One of the things I have recently paid more attention to is breathing. Breathing is something we do every second but not know too much about it. Recently, the more I started getting into different sports, learned about meditation and stress management, the more I saw how crucial breathing is.
I heard this guy called Wim Hof a while ago after a 10K run from a friend. Today I came across the episode of Joe Rogan Experience that this guy joined. Initially, when he was talking about deep breathing and how it gives us joy, affects our health, etc., Joe Rogan did not clearly understand what he meant by a breathing technique other than our usual breathing and asked several times what he means. Then he asked Rogan to quickly and deeply inhale and exhale for 30 times. After 30 times, he asked him to take a deep breath and hold it. Rogan was able to hold his breath around 3.5 mins.
It looked quite interesting to me and wanted to give it a try. I found the video below that he guides his breathing technique. It consists of 3 sessions where each session has 30 deep inhale-exhale followed by inhaling a deep breath and holding it for 1, 1.5 mins and 2 mins. I watched the video and did the exercise at the same time. My normal breath is as shallow as any person. After 10th deep inhale-exhale, I started feeling light-headed but kept going. I was able to hold my breath for targeted times for each session. But to me rather than being able to hold my breath for a long time, the amount of oxygen that I felt in my body was extraordinary. My mind also became noticeably more vigilant after that. On the other hand, my sore throat got a bit sorer, but I’m not sure if it’s because of that ;)
Being my mind vigilant is something I really need. Still, it is too early to say that this technique makes a massive difference. I will keep doing this breathing exercise for a few days more and see how it goes.