Commusings: The Benefits of Doing Hard Things

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Dear Commune Community,

Candidly and simply, I abhor the cold. Submerging myself in an ice bath is among the most ghastly activities I could name. However, I was pleased to discover I was not alone. Even the “Ice Man” Wim Hof prefers a balmy tropical day to a frigid one. Wim and his extensive, fun-loving brood visited Commune Topanga for three wonderful weeks in March 2019.

When I asked him where he prefers to holiday, he replied, “Anywhere with a palm tree!”

“Not the cold?” I asked, surprised.

“I hate the cold!” Wim thundered like a Norse God. And then belly laughed, shaking the ground around us.

Wim’s visit was marvelous. Every morning, amid the thick marine layer, I would watch him toodle out naked to the plunge and sink in with utter ease. The temperature of the water hovered just above freezing. Ice blocks bobbed like apples on the water’s upper crust. Unmoved, Wim would rest there like a Buddha, with just an intimation of a smile across his face. After fifteen minutes, he’d rouse himself from the ice, don a minuscule pair of shorts, and go tend the garden. I would join him there.

Upon noticing me, Wim would launch immediately into a 70-decibel harangue on the health benefits of breathwork and ice bath immersion with the same vim and vigor as he had the previous day. He bellowed on about the science, selling it to me as if we’d never met. This pattern repeated itself throughout his stay. Part of Wim’s remarkable success rests on his indefatigable enthusiasm for this singular practice. He’s like Taylor Swift on tour. He plays the hits. Over and over. And people love it.

Every afternoon, plungers of all ilks drifted into Commune. Wim held court like a king, leading the brave, goose-bumped masses in super-ventilating breathwork, ice bathing, and his iconic horse dance.

I had assiduously avoided cold water all my life. The mere sight of a cool, freshwater lake was enough to palpate my heart. 

That is, until I was baptized by Wim Hof himself. 

Wim did the impossible. He got me into the ice. And this most dreaded ritual became one of the most important components of my health journey.

What happens when you immerse yourself in the cold? Well, your body has an involuntary response characterized by an uncontrollable gasp for air and increased respiratory rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. Levels of adrenaline can increase 500 percent. This reaction can elicit a feeling of panic that bubbles up from somewhere deep in your thoracic and into your head. It screams at you, “Get out!” These are normal, adaptive, bottom-up responses of the sympathetic nervous system.

And right then … before you hastily clamor to escape cold’s clutch … there is a moment. There is the smallest opportunity to leverage your breath and neo-mammalian prefrontal cortex to tame the flailings of your hindbrain. You apply top-down voluntary pressure on bottom-up involuntary response. Through mental concentration and the breath, you can neutralize feelings of cold-elicited panic. 

You start small with short bouts at shocking but not unreasonable temperatures. And, slowly, this practice becomes a skill with pleiotropic benefits. I double-down on my deliberate cold therapy the week before I go to the dentist, for getting in the cold evokes the same anxiety as Dr. Nikki does as she prepares a 12-inch syringe destined for the innards of my mouth.

Cold therapy has many benefits, from the metabolic to the anti-inflammatory. But, in my humble opinion, the psychological dividends are the most profitable. By applying conscious top-down pressure on unconscious bottom-up response, you cultivate space between stimulus and response. And, as Viktor Frankl famously proposed, in that space lies your liberation.

You build psychological resilience that then punctuates your life such that you can manage stress as it inevitably arises. And it will – in traffic, in business, in marriage, in parenthood.

I still side-eye my cold plunge every morning. I say to myself, “I’ll just skip it today.” That refrain is my cue to submerge. Being healthy can be simple, but no one said it would be easy. There are incredible benefits to doing hard things. And doing hard things makes doing other hard things easier.

This concept is at the heart of my new book, Good Stress: The Health Benefits of Doing Hard Things. I unpack the protocols, traditions, and benefits of hard things that have incredible benefits … like cold (and heat) therapy, fasting, resistance training, and even stressful conversations.

I am thrilled to include a free hardcover copy of the book when you purchase Commune Lifetime Membership during this month’s sale. I’ll also send you a sneak peek of the first two chapters in written and audio form.

The book is the result of my many conversations with the hundreds of world-renowned experts featured on Commune. When you join Membership you get access to more than 150 online courses by these wonderful teachers on integrative medicine, spirituality, yoga, meditation, relationships, mindfulness, and more.

You still have to actually do the work, but we put the wisdom and follow-along practices right at your fingertips. I hope you’ll take the plunge.

In love, include me,
Jeff Krasno