This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Wim Hof built his method from three elements he describes as inseparable: a specific pattern of controlled breathing, exposure to cold that begins gradually and is built up over time, and what he calls commitment, a deliberate mental focus he treats as being as trainable as the physical elements. He arrived at the combination through decades of his own extreme practice, cold water swimming, high altitude climbing in minimal clothing, long breath holds, beginning in the 1990s, and only began teaching it systematically in the 2000s, after a series of Guinness-recognised feats brought him public attention.
The method is presented as secular and trainable rather than as belonging to any religious tradition, though Hof and his students often reach for language borrowed from meditative traditions to describe its subjective effects, presence, inner strength, a sense of control over states the body usually manages on its own. Hof has said he arrived at his techniques independently, without formal study of Tibetan Buddhist Tummo practice or other older controlled-breathing and cold-tolerance disciplines that outside observers have compared it to, though he does not claim priority over them. By the 2010s the method had grown into an instructor certification program, a mobile app and a substantial presence in Western wellness and biohacking culture, taught in workshops and online courses to a following numbering in the hundreds of thousands.