Cold is a healer

[Margan]

https://www.rt.com/podcast/526840-iceman...-sophieco/

This is an interview with "iceman" Wim Hof, who claims that extreme cold temperatures can help with healing and expecially inflammations in the body.
Sounds quite logical, eh? using ice baths against the "hot" inflammatory diseases
It is quite interesting, he claims he developed a special breathing technique with which to practically become the "master of your own physiology". So that you can take a bath in a pool with lots of ice and be fine.
Caution though - it takes practice and you have to start it little by little, in order to get used to it.

This is something I heard from yogis, who meditate out in the snow etc. - the body can be trained to withstand extreme temperatures.
Also I heard of "cold chambers" (with temps of - hundreds °C) being used for people suffering from rheumatism - they go in there for a limited time and then their illness is alleviated.

[pat19989]

Breath is truly an amazing area of study. When you think about it, the air we breathe is our most intimate connection with creation as we are literally breathing in love and light in the form of air and it is nourishing our bodies with oxygen that feeds our cells and beingness.
Cancer and many other diseases can often be a result of our breathing not thoroughly oxygenating our whole bodies.
I just finished a book called 'Breath' by James Nestor that is a nice light-hearted read. Depending on reading preferences it may seem a little elementary as it is very anecdotal but nonetheless a fantastic exploration of the power of breath that modern humanity tends to overlook.

[Dtris]

Breath is truly an amazing area of study. When you think about it, the air we breathe is our most intimate connection with creation as we are literally breathing in love and light in the form of air and it is nourishing our bodies with oxygen that feeds our cells and beingness.
Cancer and many other diseases can often be a result of our breathing not thoroughly oxygenating our whole bodies.
I just finished a book called 'Breath' by James Nestor that is a nice light-hearted read. Depending on reading preferences it may seem a little elementary as it is very anecdotal but nonetheless a fantastic exploration of the power of breath that modern humanity tends to overlook.

I just finished that book as well. A good read for sure.

While Wim Hof and the breath method are one thing, there is at least some research going into cold exposure as well. It has been shown to increase apoptosis in fat cells for example as well as boost the amount of metabolically active brown fat tissue. There is also evidence it can increase testosterone production in men and has an immune boosting function.

[Ebe]

using ice baths against the "hot" inflammatory diseases

I'm sorry, this is too simple a vision, as there are "hot" inflammation and "cold" inflammation, as any TCM expert knows. For some situation, cold is the perfect treatment, for some other it isn't. What I agree on is that a body used to extremely cold temperatures can react more quickly and effectively to problems but this is true also for extremely hot temperatures as well. Let's say that our modern, lazy bodies, which are exposed to magnetic fields, pollution, unhealthy lifestyles and useless chemicals, aren't the fittest but this is what we've got and this is what we have to take care of the way we can.

[schubert]

anthony williams has talked about how cold water shocks and lowers your immune system, and also ages you quicker. here's the clip: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJe5cRVJ8tu/. when you shock your body with cold water you trigger your adrenaline and people feel good afterwards because they're on an adrenaline high. he's seen with women that after doing cold water, a few weeks later their symptoms get worse because it lowered their immune system and viruses built back up. i love wim hof and think he's a great guy but nobody really seems to be aware of these issues.

[Dtris]

anthony williams has talked about how cold water shocks and lowers your immune system, and also ages you quicker. here's the clip: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJe5cRVJ8tu/. when you shock your body with cold water you trigger your adrenaline and people feel good afterwards because they're on an adrenaline high. he's seen with women that after doing cold water, a few weeks later their symptoms get worse because it lowered their immune system and viruses built back up. i love wim hof and think he's a great guy but nobody really seems to be aware of these issues.

There is a difference between cold exposure and just jumping into an ice bath. How you go about these things matters as much as anything else. Anyone who thinks they can jump straight into doing ice man stuff and NOT get sick is the crazy one. Daily ice baths are traditional in a lot of Russia and other Scandinavian countries. They attribute a lack of colds and flus to the daily ice baths. But these cultures grow up doing these things from the time they are children and they are acclimated to it.

Coming from a profession that works outside I can attest that when you are outside daily for most of the day, the heat and cold are not a big deal. However when you go from being inside all the time and then have to go out all day on a 90 degree Fahrenheit day (32 celsius) or a 25 degree day (-4 celsius) then the chances of becoming ill from the heat or cold dramatically increase.

