Tag: extreme

Benefits of cold water: Health guru and extreme athlete Wim Hof says we have ‘power within’ to heal disease

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Benefits of cold water: Health guru and extreme athlete Wim Hof says we have ‘power within’ to heal disease

The ability to control our health could be right inside us.

This is according to the philosophy and practices of Dutch athlete Wim Hof, father of the Wim Hof Method.

Hof, 63, revealed how his teachings have revolutionized public health in an on-camera interview from the Netherlands with Fox News Digital.

LIFE-CHANGING COLD THERAPY HELPS PENNSYLVANIA MOM WITH AWFUL BACK PAIN: ‘COULD PICK UP MY DAUGHTER’ AGAIN

The Wim Hof Method has three pillars: cold plunging, breathing and mindset.

The method has been proven scientifically — according to numerous medical journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) — to have monumental impacts on mental and physical health.

Wim Hof, known as the "Iceman" for his ability to withstand seemingly impossible levels of cold, demonstrates at a hotel in Kathmandu in May 2007.  

Wim Hof, known as the “Iceman” for his ability to withstand seemingly impossible levels of cold, demonstrates at a hotel in Kathmandu in May 2007.   (DEVENDRA MAN SINGH./AFP via Getty Images)

Nicknamed “the Iceman,” Hof shared that one chief benefit of his method is reducing inflammation. It’s the leading cause of most ailments and autoimmune diseases, he noted.

“I’m bringing my knowledge from nature through science to global health care, showing that through science — no speculation — we are able to do so much more within our physiology,” he said. 

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“And I think it’s time to have that get out to the world to bring people some consolation in these confusing times, that there is much more autonomy over mind and body,” he said.

“I’m a man on a mission. I want everybody to be happy, strong and healthy.”

Wim Hof joined Fox News Digital from the Netherlands for an on-camera interview on March 27, 2023.

Wim Hof joined Fox News Digital from the Netherlands for an on-camera interview on March 27, 2023. (Angelica Stabile/Fox News Digital)

His “powerful” techniques are “available for anybody” worldwide, he said. All it takes is commitment and a little cold water.

Who is Wim Hof?

Hof is best known for his daring physical feats, such as running marathons while barefoot beyond the polar circle and climbing through the “death zone” of Mt. Everest in only his shorts.

“I began to have control over my emotions.”

The extreme athlete first felt the pull to immerse himself in the cold as a kid growing up in Sittard, Netherlands, according to his book, “The Wim Hof Method.”

At 17, Hof took his first cold plunge on a Sunday morning in winter at Beatrixpark in Almere, Netherlands — and discovered the power of cold water.

Hof met his wife, Olaya, when he was 22 years old. The couple had four children together.

Olaya struggled with depression — and in 1995, she fell victim to the illness and committed suicide.

“The whole of psychiatry could not help [Olaya],” he said. “How broken I was in my heart and there was nothing that could help me.”

WARNING SIGNS OF SUICIDE: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT PREVENTION, RED FLAGS AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUE

He continued, “I had no money. I had four kids left behind and the love of my

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Inside the business of extreme fitness

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Inside the business of extreme fitness

This story contains details about body image issues, eating disorders and suicide that may be disturbing to some readers.

Here on the Marketplace Morning Report we have a special segment called “Econ Extra Credit”, where we watch a documentary a month with certain themes that are right up our alley. This month we turned to a classic, featuring a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, called “Pumping Iron.” The film did a lot to launch the sport of bodybuilding from the fringes into the mainstream, but it also helped set off a fit explosion.

And while the fitness industry saw growth back then, it wasn’t yet in the algorithm. Now, teens and young adults are constantly told they are only a social media click away from their next fitness goals. But when does inspiration turn into harm? And what’s the role of social media in sharing harmful fitness messages?

To learn more about the fitness industry’s role on social media and the business of extreme fitness, Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke with Stephen Mayville, a licensed psychologist based in Reno, who’s done work centered around muscle dysmorphia and steroid misuse. 

