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The original was posted on /r/collapse by /u/ActualExpert7584 on 2023-08-19 10:50:36+00:00.
I was reading the book 'Breath' by James Nestor recently. He talks about an ancient practice of Tibet, called Tummo. It involves heavy breathing techniques and takes years to master, after which a practitioner can control his body temperature as he wishes. Monks who practice Tummo are said to be able to melt snow in a circle surrounding them, and they have even once brought to America and studied by scientists1:
Well what we found in these monks in very cold environments of 40°F (4°C), wrapping themselves in wet sheets, these monks astoundingly could increase their temperature enough to get the sheets steaming and dried the sheets.
- Dr. Herbert Benson from Harvard Medical School
In the early 1900s, Alexandra David-Neel2, a Belgian-French anarchist and former opera singer, set out to explore India and Tibet for 14 years. She was passed knowledge of Tummo there by a monk. She demonstrated the same abilities. She had acolytes, one of them is Maurice Daubard. All these people have interesting stories but I'm not gonna delve into those. He also demonstrated same abilities of enduring extreme cold, sitting in an ice bath for an hour and touring Himalayas with bike at 16k feet at age 71. But he also did something else: He ran 150 miles beneath the searing sun of Sahara desert.
Now, on to Wim Hof. Many people here already know him probably, and he practices and teaches his form of Tummo, which he calls Wim Hof Method and it's more accessible for Western people than the traditional Tummo (which is sometimes also called Tibetan Inner Fire Meditation). He also showed the same cold endurance feats, climbing Everest with his shorts and 18 world records. He showed one thing Maurice did too: He ran 26 miles under sun in 104°F (40°C) in Namibia desert, without touching a drop of water3.
When exposed to cold, practitioners of Tummo have an ability to both increase blood flow to internal organs, decreasing it to extremites and generate heat. I believe the latter is thanks to an increased brown adipose tissue activity they have. Those fat cells are the only cells in the human body able to convert stored energy into heat directly through a process called thermogenesis. But this doesn't explain how they're able to endure extreme heat as well. There is no known biological mechanism that can generate coldness.
Now, why do we die of wet bulb temperatures? Because our bodies are unable to get the waste heat out when temperatures reach 95°F (35°C ) and the humidity is %100. Sweating to cool doesn't work when your sweat can't evaporate and your blood flow is not enough effective in carrying waste heat of metabolism from inner body to your extremites. This number of 95°F is based on model-based theoritical research, as in, human body should be able to endure these temperatures given everything we know about its thermodynamics, but no actual experiments are carried on. New research based on actual human subject data suggest this number is as low as 88,7°F (31,5°C) 4.
I think you see the bigger picture here by now. Tummo practitioners are able to control their blood flow, this is why they are able to endure extreme heat as well as extreme cold. The waste heat from their internal organs can be carried effectively to the extremites, so they don't get heat stroke.
Notes:
As a personal suggestion, don't bother googling how to learn original Tummo. It's an extreme practice and takes long to master from what I heard. Wim Hof Method is easier, more accessible and free.
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