How to Do Wim Hof Breathing

Wim Hof breathing takes about fifteen minutes and needs nothing but a place to lie down. The instructions fit on a page, and you can do a complete session correctly on your first attempt. What follows is the practice as it is taught, plus the details that guided sessions rarely stop to explain.

Before you start

Lie on your back, or sit somewhere you can stay comfortable for a while without slumping. Bed, sofa, floor with a cushion — all fine. What matters is that you can stop paying attention to your body position and forget about it for the next quarter of an hour.

Practise on an empty stomach if you can. First thing in the morning is the classic slot, and there is a reason for it: digestion competes with the practice, and the sensations are cleaner without it. If mornings are impossible, three hours after a meal works.

Turn your phone to silent and put it out of reach. Once you begin, you should not be looking at a screen again until the session ends.

The four steps

Step one: thirty deep breaths. Breathe in fully through the mouth or nose, filling your belly first and then your chest, and then let the air fall out — no push, no effort. The exhale is not a real exhale so much as a release. Then straight into the next breath, without pausing between them. Aim for a steady rhythm, about one breath every two or three seconds.

Somewhere around the tenth to twentieth breath your hands may start tingling. Your lips may too. You might feel light-headed, warm, or oddly emotional. All of this is expected and none of it is dangerous when you are lying down.

Step two: the retention. After the thirtieth breath, breathe out and stop. Do not force the air out — just let it go and stay there, empty, without breathing.

Now wait. There is nothing to do here. For the first thirty seconds or so you will probably feel no urge to breathe at all, which surprises everyone the first time. Then the urge arrives, gently at first. Stay with it while it is comfortable. When it becomes insistent, the round is over.

Step three: the recovery breath. Take one deep breath in, fill your lungs completely, and hold it there for about fifteen seconds. Some people feel a pleasant pressure in the head or a wave of warmth here. Then release and breathe normally.

Step four: repeat. That was one round. Do three or four in total. Between rounds, take a few normal breaths and start again when you feel settled.

When the last round ends, stay lying down for two or three minutes before getting up. The stillness afterwards is part of the practice, and standing up too quickly wastes it.

What you will feel, and what it means

The tingling, the light-headedness, the warmth — these come from the drop in carbon dioxide caused by breathing hard. Carbon dioxide is what triggers the urge to breathe, so lowering it is also what lets you hold your breath much longer than usual. The sensations and the long hold have the same cause.

Some people cry during a session, or feel a wave of something they cannot name. This is common enough that it is worth mentioning so it does not alarm you. Let it happen and keep breathing.

What is not part of the practice: sharp pain, chest pressure, real panic, or cramping that will not release. If any of those appear, stop and breathe normally.

Five mistakes worth avoiding

Forcing the exhale. The single most common error. Deep breath in, and then simply let go. Pushing the air out on every breath makes the session exhausting for no gain.

Chasing the timer. In a guided session the retention time on screen is a description of what that session offers, not a target you owe anyone. Breathe in when you need to breathe in, every time, even if the video is still counting.

Practising standing up, or in water. Never. A breath hold after heavy breathing can cause a blackout with no warning at all, and people have drowned this way. Sitting or lying, always, and never in a bath, pool, shower or the sea.

Doing too many rounds. Three or four is a complete session. Ten rounds is a longer session, not a better one, and beginners who jump straight to it usually just end up uncomfortable.

Stopping after one try. The first session is the strangest one. By the third or fourth, the sensations are familiar and you start noticing what the practice actually does for you.

The easiest way to start

Do not do this from a written page with a stopwatch. Follow a guided session, where the breaths are counted for you and the retention is held with you, and put your attention on breathing rather than on remembering what comes next.

Start with a beginner session of three rounds, practise three or four times a week, and let it develop from there. Once the pattern is second nature, a plain timer is often all you need.

Never practise in or near water, or while driving. Always sit or lie down. Not suitable during pregnancy, or if you have epilepsy, a heart condition, high blood pressure or a history of fainting — speak with your doctor first.