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: I don’t know, some people of a certain age, remember the ads of muscle men, sometimes muscle women in magazines and maybe one of these bodybuilder events may have caught some people’s attention, but now it’s really everywhere. You can wake up, pick up your phone and see these images. Would you say it’s more ubiquitous?

Stephen Mayville: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it makes it easy. You know, in the day of… in the age of social media, just everybody can join, everybody can participate. So you start to view things and, you know, algorithms get used to your preferences and you can be bombarded by that as much as you want or maybe in some cases don’t want.

Brancaccio: Well if we think about that for a second, for instance, on just, to pick one, TikTok. If it notices, their algorithm, that you’re lingering over a couple of these images, you might get a whole lot more. And suddenly you’re surrounded and you didn’t fully, consciously choose to be surrounded by the images.

Mayville: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, and these algorithms pick up on increasing the popularity of people who are looked at more and then there’s a big reinforcement contingency for those people creating more content too. So it’s sort of a self perpetuating thing that tends to grow over time.

Brancaccio: Yeah. Would you say, I mean, you’ve seen it in your practice, would you say it has more harmful effects than what we’re seeing from the 1970s? With the championship weightlifters occasionally having their, you know, competitions?

Mayville: Sure, yes. And, you know, you have, you know, the old days of bodybuilding, certainly, you know, I viewed that when I was playing football when I was younger and thinking ‘I can obtain this build, if I can just use this

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Op-Ed: Does physical therapy get the job done for extreme pain?

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Op-Ed: Does physical therapy get the job done for extreme pain?

Continual suffering influences 1 in 6 folks in the United States and around the globe, and is the most prevalent bring about of disability. Nevertheless medicine’s desperate tries to address serious soreness sparked the opioid epidemic. And while lots of promising non-opioid therapies exist, some of them recently produced, clients face innumerable boundaries in accessing them.

To overcome the opioid epidemic, it is not plenty of to just lessen how quite a few opioids doctors prescribe. We require to be ready to supply clients evidence-based mostly solutions. Yet for that to come about, we need to also superior have an understanding of the essential character of long-term suffering, which is as considerably an emotion we feel in our minds as it is a physical sensation professional by our system.

Acceptance and commitment remedy and exercising are the two safer and extra effective for chronic discomfort than opioids, which can in fact enhance how a lot those with long-term discomfort damage.

“As a hospice nurse, I sense I have a quite fantastic knowing of suffering management,” stated Jeanne Dietrich-Harrison, whose son died of an opioid overdose past calendar year just after he was approved the prescription drugs for chronic pain that resulted from pancreatitis. “Even with dying people we use a multidimensional approach, not just opioids.”

Sad to say, expert services this kind of as physical and cognitive therapy had been hit tricky by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the closure of numerous ache rehabilitation facilities. And supplied that there are only 74 certified suffering rehab facilities in the whole United States, the need to have and need considerably exceeds the offer of these potent cures even in the most effective of occasions.

Developments that find to defang the emotional and psychological facets of soreness provide a ray of hope for those people who hurt endlessly. On the internet multidisciplinary programs have been shown to be helpful for serious soreness. Other improvements involve telemedicine for harm reduction solutions for patients who are approved opioids enlargement of on the net team therapy and soreness training sessions and higher versatility in dwelling delivery of prescriptions.

A new variety of cognitive remedy referred to as ache reprocessing remedy — which in accordance to researchers teaches people that “the mind actively constructs principal chronic discomfort in the absence of tissue problems and that reappraising the leads to and menace worth of suffering can lower or get rid of it” — led to 52% of back again pain sufferers remaining pain-free of charge, in contrast with just 16% of all those who obtained standard care.

The look for for alternate solutions for long-term ache has started to push the really boundary of what constitutes procedure. In November 2021, the Food and Drug Administration accepted the very first digital actuality system proven in randomized clinical trials to help folks with serious lower back again pain. The system incorporates tactics these kinds of as distraction, leisure, behavior modification and raising bodily consciousness, in day-to-day virtual reality classes above

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