Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-Two

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“The Wim Hof Method,” by Wim Hof will cool your heals! It is a nuclear Bookish Weapon for sure. If you decide to read the book you need to consider it as an experiment. That means you need to practice the method. Why would you want to actually do what he says to do? It is the only way you will understand what he is talking about.

That’s why I decided to begin taking cold showers and practicing the breathing method. To date I have been taking the showers for a couple months, but the breathing only for two weeks so far.

The Cold

First, let’s talk about the cold. As you probably know Wim Hof is known as the Ice Man. He climbed Mt Everest and got stuck in the death zone. Of course he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He has climbed Kili multiple times with groups of people also with no shirt. You don’t need to climb a mountain with no shirt. Wim says to start out with 30 seconds of cold after you have the warm water turned on for a bit. I just jump into the cold. There is benefit for alternating between hot and cold so you should consider that too.

No cold plunges for me as I have no resource for those and I have no desire to go hiking with my shirt off. None! However, the cold showers wake you up in the morning and become somewhat addictive.

The Breathing

Now the breathing technique might surprise you because you can get cold doing it. It is because the capillaries under your skin close so your brain thinks you are cold. My teeth chatter. However, it could be my breathing technique is off a bit.

So what do you do? Breath in as you extend your stomach and then exhale. That is one count. You do that thirty or forty times. Then on the last exhale you hold your breath for as long as you can. Then you inhale and hold it for fifteen seconds. Then exhale and do the whole 30 or 40 two more times. How long can you hold our breath? I could hold mine maybe thirty seconds. Now, at the end of the last thirty I can hold it for four minutes. So far I have not passed out.

The Mind

This is the third pillar in Wim Hof’s method. It is an important one and probably the most difficult to master at least from my perspective. He gives you a basic mindset exercise and discusses how to meditate, but this area is covered far less than the other two. I suspect it is the secret sauce. He says it is what allowed him to set all the records and accomplish what he has so far.

It seems that in all areas of life your mindset is king. It will serve you or bring you down.

Results

Why do anything unless it produces some positive results. That is what I was looking for when I decided to do the breathing. I already knew the benefits of cold showers. For one thing they boost affect your Vagal nerve so increase the parasympathetic side of your autonomic nervous system. But the breathing was unfamiliar to me.

What I discovered is that once I have completed a breathing session I feel very calm and surprisingly am in a very positive emotional state. As I said I have been doing the breathing for only two weeks as of this writing so who knows what might happen as this journey continues. I was hoping for an anti-inflammatory effect which I could measure by whether my arthritis was better or worse. So far the jury is out.

Go Hiking Because You Are Built for It

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It is so obvious, but it took the title of today’s Bookish Weapon to really consider this. You have two legs and two feet. Your ancestors walked a lot. Actually, no. They hiked! Everywhere!

So why no do something you were built for? It makes perfect sense. However, any have excuses.

My Back Hurts

You are not using your back when you hike and haven’t you heard the mantra of physical therapists everywhere; motion is lotion! Wim Hof (the Iceman) says BREATH!! I say MOVE. What better way to move than using your legs and feet.

Your back will heal and get stronger as you move. Maybe no pack on your back for now. Just get yourself up a mountain.

But My Knees Hurt

Yes, so do mine. Especially the left one, but both have arthritis. One has had surgery. What is the best medicine for that? Movement!!! After a coupe hours of hiking your knees are gong to feel better (usually). Not so much if you fall down and bang it on a rock.

Make sure you use the Couch stretch after climbing. If you don’t know what the Couch stretch is then look it up online under Kelly Starrett.

I Am Too Old

Unless you are in your nineties, you can’t play the age card with me. I am seventy-five. I don’t listen to people that say I shouldn’t climb mountains at my age.

Remember the cliche that you are only as old as you think you are. Never stop moving. Can you get up off the floor without using your hands? Neither can I, but that doesn’t stop me. It might keep me out of the 100 year old Olympics according to Dr. Peter Attia, but it won’t keep me off a mountain.

Go Hiking and Get Your Life Back

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So you ask me, “How does that work?” Well, if you have been reading these odes to the mountains you will understand that is the easiest task. All it takes is a few hikes and your life changes.

How does it change? First, you go hiking. Before you went hiking you were so distracted by emails, Instagram, Tik Tok, and even Microsoft teams that you had lost your life. It had disappeared into the electronic Matrix. Once you get on the trails things settle down.

The Matrix

You might think that when you are looking at your phone instead of looking at the person across from you that you have your life firmly in hand. Or you are supposed to be exercising but you are sitting on a bench at the gym staring at your phone.

Your mind is in a Matrix composed of all the lures of the electronic universe. You have to escape it to see it for what it is, an addiction so heinous that it will grind you up and spit you out into a pile of wasted lives.

Busyness

Oh, you say that you have your phone under control and you are in charge of it. But you are going from one meeting to another, rushing from one office to another, catching a plane, a lunch date, or grabbing a bite on the run. You have lost your life in the busyness of it.

How long has it been since you had time, even ten minutes to sit and think? A long time I imagine.

The Solution

The best solution is to go hiking! Put your phone in your pack and only take it out to take a picture when you get to the top of a mountain. If you need to take a picture before you reach the top then you still need to keep it in your pack. Make it hard to get at.

Then you hiking, with trees surrounding you and the odor of pine needles or will strawberries wafting up to you. The breeze is on your face. You relax as you push yourself forward. You become one with nature. You get your life back.

A Little More

Maybe a quote from one of Eldredge’s other books, Epic. He says, “We have grown dull towards this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is a fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all?” “Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, clouds have made a rainbow in a circle around the sun…”

Go hiking, experience it all (maybe not Elephants), and get your life back!

