Breath and cold exposure (this topic in depth) meet at a simple point: the body learns through direct experience. When the breath steadies under pressure, the mind receives a different message. When cold becomes measured rather than chaotic, resilience becomes trainable.
Transcript grouped by minute marker. Each timestamp opens the source video at that moment.
hi everybody and welcome to today's breath cast on take a deep breath i'm your host mike mayer and today's guest is a good friend of mine called hannah um hannah is 50 journalist 50 wim hof instructor and i actually attended the 2016 wim hof expedition and that's where i met her and she was actually there doing a book on mr wim hof himself so uh lovely short little podcast actually this one about 35 minutes uh really nice to catch up with hannah and i hope you get some good value to understand you know what what drew hannah from being a journalist to somebody that actually then went on and qualified as a wim hof instructor and what sort of things has she learnt along the way uh just a quick message from me if you haven't done so already please like subscribe and share it helps grow our community and spread our message so if you haven't done so already click the bells and like buttons and all that good stuff anyway let's crack on with the breath cast cheers [Applause] okay and we are live so uh welcome hannah thank you for being on the podcast how you doing today thank you i'm great very relaxed very you look very relaxed and you're in slovakia right now enjoy the good weather yes yes summer summer is here uh my parents pool is 31 degrees oh wow that's very wimpy not not very wim hoffy no but at the same time still very very nice to enjoy oh yeah very nice i love warm water as well so
very nice i love warm water as well so not not complaining so just a bit of background first of all from me so uh hannah and i uh met on the wim hof retreat in 2016 december november 2016 um and hannah was writing a book and as a journalist so um haley could just explain for the viewers who you are and yeah just a little bit about your background okay so uh yeah it was four years ago when we met in poland um on a trip with wim hof and back then i had no idea about the method basically i was sent there on a business trip um my boss was with wim a week ago and he was just amazed he loved the whole thing and back then in slovakia and the czech republic people didn't know much about the method there were no instructors it was out there but we didn't know that much about it so he sent me there first to write articles in slovakian and to publish it all over the place but then within the week i was there he changed his mind and he wanted a book because he said that the method is such inspiration you know that there's a lot of material that you can use and that it would eventually do for a book rather than articles yeah so that's the beginning of my story with wim wow so did you know who wim hof was one month before the retreat so a couple of months before that i was pre-reading
of months before that i was pre-reading an article by um by a slovak guy who was in the instructor's course and he wrote an article on wim hof method and he just needed proof reading and some feedback on how he wrote it so i read it i was fascinated but i also didn't really i wouldn't say that i didn't believe it i believe that wim hof was able to do all those stuff but i just couldn't understand how could someone learn it yes so i read an article i gave the instructor to be feedback read it and that was it it was a couple couple of months before but i've never before the course where we met i've never tried anything with the magic no and same for me i had heard of win maybe three or six months before on joe rogan's podcast and uh i didn't i believed it but didn't believe it i was like i just want to go and experience this because i'm not really sure what's going on um and i'm just thinking as i'm seeing you again because it's obviously been a few years since we spoke it was a very male heavy group wasn't it it was mostly men there's like maybe four or five women i think in total no i ended up in your group yeah you're in the same group and if i remember well there were 19 men and me yeah yes yes you're right our group was special and i think you were the first one i talked to actually on on our way to our first ice bath
on our way to our first ice bath you have good memory better memory than me i think i last week i had i don't if you had a chance to see but i interviewed bart um on the podcast i haven't seen it yet but i saw that by birth prong bod prong yeah and bob was our our instructor and it was so wonderful to to sit down with bart because bart was the guy that you know led our group of 20. yeah one one lady in the group i forgot about that um and uh yeah and you know so wonderful to you know hear it from bart again and he was the guy that really although we saw wim and we spent time with him bart was our number one wasn't he we spent you know 98 of the time with bart he took us up the mountain he told us yeah exactly so i would actually say that the person who taught me the method was him rather than yeah yeah me too i mean obviously was there we got to talk to him and i remember i i don't know how when i learned you were writing the book but i remember you going oh i remember when coming to you and going okay let's sit down now you've got some questions to ask me and yeah and you guys went off into the corner and then you interviewed some of us as well and then the book came out yeah that was actually wonderful for me because not only it was my experience with the methods but also got to hear from other people so i was actually really surprised how much people were willing to share you know why they came there what the methods gave them or is was giving them yeah so it was fascinating because i had the insight into the life of the
