The Origins of Breathwork

For as universal as this wisdom seems, modified forms of breathing didn’t really take a firm foothold in the West until the 1960’s, where it developed as part of the broader interest in alternative healing and spirituality that characterized the period. Many of the breathing modalities that arose during this time were influenced by contemporary phenomena like Freudian psychoanalysis, altered states of consciousness and the use of LSD.

A key example is Leonard Orr’s Rebirthing. Orr believed that being born is inherently traumatic, and that through breathwork, one can subconsciously revisit that event and begin to resolve one’s trauma. Holotropic breathwork, originated by Stanislav Grof, similarly aims to use breathing to access the unconscious mind, and in so doing address traumas and repressed emotions. As a psychiatrist, Grof used LSD in his practice, and he developed his breathing method as a result of the drug being outlawed.

Konstantin Buteyko developed his signature breathing method around the same time, although he wasn’t inspired by the free love movement. Developed in the 1950’s, the Buteyko method posits that many respiratory ailments come from breathing too fast, and too much through the mouth. By focusing on nasal breathing, the breathing pace stays low and thus CO2 relatively high, restoring acid balance.

As the New Age came to an end in the 1980’s, so did breathwork by and large disappear from the popular conscience. Biohacking, hot yoga, and diets ranging from all-plants to all-meat captured the imagination of the wellness-conscious for the next two decades.

That is, until a bearded man from the Netherlands showed up on tv screens, encased in ice cubes. Wim Hof was actually already soaking up all he could about Buddhism, zen, and yoga at 9 years old. His insatiable curiosity took him to India — the cradle of breathwork — to deepen his insights. Back in the Netherlands, he discovered another powerful natural force: the cold. Wim would eventually synthesize his accrued wisdom into what we now know as the Wim Hof Method.

But it would take more than a decade— not only to go from vision to a fully realized service that could reach everyone, but also for the public to get on board. Unlike the various breathing trends that were in vogue during the flower power days, Wim Hof didn’t have the benefit of riding the current zeitgeist. Throughout much of the journey, media and scientists were skeptical if not dismissive. But Wim knew in his bones that he had found something that the world needed to know about, and that they would eventually come to embrace.

A key milestone came in 2011: Radboud University researchers subjected Wim to E. Coli bacteria in an effort to test the power of his breathing technique. To their utter surprise, Wim was able to stave off the fever symptoms that normally arise with a clinically induced infection. Thinking that Wim might be some kind of outlier, the experiment was repeated on “regular folk” three years later, with the same results. This was a revelation, as it upended the longstanding belief that one could not voluntarily influence one's autonomic nervous system or innate immune response.

The growing acknowledgement from the scientific community in turn made the Wim Hof Method that much more palatable for a more analytical, evidence-minded Western audience. More and more people were intrigued to give it a try, spurred on also by the countless stories from those who were already on board. The groups going to Poland first numbered 4, then 40, and are now 400. Attendees with a wide range of auto-immune conditions improved leaps and bounds after just a week in the pure, fresh tundra air. Athletes saw their sports performance improve. Executives got rid of stress and gained restful sleep.

Wim’s mission is and always has been to bring happiness, strength and health to the whole planet, and he realized that if he was serious about that quest, the age-old wisdom that he had brought back from India had to be adapted to today’s world of TikTok, antidepressants, and the 48-hour work week. And so what started as little more than the occasional bootcamp was slowly built out into a website, then a video course, and eventually a whole infrastructure to bring people the Wim Hof Method in whatever way most fit their modern lifestyles.

Today, you can find Wim Hof Method courses, workshops, retreats, and a mobile app to learn and practice however and wherever you want. Our Academy has been training aspiring instructors from every continent since 2013, ensuring that anybody anywhere can enjoy Wim’s teachings.