because of the breathing so i think breath work is is one of those things where you can do it every day you can do it every hour there's always an opportunity for it like it's not like you know cold therapy where you have to go find the water to get into or the cryo chamber to get into breathing is just one of those things you can do every single day to really help your immune system and help your body and and to be you know just fully functional and milk the out of life that's right but the other thing you can do to milk the out of life is to make sure your body has all the nutrients it really needs and that's why i take athletic greens i started taking athletic greens because i really needed to have a supplement that tasted great gave me all the things that i needed and i didn't want to have to take 10 pills a day or spend all of my time cooking all
day or spend all of my time cooking all the meals i try and get my nutrients from food but let's face it we don't get everything we need every day from food so athletic greens was a great solution for me it tastes great gives me everything i need for more energy better gut health optimized immune system it has less than a gram of sugar and there's no nasty chemicals or artificial anything and it actually does taste good and for what you get it's less than three dollars a day and right now is the time to incorporate better health and athletic greens is a perfect start to make it easy athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin d and five free travel packs with your first purchase all you have to do is visit athleticgreens. com fitmess again that's athleticgreens. com fitmess to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance that link will be on the show notes and it's plastered all over our website at thefitmast. com all right as we've mentioned our guest today is dan voss he is the founder of nova now mindset emotional health and breath work coaching he's also hosted the
work coaching he's also hosted the podcast a new way of living and we started by just asking him about why breath work is really so much more than the breathing you do every day that just keeps you alive yeah i love how you phrase that that there's more to it than just keeping ourselves alive and when i tell people that i am a breath or coach and then i have you know been certified in breathwork training and coaching that's kind of the first thing that comes up is like i've been breathing my entire life it's the first thing that i i did when i entered this world is take a breath and it's the last thing we do when we leave this earth is take our final breath but there's so much more to it there in between those two phases of life and what's really interesting to me is that we go most of our lives without learning about any of this you know the importance of intentional breathing the optimal way of breathing how to breathe efficiently and effectively and for some people they go much later in their life when they start learning about this you know i'm 30 right now so i'm blessed to have learned about this in my my late 20s is when i kind of started started picking it up
started started picking it up but what's happening there and and that word breath work is kind of tricky that's kind of the industry term is is breath work but i also like to call it breath play and what i mean by that is when you learn and experience what an intentional breathing practice is and what it can do for your health what it can do for your physical health your mental state and you learn some of the basics on how to breathe more efficiently or how to get yourself into an altered state of consciousness it sounds like really crazy stuff that might take a lot of work but it's really not you know you really get into the basics of it and you're like okay cool i can do this on my own now and i can take a deep breath in a moment where i might need it most that it's really that's really what it is at its core is being conscious when we breathe and that could be in the morning a 10-minute breath work practice it could be a longer one hour like holotropic breathing wim hof style breathing where you shoot off into outer
breathing where you shoot off into outer space it could just be taking a couple deeper breaths you know right before you go on stage to public speak or go into a podcast interview or have a difficult conversation with your spouse or or your kids just being able to be more aware and more present by literally bringing it back to our breath which is so fundamental to being a human and that's exactly what you said when you started off here it's like it's it's more than just staying alive and it's more than just what we did when we first entered this this world it's really more about maximizing our life and that's where i get most uh excited about this practice is like how can we milk the out of our lives and breath work is just one way of doing that i love that milk the out of our lives that's going to go up on my wall somewhere yeah we're going to steal that i think for the tagline teaching you how to milk the out of your life i think i ought to put that on a t-shirt all right there you go exactly so