insight into the life of the participants of the instructors and then of whim himself so i had that insight into all the levels of people that were there yeah fantastic and the book itself people can get the book on amazon i believe um not sure if it's still on amazon it was there but it was german amazon actually we have some troubles with the british one but yeah it's there we have a version in german now as well and in check so [Music] yeah uh and so you're now a wim hof instructor and i think it's maybe one year or two years you've been doing instructions four and a half years wow and so what made you go from journalist interviewing wim hof to wanting to become a wim hof instructor what happened so i'm still a combination of both things i'd say 50 50 but i wasn't really even thinking about becoming instructor but we did the book cloud for the first time we we did it with wim in june 2017 and it was a huge thing with like 500 people a 1500 kilograms of eyes two huge pools light breathing and stuff like that and there are a lot of people that ask me about the book and some of them also asked me if i was teaching the method and i said no of course i'm not you know i'm just starting but it just planted some seeds in my
but it just planted some seeds in my head and back then i live in prague and there were no instructors in the czech republic and more people were coming and asking if they could you know come with me to like or to river if i could show them the method and so i started to think about it i gave it another winter season in prague just to be sure that my body adapted to cold and to be sure that i that my abilities and colds are better than they did they were and yeah the next winter after our course i decided to apply for the instructor's course and i got in and then next year i was preparing myself and now you have people book to go with you and you are the instructor and you take them through the course what sort of things have you experienced as an instructor oh wow so um i would usually do one day courses fundamentals monday courses but also did a weekend course and some private classes and this february just before current night uh i went to teach to poland or reaction fantastic so all kinds of different courses and i have to say i started because it just amazes me what it does with people right after they take icepath like you don't have to wait for the results for
don't have to wait for the results for weeks till people write you hey listen it did this or that to me but right after they're in the ice path or once they're out of it it's just amazing to see their face expression what they're saying how they're feeling so this this was basically what draw me to become instructor just to see how happy people were after the ice paths how proud of themselves they were you know like immediately yes have relaxed they became after the ice bath so this is basically why i decided to teach the method and i'm getting this every single workshop so i'm myself looking for every single workshop which it's just amazing you know to see when people come i'd say like 60 or 70 percent of them you can tell that they're afraid of this um and it's just you know it's like if you were feeling all those feelings with them and then once they're in the eyes you feel the release of emotion and the calmness and everything so i love it yeah yeah i can imagine it's a it must be a real honor and a fantastic feeling to excuse me to guide people through that because i've obviously been uh the person that's been guided and i i always think back to poland and that experience that first night in wim's house where we went into the ice water in his garden it was all dark outside yeah i knew you
it was all dark outside yeah i knew you know i i won't go through the whole story again but i nearly quit after that i thought this is too much i can't do this it's too hard um but then day two day three day four you just you do you're right you become proud of yourself wow i've just put myself through something that i didn't think i could do possibly um and it set me up mentally for the next few years because i realized that oh i can make i can do things that are difficult and i've become stronger because of it so fantastic experience and i'm so so glad that i got to do it um do you did you see whim during the wim hof instructor training or was it a different group of people how did the instructor course work so he was there so first you have to do online course 10 week online course you do that from home and then you do advanced module in instru and wim is not always there but he was there when when i was there um so i saw him there and then he actually was at our master module which took place in poland again in the carcu karkonoshima range so yeah so i saw him a couple of times and he's very supporting he knows how to motivate people it does but again i have to say that it's the instructors there who really told me how to incorporate the method into my everyday life how to really teach it so wim has amazing energy and i'm really glad he
amazing energy and i'm really glad he was there he makes you feel that you can do it you can really do it he's not even doubting it you know yeah but then um the story that you described our first ice bath i'm actually beginning every single workshop i teach with that story really i am because it was my first eye spot uh i haven't took any cold shower before so it was like my first first contact with cold and i remember there was bart but there was also also dominic the other instructor and i remember how extremely important he was there for me um during that first ice bath and how he really felt his presence there right just you know behind me so i remember it every single day and um like i'm not afraid to tell people how afraid i was i don't even you know call it respect or something and just the presence of someone who knows that you can manage that you would manage that you just need to calm down is really helpful so that's basically what i'm trying to do yeah um as an instructor now what i got back then i'm trying to get now amazing yeah because i think there was something more going on that night i think because it was dark it was the first night and it was very slippy all around the back extremely because it was just it was
