Today’s Dadly Daily Declaration comes from Chapter 2 (titled Deep Breath, Deep Freeze) of Aubrey Marcus’ book, Own The Day, Own Your Life. This chapter focuses on embracing two new allies in the fight against stress and its many cohorts. Your morning routine needs to involve a deep breath and the rush that comes with exposing yourself to nature’s extremes for a few minutes and the willpower you cultivate in the process.
In our hyper comfortable existence, our bodies can’t distinguish between physical threats and psychosocial threats. Hence, we are in a state of chronic stress. To help alleviate that chronic stress, Marcus posits we need to incorporate two items into our morning routine: The Wim Hof Breathing Method or other forms of intentional deep breathing and cold exposure (accessed during your shower, in a cold tub or during cryotherapy).
The Wim Hof Method involves the following:
- Inhale through the nose or mouth into the belly with deep, powerful breaths. Exhale without additional effort. Keep a steady pace and focus and drawing the breath deep into your belly. Do this until you feel a slight light-headedness and a tingling sensation in your extremities (about 30 breaths).
- Once you start to feel the tingling, draw the breath in more time and fill your lungs to maximum capacity. Calmly let the air out and hold for as long as you can at the bottom of the breath.
Now, combine the Wim Hof Method with cold exposure. It’s truly life altering in that it promotes healing and growth! Here’s how:
- Take your normal hot shower. Once you’ve completed your hygienic part of the shower, begin a cycle of Wim Hof breathing.
- Once you feel the tingling, turn the water to cold and let it hit every part of your body. As Marcus points out, “Listen to your body’s reaction. Listen to the cold. It’s telling you what to do: Breathe More!”
- Continue Wim Hof breaths until your breathing calms.
- Hold at the bottom of breath until the gasp reflex kicks in
- Aim for cold exposure of 3 minutes
Marcus writes further, which is today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:
If I am truly owning my day, owning my life, it doesn’t matter what is happening externally. To wait for the external world to change before you alleviate your stress is a fool’s errand. Chronic stress is less about the environment, and more about your response to it. So own it. Put yourself intentionally into the occasional fire, and take yourself intentionally out of the chronic stress oven. It’s a choice, your choice. Take that power and never give it away, especially to something as capricious as fate and fortune.