exactly so so you you mentioned that you feel fortunate that you got into this in your late 20s how did you get into this like what what inspired you to start learning about you know as jeremy alluded to earlier like this thing we've been doing all our lives may be wrong though yeah yeah i mentioned a name not too long ago wim hof um is really how i got into all of this and people that are in the breath work community like myself a lot of them have that same story where they heard about this crazy guy from the netherlands talk about breathing and how it can change your life and i actually i heard him on a number of different podcasts that i was listening to talk about his story and how he developed this method and you know this was going back decades ago when he decided to walk into this river in amsterdam when he was going through a lot of trauma and grief from the death of his wife she committed suicide and he would go on long walks and one
and he would go on long walks and one day he walked by the river and decided to get into the cold water and it changed his life he realized how much better he felt he realized how much it helped with his anxiety with his depression and he was doing deep breathing when he got into that that cold water because there was an initial shock and then he was like huh what if i did this deep breathing before i got into the water so long story he developed this whole method which is now known as the wim off method of deep breathing cold water immersion and i heard him talk about this story over and over again and all these different podcasts i was listening to and i i knew i had to try it for myself this was around late 2019 early 2020 and then of course the pandemic hit and that's when i really had some extra time on my hands you know professionally i was actually a wedding photographer for about five years and that's when i had some extra time and i started up a podcast of my own when all of my weddings were dried up
when all of my weddings were dried up overnight everything was kind of canceled postponed and i got into this podcast space and remembered what i was learning from wim hof on the different shows i was listening to and started working on it on my own doing the breath work on my own and then i realized this is so cool i want to do this for myself not just for myself personally but talk about it on my show and share this with the world and that's when i decided to make my podcast all about breath work and cold exposure um and then like i said this was right around when the pandemic was happening and i was going through so much change professionally with my career a career shift you know my business taking a huge hit kind of overnight just a lot of uncertainty and question marks and doubt and but then i always brought it back to my breath and then in addition to all that i went through a breakup that summer i was just kind of at this point in my life where i was questioning who i was and what i was supposed to do in this world and whenever i had moments of of grief
and whenever i had moments of of grief or sadness or depression or anxiety or panic or all the number of things that so many people faced in that year i would literally just lay down my bed and breathe for 20 minutes i would turn on the wim hof app and i would do three rounds of this deep breathing and after 20 minutes i felt like a whole new person and that's when i was that's the moment i realized how powerful this was um and i couldn't help but just make that a mission to share with the world so you mentioned using the app that's something i've done a few times and i want to just sort of paint a picture for people for what this looks like because i've gone through i've done a number of just breath work sessions on my own at home with the app or without and i've done a couple of guided sessions nice the guided sessions the most intimidating part of it for me was well there were two one i was at a retreat a weekend retreat self-care woo-woo thing that changed my life and part of it was you know lay on the ground surround yourself with pillows because you're going to thrash and
because you're going to thrash and you're going to you know sort of lose control of your body which scares the crap out of you when you hear that and then they follow it up with oh and by the way we're going to do this for about 75 minutes and so the the sort of the lack of control the fear of oh my god i'm gonna do this this deep heavy like very difficult or challenging i guess breathing uh and and i'm going to lose control of my body to the point where i'm going to be slamming my hands against the floor and all these things it's very scary but when i got into it i traveled through time i traveled through space i i went back and aided or comforted myself as a child through some of the most traumatic events where i was left alone to sort of figure it out on my own i was able to literally stand next to that child version of me in the room where it happened and comfort him and say you're gonna come out okay from this you're going to be all right and and i'm i you not it was as real as you and i having this conversation right now
conversation right now all all through literally this breathing technique so it is an incredibly powerful spiritual practice an incredibly powerful healing practice but for someone who has maybe heard about it has heard conversations like this has heard whim on on different things but has never done it themselves would you sort of explain what a typical breathwork session both i mean you mentioned there's sort of the simple lay down and sort of prepare for a conversation but also like the the deep spiritual stuff can you kind of walk us through what that looks like what someone would experience if they tried that yeah i mean to your point there's different styles of breathing right you could have um a smaller session shorter 10-minute session to calm your nerves you know it's it's to me it's uh there's a huge part of this is the nervous system and what you're doing there is you're doing a reset with your nervous system so what we're looking at when it's swim hof style breathing deeper breathing styles holotropic it sounds like what you experienced might have been a form of rebirthing uh breath work