extremely because it was just mud it's not like wellness that you imagine you know when you're going for a retreat yeah no you couldn't see anything it was slippery it was cold there was ice on the surface of the water so it wasn't very appealing yeah i i was so scared but i said i have to go in quickly i have to get in there and um dominic's saying to me relax relax um i was so tense and i remember going it's easy for you to say you've got a coat and you're not in the water um and then i went out and came back in and you know i just remember i think second or third ice bath i went from that to that i let all the blood flow i took some nice breaths and i remember just relaxing and i remember my mind was clear my body was relaxed and i'm thinking oh i could do this for like 10 minutes probably not but that's what i thought i could do for ages this is different now i've let it you know take over and actually i feel calm and that was the moment really i think everything in my mind started to change in life because oh this is weird we did the breathing that morning in the basement of the hotel that was weird i've never experienced that before so you know in terms of personal development something like that where you meet 60 strangers and spend a week with them incredible what an incredible experience um yeah this is one interesting
um yeah this is one interesting thing for me too because uh one of the things that i wasn't looking for uh before the retreat was exactly this that you have to spend six days with with 20 people or more and i was thinking you know like how can you befriend that many people that fast and i was actually surprised because during that first very first evening in the pool and then in the sauna i felt like i knew you guys for months it was i couldn't believe it it was incredible and i'm still in touch with with some of you and yeah these i actually see at my workshops as well especially during the weekend retreats or the six day retreats that people become friends so easily and quickly it's just it takes in more in normal life it takes years yes to get that close to someone but in situations like this when you have to show that you're afraid of something that you fear something um that you don't want to do something maybe that you have to overcome something you show it to someone straight away then there is it's like there's nothing you have to conceal yeah it's very it's extremely natural to befriend people during wind pop retreats yeah you're half naked you're scared and uh yeah there's no hiding there's no
and uh yeah there's no hiding there's no phone in front of you you're just there you're present and you have i had some wonderful conversations with people and i remember maybe halfway through um one night i just uh where the sauna was there was a door that took you outside into the garden yeah and i remember just lying on this snowy grass in my shorts just looking at the stars and it's like wow this is just incredible nature everywhere and very quickly your body starts to adjust to the cold and you think wow i've got this kind of superhuman power and what i love about wim hof method cold exposure all these sorts of things is here we are you know four years later nearly still talking about it still practicing it every year i go to poland and i go and find somewhere i can go for a swim in the ice and people that don't know me very well or do they was very impressive look he can go in the eyes i could never do that i said no you could anybody can do this you know just takes some focus and some practice um but what i love is the feeling after for me as well so before the cold i'm very nervous i'm sweating oh god i do you know a little bit of breathing a bit of horse dance i go into the cold i'm very present but it's that moment after i come out i love maybe even five minutes you come out of the cold water you sit on the ground you don't even have a towel sometimes you just sit there and you just feel alive i love that feeling so much you still do you still experience that i still do even the part before the ice
still do even the part before the ice path and i find that very fascinating because i went through that hundreds of times and you still feel slightly nervous you still have to be in control of your mindset you know it's so easy to freak out because i often get the question so you don't feel cold well i do i still do feel cold of course i'm more resilient um but the thing is that you just um you know you decide not to fight it it's like when it's too hot outside so what can you do you can put on t-shirt and shorts and that's it and you just have to count the terms with the temperature and for me now the cold is the same thing you know i have to come to terms with it okay well now my skin is gonna be cold but it's fine it's not hurting me i can survive in it i can even go um for an ice bath and then stay outside and i knew that i would warm up eventually yeah but it's interesting that you still or at least i still feel what you described that you have to go into your horses for a while calm down to concentrate and it's amazing because that's what gives you the benefits that your body knows that it's still discomfort even if you've been doing it for four years now yeah still discomfort it's five degree water so yeah that it's gonna be work but exactly as you're
