Self-efficacy, toughening up & the incredible Wim Hof
Self-efficacy provides information about how much self-healing competence you trust yourself with. The key to increasing self-efficacy is, among other things, the hardening factor. Dutchman Wim Hof impressively demonstrates the kind of performance enhancement that becomes possible - for ordinary people.
You don't meet an extreme athlete like Wim Hof every day. The Dutchman climbs mountains like Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, runs a half-marathon through the Namibian desert, also dressed only in shorts and without drinking, sits up to his neck in an ice bath for almost two hours, dives 52 meters under a sheet of ice, etc., etc.
Hof holds a total of 26 entries in the Book of Records, quite a few of which he set only recently, in his 50s. These almost superhuman feats have also aroused interest among scientists, who have precisely measured Wim's bodily functions while he was exposed to the cold.
The basic finding is that this person is able to influence the autonomic nervous system, i.e. to regulate processes that normally occur unconsciously, such as the control of body temperature or the release of adrenaline.
Wim Hof claims that basically every human being is capable of doing this. And to prove this, he has founded his own method, which combines three approaches:
- Special breathing technique
- Hardening
- Willpower
In fact, users of the Wim Hof method were able to survive an injection of E-coli bacteria without the illnesses that would normally result. The blood of the test subjects showed an unusual oxygen/CO2 ratio on the one hand and an extreme adrenaline level on the other. The latter was higher than that in people who are about to do their first bungee jump. You can view the 2014 study conducted at Radboud University here: https://is.gd/7qjFvk
Wim Hof is convinced that people's natural ability to adapt to extremes is simply atrophied in the modern world. He concludes that this also leads to a loss of sensitivity for the body's internal processes. However, this can be regained by continuously shifting the comfort zone.
This view was first put forward in the 17th century by various physicians in Europe, who encouraged patients to toughen up by taking "water cures," as well as other measures such as eating a simple diet, sleeping on a hard surface, or walking barefoot. The idea that effeminacy was to blame for various ailments became popular. For centuries it had been observed that those soldiers who enjoyed the fewest comforts were at the same time the toughest fighters.
This realization led to the fact that one wanted to "harden" and desensitize soldiers in the Prussian and also still in the Third Reich by beating. What went completely out of hand in one direction at the time is probably exaggerated in the other in the present day. Thereby meaningful hardening measures are possible for everyone, provided that one does not worsen thereby an acute ailment.
You don't have to spend hours half-naked in the ice for this like Wim Hof.
Hardening means nothing more than pushing the limits of what is easily tolerable or achievable, thereby strengthening the body and increasing resistance.
Examples for everyday life:
- Take cold showers more often or longer
- Do one more push-up (or other fitness exercise) each week
- Sleep with the window open as temperatures get cooler and cooler
- Extend breathing exercises by one minute every week
- Make a meal once consist of only one food (for example a piece of bread, or 2 apples, nuts...)
- Walking barefoot more and more often over increasingly coarse surfaces, which, by the way, is one of the most effective Kneipp applications
By pushing your own performance limits, you increase your self-efficacy, which is the confidence you have in yourself to successfully complete a task.
The concept of self-efficacy is hugely important in the context of self-healing.
People with high self-efficacy are convinced that they can achieve a certain goal under their own steam and overcome resistance and obstacles in the process. They pursue their goals with an optimistic attitude of expectation.
To increase one's own self-efficacy, small tasks such as those listed above that can be accomplished with a tolerable amount of effort are sufficient. The task must therefore be neither too difficult nor too easy.
Those who continuously push their own limits in this way also feel that they are masters of their own willpower and thus strengthen their self-confidence.
Perhaps it is in truth due to these factors that Wim Hof was able to lead a group of 26 untrained people, including some chronically ill people, up Kilimanjaro in 48 hours in January 2014, eleven of them in shorts!