rebirthing uh breath work those are much more in-depth deep sessions a lot of what i focus on is a shorter session to literally down regulate if you're in a overly activated sympathetic nervous system state that fight or flight where you're in panic or fear or anger and just being able to do some breathing to down regulate that's super simple you could also do the opposite side of that right upregulated breathing if you're feeling a little sluggish uh instead of grabbing a cup of coffee at 2 p. m that might keep you up later at night you can do some up regulated breathing to feel more energized and alert and focused now what you're getting into is some of those longer sessions whether that's wim hof or holotropic or you know rebirthing um in terms of an experience it's it really is individualized what they're going through i have had many moments in many sessions where i have had something similar where i see colors and i you know it's very euphoric it's very blissful i've had moments where i have visions of where i should
where i have visions of where i should be at in my life and what i should be doing with my career or with a relationship so it can be very profound very spiritual but then i've also had some sessions where i maybe went into it with really high expectations hoping to get to that point where i just get super high and like out of my mind and then i don't get there and that's okay because i get like i said every session is a little bit different it's gonna be a little bit different for each person it's really really easy to get caught up chasing the dragon once like i gotta go back i gotta taste that again yeah absolutely there are times where you want to have that that big shoot off and then you don't get it and that's okay because you still have a really great experience right it's still bliss it's still peaceful it's still you know you leave feeling really good and happy um and then there's other moments where you have an emotional release you know i've had sessions where you just start crying and sometimes it's for a specific reason where like you look back and you're like oh yeah i was really holding on to this you know this
really holding on to this you know this resentment in a relationship or i'm just going through some this week or stress or an argument or whatever and there's just this immense emotional release and then i've also had emotional releases where i couldn't explain what it was about right like i just started crying and i was like i had no idea i was holding on to anything i didn't know i even needed that but what i'm getting at is what what's so cool about this and what's so beautiful about this practice and there's different forms as i've explained but it usually will give you what you need and sometimes you don't know what you need but it'll it'll get you there and and that's what's so cool for me is just kind of go into it and surrender and not have super clear expectations but no i'm going to get something out of it and it could be a number of any of those things i just described yeah i usually am pretty clear on what i want what i actually need is murky right yeah
yeah yeah usually what happens to me when i i start going through those uh those moments and that's a big difference and i i think a lot of people can relate to that they're like i know what i want but i'm not so sure what i really needed and that's what i love about this the most is like we we can go into it with an idea of like and that can be for anything even outside of breath work like cold exposure is the same thing for me i have almost the exact same experience and i think that's why the two correlate so much is that i know what i want out of a certain cold exposure nice bath session maybe it's a number that i want to be in there for five minutes but then i get in there my body's like no that's not what you need today you only need two minutes and that's enough and get out like don't overdo this don't be a macho man so that's there's a huge that's a a brilliant point that you you raised there is you know it's very easy to know what we want at times but then what we really need is not so cool yeah i i feel
really need is not so cool yeah i i feel like i suffer from that far too often but you kind of went down the the road that i was gonna go next and and talk about cold therapy and does it relate to breath work is it something you should use in conjunction with breath work or is it completely separate yeah i guess i'll i'll relate it back to whim because that's where i learned all about it and he is such a pioneer and leader in the space i mean when people think of coal exposure and ice baths and all that they usually think of of wim hof and he's gaining popularity for sure it's kind of funny when i start talking to people about this in my circle and my life family friends you know i'll talk about ice bath and they'll be like is that that end guy and i'm like yeah that's that's why him off but i mentioned it in in his origin story earlier is when he went into that river in amsterdam and he kind of first created this or discovered it he got into that cold water and he started doing really deep breathing just naturally right it was almost like a hyperventilation thing where you get in and there's that