work but exactly as you're saying what you feel afterwards or even during the eye spots for me it's actually amazing to feel how my breath and heartbeat speeds up right when i enter the water and then within 15 or 20 seconds i can actually feel the heartbeat slowing down and still in the ice bath my breath and heartbeat is slower than it was before yeah so that's amazing how you can really calm down in four degrees celsius yes yeah have you tried the putting your head under the ice water as well on your face um not under the ice but under cold water let's say 10 60 degrees yes yeah is it interesting i don't do it often though because i didn't see much difference in it so what i would do is i put my face in the cold water yes because it's easier for the body to adapt if the whole skin surface is in the cold so i would like exhale once in the water and that's it okay yeah because i think i can't remember what there is but i think there are some benefits to getting your face in the cold as well it does something to help relax your i can't remember that i read something about it before but yeah i'll just try and do it once every now and again just quickly on the and suddenly you're so much more awake as well because it's just yeah such a shock to the brain i i've jammed a couple of times but that would be usually when i put my hand on the water otherwise yes we did that on i think day five in
yes we did that on i think day five in poland we we jumped in i didn't jam that day though ah okay i did a little jump some people were doing big jumps back flips i thought no so i climbed halfway down did like a little jump in but it was still quite a shock to the system because yeah yeah you gradually go in whereas the jump you're just in aren't you i like them both they're both interesting experiences yeah it's it's like it switches you off and then switches on right away after four seconds and you feel like electrified yeah what i'd like to do is talk to you a bit about breathing and breath work was this your first experience of breath work or had you done anything to do with breathing exercises before we half so as most of people i'd say my only experience before with breath work was yoga and it was very i'd say passive i've never done any real course it was more like youtube videos and home exercising so uh before the the retreat i've never tried wim hof method breathing um so i was i couldn't believe what it actually did to my body especially because in the first year of the breath work it was very very physical for me i know that a lot of people had emotional release and stuff like that i didn't feel anything of the kindness was very physical but still i was surprised how intense it felt and since then i have to
intense it felt and since then i have to say that breath is i still can't believe what it does and i found a lot of new techniques not just women have method but other breath work techniques and i'm trying to incorporate them as well learn them as well because i believe that like a lot of people are either fond fun for example wim hof method or oxygen advantage and they think that you have to pick one because they they're opposed or something like that but to me every technique has a purpose every every breathing technique was designed because of something because it had a certain specific goal and that's what i do with these breathing techniques yeah i need to calm down so i would use this one i need to do sports i would do this one i need to go deep into my emotional state i was i would use this one so there are plenty of them and so i'm really happy that there are more and more certified instructors of other breathing techniques as well so i'm just trying to learn them and then really just experiment with them and myself to see what every one of them does to me yes so yeah i became a oxygen advantage instructor i think three months ago congrats oh thank you and uh very very interesting very very science heavy um but the the short story is breathe
um but the the short story is breathe through your nose as much as you can um not for things like wim hof but with oxygen advantage it's like how do you breathe for the 25 000 breaths a day but then you have another uh exercise exercise is different from how you breathe all day you know it's like you don't lift weights all day you just do that for a short period of time and that's okay we wouldn't walk around like that all day so um i i really enjoyed learning all the different types and yesterday actually um have you heard of soma so my breath works so um he uh the the guy he's called the renegade pharmacist i i interviewed him yesterday actually so he'll he'll be on the podcast soon um he has just done some work with wim actually um and he is a pharmacist from the uk um that now is in thailand he has this uh breath work company it's similar to wim hof i did one exercise with him yesterday on uh on the podcast um and it was similar but in through the nose out through the mouth and you did that for 20 minutes with breaks retention in there were some so so some different things and the way he said was uh i i know wim i love wim i've worked with wim he's made some music for wim um my work complements what wim hof does it's eight you know there's a lot of people i think that do yoga and mindfulness they also kind of get into somewhere i think as
