What Doesn't Kill You...

Humans are interesting creatures.  I watched a couple of documentaries the last two weeks that really made me think about the nature of physical suffering.  Nobody wants pain or suffering, right? But yet, we actually kind of do.  Sometimes we purposely seek it out.  Why is that?

One of the movies I watched was about Bikram Choudry.  He is the founder of Bikram yoga and popularized the whole hot yoga trend where people practice in rooms heated over 100 degrees.  I've tried it three times, and each time I felt utterly depleted afterward and decided it just wasn't for me.  But people get really addicted to it and swear by it. The interesting thing about Bikram is, not only is the room miserably hot, but his style and personality are quite abusive to his students and he has since fled the country due to litigation over allegations of sexual assault and abusive behavior. Still, thousands of people happily forked over thousands of dollars to train with him, and they still do today. 

The other documentary was about the mountains and the draw that they have for us.  Mountains are not welcoming places. They are starkly beautiful, but they are not places you go for quiet rest and relaxation. In ages past, mountains were forbidding places of deep mystery, and nobody would go there on purpose. Mountains are cold, hard, unforgiving environments. How many people have been injured or died while trying to cross passes or reach summits? Still, the mountains draw people in. People will pay dearly for the opportunity to experience some of the most intense suffering of their lives in attempts to climb the highest peaks in the most heinous conditions imaginable.

I'm no stranger to the joy of suffering.  Each summer, I purposely, and with great delight, weigh myself down with many pounds of gear on my back so that I can go out into the forests or mountains and  expose my fair skin to the punishing effects of the sun (or perhaps rain or wind), put up with all manner of biting bugs eager to make a meal of me, and generally make myself quite exhausted with the effort of it all as I find myself counting down the steps or paddle strokes until I can make camp and sleep on the cold hard ground.  And I love it.

So why do we do it?

Maybe its the old adage, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  While modern life has its challenges, most of them are not physical challenges.  Life is pretty cushy for most of us in the western world who are not manual laborers.  I think we all long to test our mettle in some way. There is something deeply satisfying about doing something really, physically hard, and somehow getting through it. Smooth seas never made for a skilled sailor.  Muscles don't grow from sitting in the easy chair. We get better, and stronger, when we are challenged.

This is exactly why I've started challenging myself with the Wim Hof method. Wim Hof is a slightly insane Dutch guy who is also known as the Ice Man.  He's done some pretty astounding feats such as a climbing to the death zone of Mt. Everest and running a marathon above the Arctic Circle, both times wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. He holds records for swimming under the ice and immersing himself in ice water for a couple of hours without his body temperature dropping. Through experimentation, he has learned how to hack his body so that he can control his autonomic nervous system and charge up his immune system.  He teaches some specific breathing exercises and controlled cold exposure in an effort to help people improve their health and well-being. Even people with chronic diseases like Parkinson's and cancer have found better health through his method.  Hof believes that humans evolved to be able to handle cold temperatures, but in our modern lives, we have climate controlled ourselves into a state of weakness. By exposing ourselves gradually to the cold, we can turn on all kinds of mechanisms within our bodies that help us regulate body temperature, build stronger immune systems, metabolize fat more efficiently, and reduce chronic inflammation.

I already practiced a lot of breathing exercises, so that part wasn't hard to add to my daily routine, but the part I really had a hard time with was the cold exposure. Wim Hof suggests cold showers and ice baths as part of the methodology. Yes. Cold showers. In the middle of winter.  Did I mention this guy is a little bit crazy?  I have always hated the cold, so why was I even considering this?  But somehow Wim Hof kept turning up in just about every podcast I listen to and I kept hearing how awesome it was to experience this cold therapy.  It took me nearly two months of just doing the breathing exercises before I finally summoned up the courage to try the cold showers. So I'm as surprised as anybody to say that I am finding that I almost enjoy it. 

OK. Enjoy might be a strong word, but there is something pretty empowering about it. Despite the fact that the outside temperature is now below freezing, and the water coming out of the pipes is tremendously cold this time of year about (50 degrees), I have been taking a cold shower nearly every day for the past two months.  I start out with warm water, and then I shut off all the hot water so that only the cold is running.  The first few seconds are the worst. But it is surprising how, if I stay calm and just keep my breathing steady, my body knows how to handle it. I turn the warm back on when I feel I can't do it anymore, usually after about one minute, and then I end with another 15 to 20 seconds of cold.  It is very bracing, to say the least, and I am, most certainly very AWAKE by this point.

Will it make a difference for me in the long run with my health?  I have my quarterly scans at the end of the month, and we will see.  But even if nothing changes with my scans, the plain fact of the matter is that I do feel better. I'm finding I've become much more tolerant of the cold weather this winter, and I don't feel nearly as cold as I used to feel. My skin is in better health with less itchiness (itching is a side effect of one of the drugs I get), and I have really good energy and focus.

But mostly, it makes me feel powerful.  And that feeling, I think, is what it's all about. Having cancer or any kind of illness can make you feel like you are somehow weak and frail. So often, though, our mental challenges are far bigger than the physical challenges.  If we can just get out of our heads sometimes, we find that our bodies have the wisdom to know just what to do. These bodies of ours are pretty amazing. Just the fact that you can think about scratching your nose, and then make it happen, is a feat of neurological wonder.

When I take that cold shower, I see how quickly my body warms me back up the minute I step out. It's quite remarkable. We focus so often on the things that are wrong with us, that we forget about the millions of things that go right every single moment. It helps me to recognize that we are so much stronger than we think we are and that every challenge just makes us a little bit stronger for the future.