where you get in and there's that initial shock your your body goes into that sympathetic state and it's just like you like freak out a little bit so that's what he started realizing and then he realized okay well what if i did this before going into the cold and he started laying down and doing that deep breathing on his own separate from the cold and that's when he realized the power of all of it and how it could make you feel better i will say as just like a disclaimer the two should not ever be done together especially the deep breathing it's dangerous right it's in terms of doing it in water you could get lightheaded you could actually pass out so never do deep breathing even near water even like a puddle of water you could slip and i mean people actually have diet doing this trying to do it in in conjunction at the same time so in terms of cold exposure and you know how it relates to our breath you have that element of doing the deep breathing before you go into the cold it acts as a a way to naturally heat up your body which is a really great thing
your body which is a really great thing to do before you go into the cold but then once you get into the cold like i said you don't want to do that deep breathing but you certainly want to focus on your breath i do recommend to focus on that down regulated breathing slowing the exhale down so and especially when you first get in and you have that initial shock of like that kind of that hyperventilation movement bring it back to your breath and just you can take a breath a deep breath in but then just really slowly exhale like six seven eight ten seconds even and that's what i usually do when i'm in that cold i might take you know five six deep breaths in the beginning in terms of just like slow breathing nothing too crazy where i'm going to get lightheaded but just more so down regulating and focusing on that exhale and that gets me back into that parasympathetic state from that initial shock down to okay i got this and it's usually about 30 seconds for me where you get to that 30 second threshold and you're like okay i got it under control i have my breathing now under control
under control and at that point it sounds crazy especially for people that aren't used to this but at that point you really do get used to it you really do get into this state of flow and relaxation and it's still a little painful it's still hard i'm not going to say it's like easy but it is easier than the first 30 seconds or that first minute uh that's usually the hardest part well and and it gets easier right i mean that that moment you talk about where you sort of take control or i guess when your body flips from sympathetic to parasympathetic there's just something it for me it's like a light switch you go in there with all of the baggage and and the that has you know dominated your mind for the day or the week or however long it's been you get in that water and there's two things i love well i love so many things about it but for one that moment where you are suddenly just at peace where your whole body just relaxes and goes oh yeah we're good we're not going to die it's all right yeah it just i mean all of a sudden you go from like oh my god i was freezing to i think i'm
my god i was freezing to i think i'm going to swim this is a good time i'm enjoying this and and i love that about it and i love just the discipline part of it too that you know when you do build up your tolerance when you go from that 10 20 30 seconds and you're up into the twos and the fives and more minutes just the the mental challenge of can i do this longer not from like an ego perspective but just from like a mind control thing because it does become this thing where you start to sort of freak out a little bit and i'll just share a quick story i was actually in the river we live right next to a river and i was in with my daughter yesterday and i think she looks up to me she sees me do it she's like oh my god you're crazy but then she wants to follow me in and does it and yesterday we're standing in the creek and and i just walk in like i'm getting in a bath because i'm so used to this now like i just know what it feels like i'm going to be fine she gets in and she stands up to her knees she stands i mean just for minutes like just hold on just i gotta i just need him i just need a minute and then she's she's saying i don't know how to
she's saying i don't know how to get in i don't know how to sit i don't know how to get into the water i'm like literally you just have to literally sit down that's all you have to do is sit down and she could not like the mental and physical barrier was impossible and i was like go over to the dry land and sit down the only reason you can't do it in the water is because your mind is telling you you can't you need to overcome that monster you need to tell that thing it's wrong and literally just sit down and i mean just it turned into tears and it was this whole thing so she literally couldn't do it so i had to help her and i had to like lay her in the water and then but when she did it she just lit up and was like yes like it's so my point in telling all this is that just when you are sort of a slave to your mind and you're constantly just chasing whatever random thoughts come up and feelings this is such an amazing practice to get over that because you have to overcome those voices and you have to overcome that cold because otherwise you do you freak out and you don't know what to do and it's just another extension of of your life sort of out of control