What I think most of the benefit comes from regarding the immune system is building the bodies resilience thru acclimation to changing temperature. This takes time and can't be done in a day.

[Nagarjuna]

Former WHM instructor here. Yeah, the cold can be real helpful for some problems, but you don't need to take it full Wim Hof style. A short cold shower in the evening before bed will give you all the benefits and also make you sleep better. Also, as was pointed out above, there is hot inflammation (when cold is good) and there is cold inflammation, which will get worse.

A good primer to see if you are WHM material is to check your ayurvedic disposition. I'm primarily Vata and concluded eventually that excessive cold exposure made me severly ungrounded. Pitta types on the other hand often benefit much from the method.

What made me eventually retire as an instructor is the breathing techniques of Wim. The more advanced stuff is an aggressive forcefull Kundalini style (Much related to Tummo practice but without all the checks and blocks a teacher will provide) and can be severly unbalancing for your chakras. I eventually pretty much fried my nervous system and had to take several years on the sideline to heal. lesson learned, don't force, practice patience. Now a day I practice Buteyko breathing which is much more suited for Vata types and meditators.

[omcasey]

.
Care must always be taken - yes.

This said, we can all learn something about the COLD here and specifically, as the original poster intended - COLD as a healer.

Here we arrive again at the basis of the alkaline/acid balance of the body. Modern peoples are far too acid, an imbalance toward the acid means chronic inflammation and inflammatory dis-ease.

This is where souls like Wim Hof step in to show us more about the cold, - which itself is ALKALINE, this is why in the cold weather months we get what are commonly called "colds", which is simply the alkaline nature of the environment pushing all the excess acids out of our bodies. --> we get watery eyes, runny noses, ear aches, sore throats ( sometimes nausea, loose stool, vomiting ) as these acids are forced out. This is not in any true sense of the word "being sick", this is healing - healing processes going into effect to help compensate for our tendency to be too acid. It is the body's natural immune system kicking in. This is what a healthy, well functioning immune system does. If we ourselves would cease being so acid, the body's natural cleansing processes would not have to compensate to such high degrees. 

It is a disservice from allopathic literature and mind-set to consider ourselves, our body even for a moment as being sick. The body is not ever sick, the body is an intelligent organism whose processes are aimed at all times at harmony and right balance. It is we, ourselves, who often work against this. With the thought programs we let run, the energy frequencies we let flow through ( judgement, frustration, anger, stress, negativity, hate.. ), the actions and behaviors we take on, including, of course, those that lead to what we choose to put in ( and not put in ) to our bodies. 

Many of us no longer even realize we are not meant to live our lives in high beta, this is a wave frequency designed to help move us through emergency situations. But most people LIVE in this wave, in the sympathetic nervous system, in fight/flight. This is highly acid of course and will lead to all manner of nervous tendencies, including those that lead toward the stimulant-depressant wheel : coffee ( caffeine ), refined sugars, alcohols, etc.. Toward meat eating, 2-3 meals daily ( waay too much, meat is among the most acid forming of foods ) and the consuming of packaged, heavily processed "junk foods". 

If this is you - if this is your current now - yes you are going to have to WORK toward your relationship with the cold ( with the alkaline side of your nature.

Assessing your current terrain, the terrain being your mind/energy/body system is step one toward moving back into equilibrium.


_________________________________________________

.
Assess your mental state/tendencies
Assess your energy state/tendencies
Assess your actions and behaviors

Look at your diet:




How much of what you are eating creates acid ash in the body?
How much creates alkaline ash? Get a percentage.

The general rule is 80% alkaline ash forming / 20% acid ash forming.

Begin the process of self correcting.
.

[Dtris]

.
Care must always be taken - yes.

This said, we can all learn something about the COLD here and specifically, as the original poster intended - COLD as a healer.

Here we arrive again at the basis of the alkaline/acid balance of the body. Modern peoples are far too acid, an imbalance toward the acid means chronic inflammation and inflammatory dis-ease.

