Shadee Elmasry – Muslims React to the Wim Hof Method

Have you ever looked into Wim Hof? Yeah.

The the breathing expert. Wim Hof is amazing,

actually. This guy has done feats just by

the way he maneuvers the oxygen in his

body.

I haven't done any more than with him

than the 15 minute

exercise that he has. Yeah. I just you

know, I I read his book and the

course, and I actually wanted to talk to

you about it maybe offline one day around

what is in our tradition around vick. Like

we we must have access to all of

these things in our tradition. That Wim Hof,

how he manipulates his breath, because I I've

read about

people, you know,

who've went, you know, Muslims who've went to

mountains in in in the ice cold, and

and like sweat was, you know, coming off

their butt. Like, I I believe what we

have in our tradition, all of these things

that went off, but what I what I

was gonna say is that even in the

winter,

if you manipulate your breath and do certain

things and don't allow yourself to, you Yeah.

Actually, go for a run,

and and without even needing a face mask.

Okay.

With the Wim Hof method, one thing I

do know for sure is that one of

the reasons people feel tired

in the day is because they don't breathe

well at night.

Yeah.

If you don't breathe well at night, there's

usually 1 or 2 reasons.

Well, it's either the air is not circulating

or your nose

your septum is deviated or something.

I mean, breath breath is such a fascinating

subject. If you just read about

the fact that most of us do not

most everyone's shallow breathing all day.

You know? Like, people are not breathing. They're

not using the majority of the lung capacity.

Yeah. And

even in running,

like breathing and running is so important, like,

because you know, you, you, you burn fat

on the exhalation, on the

And so if, if you

manipulate your breathing when you're running, you can

go you can actually you can lower your

heart rate and go longer.

Mhmm. It means you can breathe right. If

you breathe right, most people, when they start

running, they go they just instinctually, before they

even need it, they go

you know, you you need to do that.

And so, you know, breathing from your nose,

diaphragmic breathing,

it really does go along with Can you

tell us summarize for us what Wim Hof's

theory is?

Oh, I mean, it's such a really it's

a big theory, and and

I what what I can summarize is a

is a is a he he believes

through manipulation of breath,

you can control what

most

people believe is uncontrollable.

So for example,

he had himself

in a controlled environment.

He was injected with a,

it was it was a poison of some

sort, and and this poison, if you give

it to a normal person, they go into

anaphylactic

shock, and the body will start basically going

like, you lose control, because

you don't you don't control that aspect of

your autonomic nervous system. And so poison goes

in, your body just,

you know, has a an act a reaction

that you cannot control. So his theory was

through breath, he can control that reaction. He

can basically

hey. Relax, buddy. It's okay. Don't don't.

And so he did. And so he through

controlling his breath, he basically signaled to his

body, his parasympathetic nervous system, everything is fine.

And and that that's what he that's how

he's able to run the marathon in Everest,

because the body wants to go into shock,

and he's saying, hey. Everything's okay. Do breath

to work. Don't don't don't go into shock.

Don't, you know, no need to go into

hypothermia.

Just relax. Mhmm.

And so then people thought, okay. He must

have been he must be a unicorn. Then

he taught people how to do this thing.

Yeah. Brought a bunch of people to Kilimanjaro,

wearing basically

boxers,

and then he had a bunch of people

injected.

So by through the manipulation

of breath, you can tell your body,

hey. It's gonna be okay. You know, that

that that's the theory of the Wim Hof

method. I remember,

listening or reading about something about tennis players

Yeah. And how in tennis, you may have

seen this too.

In tennis,

they try to separate what is it that

makes winners

keep winning

and people hit a wall

at the tough moments. And everyone says stuff

that it's it's all in in their head.

Right? And tennis players, they're getting their head

more than anyone else because he's the only

one on the court. Whereas a team,

you can maybe just transfer some of the

stress to another player.

It's a team sport. So tennis is different

in that regard. And it's also a moment.

Unlike boxing, you're in the moment. Right? But

in tennis, there's a pause,

and people get iced in that pause. And

that's where they separate winners from losers is

in the pause.

So

and they came upon ultimately the the the

the symptom

of the stress,

of the how they handle the stress is

how they breathe.

Okay. So they detected all of a sudden

in the stressful moment,

the loser

is somebody who who just he says stop

breathing.

He got tight. Stop breathing. When you do

that,

your body gets tired and your mind can't

think.

But the guys who made it through those

were the guys who,

who kept breathing normally.

And they said, like, what did you do

at that point? Well, I I started to

think of hold on. We can turn this

around. So he had a positive thought, but

the positive thought impacted

the breathing.

So now they took these losers, and they

said, alright. Forget trying to control thoughts. That's

hard. Why don't we just tell them to

control breathing?

Right?

So they went to the symptom,

and they found that a lot of players,

all of a sudden,

they're more successful in these

pressure moments

because they treated the symptoms. So the the

root and the symptom may actually have an

interaction.

It's not just thoughts

that produce

tight breathing or good breathing. It could be

the opposite too.

I mean, it's it's amazing. I got there

was a there's a Sheikh here in Istanbul

that's constantly it's like you listen to him.

He's always saying, you know, yellow tea.

Yellow tea.

And,

and in in that, he's

exhaling a lot of oxygen. You know? Well,

you know, it's it's basically like, you know,

like Wim Hof is a practice. Even running

is a practice. You know? Just

improve my running and get into this, you

know, runner's high in the zone and breathing

and all this kind of stuff, and I

don't take that mentality of the salah. Like

how like salah to me is not a

practice. You know,

practice that I'm trying to improve, and it's

not it's just something like, in New Jersey,

I grew up and we both grew up

in New Jersey. It's something and I went

to Islamic school. I went to.

It's something you do so you don't go

to *. You know? Yeah. You know? You

know? And and and a lot of that

stuff continues into adulthood, and so I always

like, if if

if I treat Sala the same way I

treat, like, women, and study it in the

same way I studied breathing, you know, can

that open I'm sure it can open infinitely

more interesting and important doors than women walking.

It's just not something I

Mhmm. And and also,

I I wanna think about how

dhikr without trying has to regulate breathing. That's

why I think there there has to be

a physical as well as a spiritual and

a, like, a mental and a physical element.

The mental is the meaning of what you're

saying. The spiritual is what Allah has put

in the blessing of saying these words. Simple

as that. Just a he put a blessing.

If you say this, I send you blessings.

That's it.

Thirdly, there is must be physical because if

I repeat

without realizing within 5 minutes, I'm gonna be

less than that. Within 30 seconds, my breathing

is regulated.

Once your breathing is regulated, all of a

sudden, the the nervousness goes down.

Yeah. Right? So there has to be a

link.

And I and it doesn't and you don't

need to do controlled breathing. You just say

the right words.