of out of control absolutely it's probably my favorite thing about cold exposure is that discipline element right that moment of telling yourself i can't do this and oftentimes it's not even a matter of whether you can or can't it's a matter of whether you want to or not so when you say i can't do it it's almost always i don't want to and when you get into the cold and especially in in the morning that's why i love doing this like first thing in the morning you're now started starting your day and setting yourself up for success you're setting yourself up to realize i can do this you know something i might not want to do but i really can do it and when you get past that barrier it's literally just a a brain barrier it's a mindset shift you get past that and then you go throughout your day and you're like oh i can't do this but it's really i don't want to do this and then you remember you know what i got into the cold for two minutes today i got into an ice cold bath today and i sat there for whatever four minutes five minutes and then you go into this meeting or to
and then you go into this meeting or to a project or to something you're putting off whatever it may be you look back and you say okay well you know i actually did something that i my mind told me i can't do it and i end up doing it and now what's next and that's what's so cool is is that ability to shift uh how you look at your whole day and your whole week and your whole life so i want to ask you about so i i suffer the same issue with cold you know i in the beginning it was very hard to get into now i can you know i jump into the shower i really enjoy like three to four minutes on as hot as it can possibly get to the point where it like leaves marks on my skin and then i just dump it all the way to cold for the rest i really love a hot shower but um totally uh but and it you know i'm used to it now but i do want to ask you the difference between so there's getting into water there's also like cryo chambers where you like for me like i don't have access
you like for me like i don't have access to a body of water that i can go get into regularly but i do have access to cryo chambers wait a minute wait don't you have a pool in your backyard turn the heat off even with the heat office it's 80 degrees so like okay that doesn't count like i only get like very small slivers of time where that's like sitting at 60 degrees but cryo chambers right there's one that i go to it's full body like you get in and it i believe the one i do it's like negative 240 degrees for for three minutes and i know it's a very different thing but like what's your experience between water and these cryo chambers are they the same thing are they different like should we avoid them yeah i want to start by saying i don't know enough about cryo to have an educated answer i have done cryo a few times it's definitely not my level of expertise to really share like the difference there i would definitely say you know the cold water immersion is is more my my style
water immersion is is more my my style and i'm sure on a scientific level there's definitely some differences there in terms of the benefits and what's going on and and how it improves certain elements of your health but with water it's it's interesting how even within cold water there's differences right you have a shower that you're talking about and by the way i'm the same way i love a good warm warm hot shower and i take almost all my showers starting off with hot water and then i flip it to cold and some people that are that hear that they're like oh you're not really doing a cold shower but you really are because i'm still getting like three minutes four minutes of cold water at the end and then you have ice baths you have uh natural water a river a lake you know and within all that there are different experiences at least for me between a cold shower where you have these like drop droplets of water hitting you and i actually have sometimes a more challenging time in a cold shower just because it's not consistent you're
just because it's not consistent you're not fully submerged and then you get into an ice bath and for me that's actually a little bit more manageable even though it's probably colder at least your body is just like fully submerged and you can just you surrender you're there at that point so like let's just make the most of it and then same thing with the natural body of water that's my favorite just because there's some element there of being in nature and yeah going back to the whole like morning thing i just love that idea of even if you can get there for the sunrise and i'm in chicago so i have lake michigan not too far from me actually just blocks away which is awesome so half the year i have this giant body of water i can go into at any time to do a cold cold plunge and sitting in the cold water in natural body water with sun sun rising and you have you know that nature element you have maybe birds flying by and just there's something so blissful about it