kind of get into somewhere i think as well but what i found yesterday which was really very interesting for me um after 20 minutes of doing this breathing exercise a i found it easier than wim hof because for me personally the mouth i get very uh it gets quite dry for me i can do it but if i do it sometimes i'm like oh i you know maybe it's too hard and i have some water i found it much easier with the nose and maybe because i've not done this exercise before yesterday lots of colours in my mind shapes colours it was very intense um excellent so i would recommend checking out i think he's got a lot of free stuff online as well um and as i said he's just released an album with wim they've made some music together and stuff so they're kind of linked but going back to your point so many exciting breathing exercises out there and it's so old as well the pranayamas um i didn't get the alternative nostril i thought why do we do this in yoga but then now i understand just slows your breathing right down right that helps relax you get you out of your mind one nostril in hold one nostril out and in terms of slowing your breathing down it's fantastic for that so i'm just on this journey right now trying to learn all these different breathing techniques and it's really important because the thing is that we are not thinking about breath at all right so when i begin my workshops i always ask
when i begin my workshops i always ask if people have any kind of experience with breath work it doesn't have to be women of mother because i know that if they do they are somehow breath aware they know to observe the breath how to work with it how to send it somewhere at a specific place you know how to use all the breathing organs that can be part of inhalation and exhalation and it's just really important and as you're saying you just change one little thing you don't inhale with your mouth but with your nose and it makes a difference and i really encourage people to experiment with it because for me women have methods um through mouth is also very intense and my throat gets dry very quickly so i would do half of every cycle i would do just through my nose okay and then i open my mouth and i inhale with my nose and with my mouth yes straight during the first fundamental workshops i really encourage people to try during the first breathing breathing exercise to just try mouth try it now strike both and see what works for you because you know then you might be discouraged if you agree just with your mouth and you didn't then you might be thinking it's not for you it doesn't work for you which would be a huge pity because women saying the same thing you know you can try mouth nose doesn't really matter yeah and i think it matters as you were saying um
saying um most of the day we have nose for breathing right so we should breathe through our nose but this is an exercise designed for a specific purpose and mouth breathing helps that purpose helps to reach that goal so it has sense even though we know that the nasal breathing is healthier and i would always recommend nasal breathing i still do have to point out that mouth breathing during the women of method has a sense because you're trying to create um or fake certain stress stressful situations and in those especially in physical hard stressful situations you would open your mouth because you would need to get more oxygen more air faster so we are in a way trying to hack our our body our mind and just pretend that something is happening convince the body that it's in a stressful situation so my breathing would help us with this yes yeah but again uh for me it's like you said you're not uh lifting weight all day long you do it for a certain amount of time so that's what method breathing for me yeah and and for you then um what what does your what does it what does a typical week or month look like for you now what's your routines do you have cold showers do you do the breathing every couple of days talk us through what you do so here in
talk us through what you do so here in so i live in prague sometimes in slovakia we have four seasons here so i have to say that each of them is different in winter i almost don't do cold showers because two or three times a week i would go out to a lake or to river and have ice bath outside so then i would enjoy my worm shower back at home i would usually end it with cold water almost every cold shower but not like two or three minutes just a couple of seconds in summer on the contrary i would have culture every single day because the waters are warm it's about 20-25 degrees not cold enough so i would compensate with cold showers but for me the method is also about how you can go back to nature really enjoy it in a new way so every time i can i would use natural source of water rather than ice bath a pool or freezer or anything you know so whenever i have that option i would go out um in autumn when the waters are around 15 or 10 degrees it can be five six times per week but in winter after the second season in winter i realized if i go more than three times a week it makes me tired after a couple of weeks so if the water is below five degrees celsius i have to be careful about the dosage yes i want to make
about the dosage yes i want to make myself stronger with it uh i'm not tired so and this is also my recommendation for everyone you know there i have friends i have actually people who attended my courses and in winter they would go every single morning to voltava river in prague because it energizes them you know they love it it makes them healthier and they're happy about it and it's perfect if it works for them it's perfect but it doesn't work for everyone there are people who can go once a week in winter because otherwise they would feel tired so you really have to find out what's the right dosage for you of cold and it took me almost two years to find out that for me in winter it's two or three times a week and that's enough yeah i think that's really important because again it's like the gym some people can't go gym every day they go twice a week have a good session and that's enough for them some people they need to go every day and they have a lot of energy to use and um for me personally i've found that if i feel a little bit poorly a little bit ill um it's not good because i need the energy to get better exactly because your body is dealing with something else you don't want to edit another stressor to fight against or to adapt to so it makes sense however with breath work uh i would do something every single day so um i have like this i don't know um seasons when i would do every morning wim hof method then for a week i wouldn't do it but i would do some other