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty

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There are lots of books that urge you to put the phone down and get off of social media. Eldridge does that in this book, but it is much more than that. Eldredge writes for Christians or those that are intrigued by Christianity, However, there are ideas in this book for everyone.

Distraction is the currency of this time. Focus or relaxation is hard to come in today’s world. It takes conscious effort. John Eldredge helps us in his book, “Get Your Life Back.”

Questions

Eldredge asks us to score our soul by answering the following questions:

Are you happy most of the time?
How often do you feel lighthearted?
Are you excited about your future?
Do you feel deeply loved?
When was the last time you felt carefree?

All good questions. If you did nothing but sit down and answer these you would get a lot out of the book.

One Minute Pause

In this book, Eldredge introduces the One Minute Pause. He has an App that gives you a choice of one, five, or ten minutes to pause. He suggests you do it twice a day. I use the ten-minute version once a day myself and love it.

He says, “The one minute pause can be used in many ways: for prayer or silence, to find your heart again, or to enjoy a moment of beauty.” Think about this. Taking one, five, or ten minutes once or twice a day to calm yourself can make a huge difference in your life.

Detachment

You have probably at least read about detachment. Buddhist Monks discuss the importance of detachment, but I was a little surprised that a Christian writer would tout its benefits. However, Eldredge adds a qualifier. He calls it “Benevolent Detachment.” The benevolent part means kindness he says. So we detach from what is burdening us without being unkind to others. So no “cynicism or resignation.” As Eldredge says, it is “something done in love.”

Eldredge goes on to discuss how God calls us to a carefree life. He sites a book I have reviewed here called, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” in which the author makes the case that you “can’t care about everything all the time.”

Drinking Beauty

This is the title of one of his chapters. I love it because he talks about nature. Eldredge is a fisherman and a game hunter who does a lot of hiking and climbing too I believe. Nature offers beauty to everyone.

St Augustine described it as “a plank in the waves of the sea.” “Beauty rescues,” says Eldredge. I was so happy to read this because it validates what I knew to be true by spending so much time hiking myself.

As usual, there is so much more in the book. A chapter on being kind to yourself and a chapter on spending time outdoors! So buy it! Read it!!

Go Hiking and Do Some Rethinking

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Hiking is a time when you can think about all sorts of things you have been putting off. Be honest. It is hard to find the time to just think.

So when you go into the mountains make sure you bring your brain along with you. It can be a great companion and you may learn all sorts of things.

Rethink Your Life

You can rethink anything, not just positive thinking discussed in the book. You can rethink your whole life. Have you thought about your life lately? Most people don’t think about their loge as whole until they are a little older, but it can be useful at any age.

Maybe during the first couple of miles, you think about your childhood. Then the next couple miles your teen years. Then the next couple your twenties and thirties. When you get to the top, you’re probably just starting to reach your forties unless of course you are much younger and have not reached that age yet. If you are older like me it will take all the way up and all the way down to get through your life.

Rethink Your Health

Are you doing everything you can to stay healthy and fit? Are you using any technology to help you? Did you know that according to Kelly McGonigal, “The average daily step count required to induce feelings of anxiety and depression and decrease satisfaction with life is 5,649 the typical American takes 4,774 steps per day.” Brian Johnson quoted that the other day. So are you using a Fitbit, Garmin, Suunto, or something else to track your steps? Why not?

How are you and sugar doing? Maybe with you, it isn’t sugar but chips or something salty. Quitting sugar was the biggest contributor to me dropping lots of body fat over the last year. You can climb a lot of mountains but if you are packing the sugar away it won’t help you much.

Rethink Anything

You get the idea. Use that hiking time to think about anything you want. Maybe it is your relationship or lack of one. Maybe it is your job or lack of one.

What a blessing it is to be so close to nature and able to use it to help you connect with yourself. So go hiking and rethink some things.

Go Hiking Because The Discipline Will Equal Freedom

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Hiking every weekend takes discipline. There are some weekends when I would rather stay home in bed. However, once I am on the trail I feel completely free.

That makes sense. Once you take action you set things in motion and it changes your brain.

Before

This is the time when it feels better to stay in bed. It is when you need to use Jocko’s “Binary Code.” Yes or No! Get out of bed or don’t get out of bed. If you are disciplined you will get out of bed. Your mind will tell you it’s cold, it will be wet, you will be miserable. Not only that but your knees are hurting and you should probably rest them.

It doesn’t end there. If you are old like me then your mind really has become good at messing with you. If the little adversary in my mind is feeling particularly strong it might tell me I’m too old to go hiking. It might ask me why someone my age is doing something that only younger people should do.

During

The battle doesn’t end just because you were able to get out of bed and get ready. No. You get to the trailhead and it is pouring down rain or snow. You sit in your car and the mind starts asking those questions again. What do you think your thing to prove? Who are you trying to impress? Who do you think you are? Why would a reasonable person go get wet on purpose?

But you overcome that. You turn off that part of your mind. You get out of the car, put your pack on your back and move! It is slightly easier now. You have taken another action. But it is hard at first. Just getting going, but it gets easier and easier mentally.

After

No matter how convinced you were you had no business climbing a mountain that day, when it is all over and you jog your last 100 yards down the trail, you have such a feeling of accomplishment and freedom it is hard to describe.

After you have changed back into your street shoes, taken off your pack, and settled into the driver’s seat the sensation hits you that you have done more by 8:00 AM than most people will do all day. So be disciplined about it and go regularly in the rain and in the snow.