This is where souls like Wim Hof step in to show us more about the cold, - which itself is ALKALINE, this is why in the cold weather months we get what are commonly called "colds", which is simply the alkaline nature of the environment pushing all the excess acids out of our bodies. --> we get watery eyes, runny noses, ear aches, sore throats ( sometimes nausea, loose stool, vomiting ) as these acids are forced out. This is not in any true sense of the word "being sick", this is healing - healing processes going into effect to help compensate for our tendency to be too acid. It is the body's natural immune system kicking in. This is what a healthy, well functioning immune system does. If we ourselves would cease being so acid, the body's natural cleansing processes would not have to compensate to such high degrees. 

It is a disservice from allopathic literature and mind-set to consider ourselves, our body even for a moment as being sick. The body is not ever sick, the body is an intelligent organism whose processes are aimed at all times at harmony and right balance. It is we, ourselves, who often work against this. With the thought programs we let run, the energy frequencies we let flow through ( judgement, frustration, anger, stress, negativity, hate.. ), the actions and behaviors we take on, including, of course, those that lead to what we choose to put in ( and not put in ) to our bodies. 

Many of us no longer even realize we are not meant to live our lives in high beta, this is a wave frequency designed to help move us through emergency situations. But most people LIVE in this wave, in the sympathetic nervous system, in fight/flight. This is highly acid of course and will lead to all manner of nervous tendencies, including those that lead toward the stimulant-depressant wheel : coffee ( caffeine ), refined sugars, alcohols, etc.. Toward meat eating, 2-3 meals daily ( waay too much, meat is among the most acid forming of foods ) and the consuming of packaged, heavily processed "junk foods". 

If this is you - if this is your current now - yes you are going to have to WORK toward your relationship with the cold ( with the alkaline side of your nature.

Assessing your current terrain, the terrain being your mind/energy/body system is step one toward moving back into equilibrium.


_________________________________________________

.
Assess your mental state/tendencies
Assess your energy state/tendencies
Assess your actions and behaviors

Look at your diet:




How much of what you are eating creates acid ash in the body?
How much creates alkaline ash? Get a percentage.

The general rule is 80% alkaline ash forming / 20% acid ash forming.

Begin the process of self correcting.
.

While there is plenty of evidence that the PH of the blood and body tissues must stay in its naturally alkaline range of around 7.4 iirc, the whole food thing makes little sense.

The image you shows has under a 10 for alkaline, and I assume they mean the actual PH, Garlic, Carrot, Artichoke, and Lemon among others. Raw artichoke has a PH of 5.5-6. Raw Carrots 5.88-6.4. Raw Garlic 5.8. Lemon Juice 2.0-2.6, couldn't find whole lemons probably sense few people eat them.

Pretty much the entire alkaline side of that chart has a PH of lower than 7 and as low as 2, making the foods acidic.

Meat, cheese, pasta, bread all fall within a range of 5.5-7.1. Seafood is generally from 6.5-7.3.

There is almost no foods I have found after looking at charts and measurements that are anywhere above a 7.5 in PH.

Your chart isn't the only one I found with completely erroneous ph attributions to food. Vitafountain has a similar chart as the one you posted and lists black tea as a PH of 3, where is actually is a PH of 7.2 and is one of the more alkaline food/beverages you can get. Generally everything we eat falls between a PH of 3 and 7 with 5.5-6 being a nice average.

Generally anything we eat gets digested with stomach acid with a pH of 2 or less. What is more of a factor in blood and tissue pH is the amount of Hydrogen vs Hydroxyl ions available in the blood and tissues and whether they are bound or unbound. Drinking Alkaline water may be a good way to replenish Hydroxyl ions since water will not cause stomach acid to be released, unless of course you drink some of this crazy high PH water. However I doubt the veracity of some of their claims because any water with a PH of 9 or higher will be so bitter as to be undrinkable. Also do not forget that alkaline substances are just as dangerous as acids, bleach is an alkaline.

I am sure there is a connection between the food you eat and its quality and blood and tissue pH. But it does not seem to be as simple as people make it out to be and most of the foods people claim are alkaline, are neutral or even highly acidic.
Ph values of foods

[omcasey]

Hello, Dtris.

Thank you for adding to the dialogue. I just want to say, quickly for now - that it doesn't have to be made hard. 

When we bring into play the alkaline / acid balance relative to foods and the body - we are not looking at the PH of the foods themselves, but rather the alkaline or acid ASH they create when taken into the body. This can make a lot of these charts somewhat confusing. But this can just be taken in its simple form :

Eat more alkaline ash forming foods, than acid ash forming foods. It can be this simple.