blissful about it even just that stillness when you're sitting there that you don't really quite get in a cold shower or in a cryo chamber um there's something about sin in the natural body water that is love so yeah to answer your question i definitely would like to know a little bit more about cry and have more experience there but i i don't want to sit here and act like i'm an expert on what the differences are so um yeah that's something i'll have to read up on a little bit more just to echo the the natural environment thing that's that's my jam too i love it because you're combining typically if you're doing it in the morning you've got those early morning sun rays you've got the grounding that's happening just just being there's there's something about being in you know the wild using air quotes because i'm in a perfectly protected environment but but just being there and realizing like there are any number of things that could kill me doing this right now and yeah i'm overcoming them and it's blissful so i mean there's just so many layers of like i'm i'm beating the world i'm beating my mind this is you know 100
i'm beating my mind this is you know 100 empowered one of my favorite spots to do the cold exposure in chicago here like i said it's like michigan but there is this little like harbor area that i like to go to that has a ladder that goes right down into the lake so me and a lot of my buddies that are into this will go to that spot and there were a few days this past winter where there was just like sheets of ice over the lake and but just enough it was like just like broken up a little bit enough to get into the lake it wasn't fully iced over and um there was one day where it was like pretty windy and there was a current coming in and these sheets of ice were just like traveling towards us so there were several times where we had to be like yo look out 20 like 20 yards away there's this giant thing of ice coming towards you so to your point when you're in nature like there's just a number of ways that could be dangerous but that's the whole point of doing all this for me especially you know now that i'm getting into this professionally and coaching and things like that is to keep in mind that element of safety right like go with
element of safety right like go with friends make it a community aspect especially when you're out in nature when you're in a frozen lake there's ice involved like definitely be smart about this and do it in a safe way and and educate yourself and don't just like go in and and get videos for instagram and like try to be cool looking and everything like i'm all about safety first for sure and and you know keeping your ego in check you know when your hands and your feet are hurting it's okay to get out you know you don't have to totally you don't have to stay in there and endure that yeah that's a really good point i i actually went up to uh it was in wisconsin i was hired to lead breathwork for this company retreat they had a log cabin that they rented out they had like 20 of their employees come for the weekend so i had lead breath work and then there was an ice there's a frozen pond in the back you know in the yard space there and some of those guys were like really good at it like they were actually much more experienced with it than i realized and they were going in for like 10 12 minutes 15 minutes
minutes 15 minutes and then a few of the others were like i don't think i want to do that and i'm like don't like this is not a competition and i even went in for like three minutes tops because it was really really cold and to your point like it's it's an ego check like this doesn't have to be a competition it doesn't have to be who's better who's stronger who can stay in longer yeah it's about getting the minimum effective dose which is about a minute and a half to two minutes and and that's all you need right like i don't want to overdo it i don't want to become overly tolerant to this because i want it to be a lifelong practice where i can do it throughout my week and throughout my my days and my years and my life see that's that's the one thing about the cryo chamber that really i guess gets me is when i go into water my hands and my feet dictate when i get out right yeah when i go into the cryo chamber good point you wear gloves and you wear like booties on your feet because it's so cold in there like it will literally hurt them so it's interesting i i'll have to do a little more reading on it but like your
little more reading on it but like your body gets more exposure to colder temperatures because your hands are quite well protected in those little gloves yeah it's a really good point i don't know i that that's my thing like i can only stand the water as long as my feet can so when i do ice baths i actually like stick my feet out and just wow smart that's smart i keep my hands out usually i was gonna say a float and just put your hands and feet out why have i never thought of that before yeah i'm the same way those i mean for most people those are the first parts of your body that get the cold that are you know hurt the most when you're in the cold is your hands and your feet because the furthest away from your heart yeah um so i usually depending on how cold the water is when it's really really cold i usually have my hands out of the water just because it's like almost unbearable yeah but i think that's also part of why i love doing it in natural water so much or just a ice bath in general is that you have this kind of signal you know it's a natural signal of saying like hey time's up and that usually comes from your hands and your
