Linda Music writes about health and wellbeing for various outlets. She did a deep dive into Wim Hof Method experiences, and profiled 4 different people who use the WHM to neutralize symptoms of their condition. We will be sharing these stories here over the coming weeks.
Valentin Bunea from Romania had been trying cold immersion for insulin resistance when he got his first urinary tract infection (UTI). Steadfast in his belief that cold exposure would help him, Valentin went on a Wim Hof expedition in Poland. Upon his return home, Valentin increased his daily cold exposure to 6-10 minutes daily. Despite these efforts, he continued to suffer from repeated UTIs.
Not one to give up, Valentin analyzed his cold-immersion only approach to the Wim Hof method which led him to a conclusion: he needed to introduce breathing (WHM’s second pillar) into his routine.
“I thought the method was all about the cold exposure and that the breathing was optional,” Valentin explains.
“I wasn’t prepared to do the breathing so I focused all my efforts on cold exposure, which clearly wasn’t working.”
Valentin describes that prior to each UTI, his body receives signals or cues that an infection is imminent. These cues include extreme tiredness and cloudy urine. In the past, Valentin ignored these signs until one day, feeling the tiredness that he knew foreshadowed a UTI, Valentin did one round of the WHM breathing (1 minute) followed by a retention and then one set of push-ups to failure. The next day he did another round. After the third day, the symptoms were gone.
It is hard to believe that simply doing a few breathing exercises can affect a bacterial infection in the bladder, but when you understand what is happening on a [microbiological/microscopic level, it starts to make sense: the heightened influx of oxygen brings down CO2 levels which, through a series of subsequent chemical processes, lowers blood plasma pH.
How this can be extended to increase pH levels in the urine is still not quite understood, but Valentin says that during the expedition in Poland he was able to change his pH levels from 5 to 8 after 20 minutes of breathing. E-coli thrives in an acidic environment so changing the PH levels to be more alkaline makes the environment unsuitable for E-coli to survive.
After a year of no UTIs, Valentin is confident that using WHM has changed his health.
“I’m sure it’s not going to come back. When you have that confidence, it feels amazing,” he said.
Read Linda’s blog at lindamusic.com.au