Even to do just this - many of us are going to have to make HUGE changes.

Changes that will lead to a healthier, stronger body.

___________________


To bring this back to the COLD and its alkaline nature, - bringing the body itself back toward an alkaline/acid balance,

Is going to spark off within the body a purge. This process of purging is not fun.

It is often taken as something having gone wrong.

When if fact, everything is now moving back toward right.

To move back toward right at a pace that is somewhat more pleasant than not,

Is critical to allowing the process to take place and to complete.


Casey
. 

[Margan]

Om, what you wrote re the body purging itself thru the cold makes a LOT of sense to me!
years ago I had colds all thru the winter, and I used up tons of tissues with all the mucus the body was getting rid of....
when I added alkaline Schussler salts it all stopped! I have not had a severe cold in years.
About the black tea, I heard that it changes quality - apparently if you let it steep longer it develops alkaline characteristics plus it is no longer stimulating, as opposed to when you leave it for 1-2 mins only ....

Edit: although I think that what is most acidic of all is our ego....
when I was in my spiritual blissful highs , I found that I could eat anything and my body would not be acidic. The ego with its negative destructive thoughts acidifies the body imo.

[Patrick]

...
Edit: although I think that what is most acidic of all is our ego....
when I was in my spiritual blissful highs , I found that I could eat anything and my body would not be acidic. The ego with its negative destructive thoughts acidifies the body imo.

Big thumbs up ! This has been my experience as well.

[Nagarjuna]

when I added alkaline Schussler salts it all stopped! I have not had a severe cold in years.

I was not aware any of those are alkaline in particular, which ones did you use? I know Ferrum phos is for colds but want to experiment some more.

[omcasey]

Om, what you wrote re the body purging itself thru the cold makes a LOT of sense to me!
years ago I had colds all thru the winter, and I used up tons of tissues with all the mucus the body was getting rid of....
when I added alkaline Schussler salts it all stopped! I have not had a severe cold in years.
About the black tea, I heard that it changes quality - apparently if you let it steep longer it develops alkaline characteristics plus it is no longer stimulating, as opposed to when you leave it for 1-2 mins only ....

Edit: although I think that what is most acidic of all is our ego....
when I was in my spiritual blissful highs , I found that I could eat anything and my body would not be acidic. The ego with its negative destructive thoughts acidifies the body imo.

.
Thoughts can absolutely be acidic *negative thoughts certainly fall on the acidic side of the equation.

When we are young, foods that create acid ash in the body are still creating acid ash in the body, it is just that the body has only an accumulation of very few years. This will build up over time causing discomfort and dis-ease. This is awareness and observation, not ego ( although yes this can come into play too. A body that lives in a world such as our will always have mucus--mucus is essentially lymph, our lymph system, the material that forms in our lymph system, <-- this is where the over accumulation of acid waste in the body goes to be processed and removed. 

We have the veinous system, this is our blood, which must stay just to the alkaline side of chemistry ( 7.4 ph ), and we have the lymph system, which again is the catchment system for excess acids *through which all in excess is processed and removed *through the bladder, bowels, breath and skin. The veinous system can be though of our kitchen, it feeds us. The lymph system can be though of as the bathroom, it processes and eliminates waste. 

We can work to support and not overburden our systems. Or against them and gradually gain "difficulty" as we move through life.

As a society we tend to work against the body but there is always the option to wake up to this sooner than later.

__________________________________________


I will ask a question:

Who blows their nose every day? every morning at least. 

Who tends to sniff it back in instead.
.

[Margan]

when I added alkaline Schussler salts it all stopped! I have not had a severe cold in years.

I was not aware any of those are alkaline in particular, which ones did you use? I know Ferrum phos is for colds but want to experiment some more.

btw since in the other thread someone asked about hot flashes, ferrum phos is for those also.
I use Schussler salts n°1, 9 and 11, which is Calcium fluoratum, Natrium phos and Silicea. 9 and 11 in particular are alkaline, which is Natrium phos and Silica.
1, 9 and 11 are great, for hair skin and alkalization in general, I took them when undergoing chemotherapy and did not have the bald head that the others had...