usually comes from your hands and your feet speaking of time being up we've reached that point tell us about the the coaching that you do and where we can learn more about you your podcast and all the work you do yeah absolutely so i do breath work coaching that's one on one where i work with individuals mostly that are experiencing stress and overwhelm and burnout and anxiety you know people that are looking for a natural way to reset their day reset their nervous system to feel better to manage with there's so many things that we face on a day-to - day basis so i do one-on - one coaching and breath work i do group coaching as well locally i'm starting up breath work classes and then i also offer a one-on - one transformational coaching program that's a 12-week program again similar to people that are experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety and they want to look deeper into how they can make changes in their lives so we look at behavior change we look at mindset growth growth
growth and emotional health and that's where i really love merging and bridging the two is bringing it back to our breath you know how can we use something like breath work and mindfulness and meditation to better manage our emotions whether that be anger or sadness or doubt uncertainty or you want to facilitate more happy emotions or good you know good emotions like like happiness and joy and bliss we look at all of that so that's the 12-week program uh they can learn more about me and my work at my website which is novanow. com that's n-o - v-a - n-o - w dot c-o and then i'm pretty active on instagram my handle is dan. vos and your podcast a new way of living we i'm not sure who's gonna release first but we will be guests on your show so we're really looking forward absolutely yeah so i'm really looking forward to that yeah thank you so much for your time today and uh i look forward to seeing where you go with this really appreciate it yes likewise thanks so much guys i appreciate it our thanks to
much guys i appreciate it our thanks to dan voss again he's the founder of nova now mindset emotional health and breath work coaching he's also the host of the podcast a new way of living you can find links to him and all of his work in the show notes for this episode at thefedmast. com one of the things that really just kind of struck me as we were talking with dan i learned years ago like when my first yoga class was like oh i'm not really breathing okay we really do take for granted the fact that we are breathing right and it's just keeping us alive it's the bare minimum but like real breath work like disciplined guided breath work is so good for you like physically emotionally like our show is about physical emotional mental health that one thing hits all three of those buckets like it is just that good for you with everything that i have heard and have not yet experimented with myself with regard to psychedelics for emotional healing and all that my understanding is that breath work is as close as you can get without actually doing ayahuasca
can get without actually doing ayahuasca or mushrooms or whatever you're going to do so if that's something you're interested in if you're hearing about all these studies and all these things and how using psychedelics can help you but you're maybe nervous this is an amazing place to start and i would highly recommend doing it with the facilitator i did have one experience where through a breath work session when it was over i was not back yet i was still off in the cosmos somewhere and i literally felt like i was floating and was upside down and the person had to sort of like bring me back into into reality or at least the shared reality whatever whatever this space is so if you can find like a guided one which is hard in a coveted world but i highly recommend getting a facilitator because it it will help you in case you do get trapped in the cosmos but once you get back from the cosmos cold therapy is good too it really sucks like i'm not gonna lie like if you haven't done it those first 30 seconds they will test your discipline for sure
they will test your discipline for sure and i would say if you haven't done it 30 seconds might be a good you know down the road mark go 10 seconds do a 10 second cold shower then 15 then 20. it's rough man but if you can build up the mental toughness to get through that part and get to the good it's so it's just such a a release of control and and fear and anxiety when you can get to the part where your body just goes hey i'm all right this this actually feels good it is so healing i can't tell you how many times that i have i've been in the middle of a depression episode and just going and do that just tells my brain first it tells my brain hey dummy you're gonna die focus on this right now don't worry about all that from 10 years ago that you're probably still hanging on to try to not die right now and then after about a minute you're just like oh this this is kind of amazing and uh and it can just help you move past so much of that stuff
past so much of that stuff yeah i've always applied it to like real world situations like the ability to get into the cold realize you're not dying and then accept it and be okay with it like applies to situations that you're in like if you can just think about the cold therapy when you're in a situation where you know your anxiety's getting you and you're you're not in a situation where you're going to die but you think you're going to right you know it like that practice actually applies to other situations in life and like dan said you know if we can throw in a disclaimer here don't combine the two don't combine your breath work and your water don't not smart you're gonna drown you're gonna die don't do that and it's not don't don't let ego drive this right don't stay in the water too long don't don't push through the pain because you are a tough guy and you can do four minutes and you only did three last time like just do what you need you don't need to beat some milestone or beat somebody else it's not a competition it's just about taking better care of yourself all