would do some other kind of bro some other technique because i just learned that what i when i work with my breath it has effects for the rest of the day so um i'm doing something every day with my breath but it doesn't have to be wim hof method every say single day average three or four times a week i would do him hot method breathing uh the rest of the days it yes it can be pranayama from yoga it can be just uh well there are that many techniques you know can be oxygen advantage it can be just just conscious mindful breathing sometimes you know you just sit and observe your breath and try to prolong your exhalation i would do that for 10 minutes and you can already feel the results so yeah something with the breath that doesn't have to be a technique just focus yeah fantastic i i really love the humming take a breath in and just see how long can i go and you know longer sometimes couple of minutes forever yeah whereas if you just try and hold your breath it's much more difficult humming somehow your body relaxes the hum and uh have you tried it in the water no no okay in the water yes also just the last winter um i've never tried it before and it calms you down a lot because it prolongs the exhalation it you know turns on the
the exhalation it you know turns on the the parasympathetic nervous system yeah and you calm down during the the exhalation and if you go for two minutes then you do this humming or two you know two or three times and you're there yeah so it really and i saw that it helps uh beginners as well okay oh to relax for the water yeah fantastic fantastic so if people want to find you is there any sort of social media or if they wanted to book a wim hof course with you how could they go about finding you yes so i would post my workshops on official wim hof method website i have my own website as well and i'm on facebook and instagram i would usually teach in prague sometimes somewhere else in the czech republic in the mountains or some other towns and cities and it's usually in slovak but once or twice a year i do something in english i usually invite another instructor uh to join me i had one scott instructor from scotland and how scottish have mexicans so i would combine it with someone else um and to offer it in english because there are a lot of foreigners in prague english speakers who are interested in the method as well so yeah fantastic so yeah if you send me the descriptions i'll put them in the things below guys um and we need to try and organize and meet up at some point and get some of the group back together one winter i think that'd be fantastic
one winter i think that'd be fantastic we talk about it on facebook don't we every year to make it happen as a group yeah it might be especially hard this winter though yeah that's that's very true we'll see but we could maybe take some ice bath at home at the same time a zoom ice bath maybe yeah fantastic well hamlet listen thank you so much for making the time to come on uh i've really it's been great to see you again virtually and talk to you um i think it's fantastic that you become a wim hof instructor you've got a really great energy about you and i would really recommend people have the opportunity to go and spend some time with hannah i think you'll learn a lot um and uh guys i just want to say a big thank you uh for watching uh leave a comment below subscribe like and share if you can afford a couple of pounds on patreon to support the channel please do so uh links to everything's below in the description uh have a wonderful day and uh we'll see you on the next video thanks a lot take care everybody take care bye
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Interview with Wim Hof Instructor & Author Hana Moravcikova | TAKE A DEEP BREATH | Breathcast offers a useful lens on how modern recovery is changing: less performance theatre, more deliberate practice. The details vary, but the principle is steady. The body adapts when the signal is clear and the dose is respectful.
37 minute conversation 3 core levers: breath, temperature, attention 1 repeatable practice: return to equilibrium
Breathing is automatic, but it is also accessible. That makes it a rare bridge between conscious attention and the nervous system. A slower, fuller breath can shift the body away from alarm and toward control.
Cold water reveals the stress response without disguise. The first reaction is often sharp: a gasp, a tightened chest, a quick urge to escape. The practice begins when awareness stays present inside that reaction.
The most useful protocols are repeatable. Short, deliberate exposure builds trust. The body learns that intensity can be met, held, and released.
Mental clarity is not only a thought exercise. It is often the result of physiology changing state. Breath, temperature, and attention give the mind a steadier foundation.
The pause is part of the performance. A measured stressor only serves you when recovery is built into the design.
Keep the first dose modest enough that your breath remains controlled.
Pair intensity with recovery. Heat, cold, and stillness all have a role.
Track how you feel afterward, not only what you endured during the session.