about taking better care of yourself all of this just builds discipline it requires discipline to get started but as you continue to go through it like your discipline muscle will will build and again like it just applies elsewhere too like as long as you can build your discipline here and get through it you'll get through that work project a little bit better right you'll get through that home project a little bit better because every time you test that discipline it's going to get a little bit better well like we said every time you you do that it it's just more evidence that you can do those hard things and and overcome them see that's why i don't do hard things because i just don't want to like it's the laziness like if you do this one thing it'll snowball so don't do the thing and then you don't have to worry about doing the other thing that's that's the other way i or you could just do nothing that we just talked about for the last 45 minutes that's another option too so how's that working out for you so far it's kind of depressing all right well we do need to wrap things up there but don't let the conversation end there join us in our facebook group
end there join us in our facebook group where you and fellow fitmess listeners can connect for monthly challenges accountability to reach your goals and just connection with others who are on a similar journey the link to do that is on our website thefitmas. com and that's where we will be back next week with a brand new episode thanks so much for listening see everyone we know this podcast is amazing and doesn't seem to lack anything but we need a legal disclaimer prior to implementing anything discussed in this podcast it is your responsibility to conduct your own research and consult your physician you should assume that jeremy and zach don't know what they're talking about and they're not liable for any physical or emotional issues that occur directly or indirectly from listening to this podcast
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
Dan Voss, founder of Nova Now and host of "A New Way of Living," built his practice around a simple premise: most people are operating at half capacity because they haven't learned to use their breath and nervous system deliberately. cold exposure and breathwork aren't add-ons. They're the foundation.
Shallow chest breathing—the default for most adults—signals to your nervous system that you're under threat. It keeps you in low-grade sympathetic activation. Tight shoulders. Racing thoughts. Chronic stress that feels normal because you've never felt anything else.
Deep diaphragmatic breathing does the opposite. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Heart rate variability improves. Cortisol drops. The body shifts from survival mode to repair mode. This isn't relaxation—it's optimization.
"Breathwork reduces stress and anxiety. But more than that, it teaches you that you have control over your state. That changes everything."
Cold plunges aren't about tolerance. They're about training your nervous system to stay calm when every instinct screams to panic. Three minutes in cold water teaches more about emotional regulation than a month of meditation.
The first thirty seconds? Your body floods with stress hormones. Your breath quickens. Your mind tells you to get out. But if you stay—if you control your breathing, relax your shoulders, and remain present—you teach yourself a transferable skill: the ability to choose your response under pressure.
Depression and anxiety aren't just mental. They're physiological states with measurable markers: inflammation, cortisol dysregulation, poor heart rate variability. Breathwork and cold exposure address the biology directly.
Cold therapy increases norepinephrine and dopamine—neurotransmitters that support mood and motivation. Breathwork improves vagal tone, which correlates with emotional resilience. You're not thinking your way out of mental health challenges—you're shifting the underlying physiology.
"Cold therapy and breathwork improve mood and self-esteem. Not because they're pleasant, but because they prove you're capable of more than you thought."
Getting into cold water when you don't want to. Finishing thirty breath cycles when your mind wanders. These aren't separate from discipline in other areas—they're the training ground for it.
Every time you do the hard thing voluntarily, you're building evidence for yourself. Not motivation. Evidence. The kind that stacks. The kind that makes the next hard thing slightly less hard.
Box breathing before anything else. Inhale 4 counts, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4. Repeat for five minutes. Notice how your nervous system settles. This is your baseline skill.
Cold showers as ritual. End every shower with 60 seconds of cold. Focus on slowing your breath. Your body will adapt. Your mind will learn to trust you under stress.
Stack them. Breathwork before cold exposure. The combination amplifies both. You'll leave feeling sharper, calmer, more capable.
