Winter Flow 5: How I Stopped Being Cold at -20°C (In just 3 Days)

In our last blog, we discovered why darkness isn't the enemy, it's the medicine.

You learned how protecting your darkness activates your body's deepest repair mechanisms and why the winter solstice is the most important restoration day of the year.

Today, we're exploring another force that winter offers you.

One that most people run from.

One that I was terrified of: Cold

How I Used to Treat Cold

In Beirut, I treated cold like the enemy.

If the temperature dropped to 10°C, I'd crank the heat to 24°C.

I would layer up in thick sweaters and stay inside all day long.

The idea of being cold on purpose?  That sounded like Insanity

My body had become so sensitive that even a cool breeze would make me shiver uncontrollably.

I thought this was normal. That some people were just "cold people."

Then everything changed.

Poland, November 2016

I just left Lebanon after hitting rock bottom at 25.

Here I'm standing in the mountains of Poland, snow covering the ground as far as I can see.

The temperature: -15°C.

Nothing like I'd ever experienced in Lebanon.

I'm wrapped in the thickest winter jacket I own, layered underneath with thermal shirts, a scarf wound tight around my neck, gloves on my hands.

And I'm still shivering.I feel the cold in my bones and my body wants to curl inward and hide.

I'm here for a 10-day retreat with Wim Hof: the Ice Man himself.

And what I see next is absolutely shocking...

I watch Wim walk toward us through the snow wearing nothing but shorts.

He's smiling. Relaxed. Moving like it's a summer day.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking: "What have I gotten myself into?"

The Challenge

Are you ready?" Wim asks, his breath visible in the frozen air.

Ready for what?

"We're going for a swim."

I look around. Swim? There's snow everywhere.

Below us sits a natural plunge pool, a circular basin carved directly into the rock. Moss-dark stone walls rise around it like a crater, sealing the water in.

 The pool is calm and eerily still, its surface tinted green from algae and minerals, the rocky bottom clearly visible beneath the surface.

Wim must be joking. After all, we just arrived. We haven't received any training yet.

I'm sure he's pranking us.

"Strip down to your shorts," Wim says casually. "We're going in."

My heart starts racing.

Every cell in my body screams: No. Danger. Run.

The moment my foot touches the water, I feel a shock. Like pure, electric overwhelming shock.

My breath stops. My skin burns with a cold so intense it feels like fire.

I somehow find the courage to force myself deeper. Slowly going in until my waist-deep now.

My body is screaming. My mind is panicking.

Soon we're forming a loose circle in the water, reaching for each other's hands as if instinctively trying to anchor ourselves

Faces are tight with jaws clenched, eyes wide, breath sharp and shallow. 

The Shift

 Wim's voice cuts through the chaos:

"Breathe. Slow. Deep. Let go of the resistance. Focus on the exhalation and relax your face"

I do.I breathe out. I focus on the exhalation alone and somehow, the inhalation takes care of itself.

Something shifts.

I deliberately soften my neck. My jaw. My face.

Then Wim's voice cuts through once again:

"Let go of all the tension in your fists, in your neck, in your eyebrows. Relax your spine. Feel the ripples in the water."

I loosen my hands.I smooth my brow. I allow my spine to lengthen.

The panic fades.

The burning sensation… changes.

It's still cold. I can feel it.

But the resistance to it: the fear, the contraction, the desperate need to escape softens.

I stay for 30 seconds. Maybe a minute.

When I climb out, my body is shaking uncontrollably.

But inside?

I feel alive.

More alive than I've felt in years!

I realized something in that moment:

Cold isn't the enemy. My resistance to cold is.

When I stopped fighting it and started flowing with it, something in my body remembered how to generate heat from within.

What Happened Over the Next 10 Days

That ice plunge was just the beginning.

For the next 10 days, we lived differently.

Differently than I'd ever lived.

We woke up with the sun. Went to bed after sunset.

No phones. No screens. No artificial lights after dark.

We hiked in shorts through snow-covered forests.

We walked barefoot on frozen ground.

We meditated outside in -20°C.

We plunged into icy lakes and rivers.

And day by day, something remarkable happened.

Not just to me but to everyone in the group.

We stopped fearing the cold, and we started cherishing it.

Something about it felt invigorating!

One morning, I'm standing outside in just shorts and a t-shirt, barefoot in the snow.

The air temperature: -18°C. And I'm not miserable.

I can feel the cold on my skin…absolutely. It's sharp. It's intense.But inside?

I feel warm. Like an internal fire radiating from my core.

Someone in the group puts it perfectly:

"It's like there's a furnace inside me. The cold is still cold. But the furnace is melting it away."

The Science: Why This Made Us Feel So Alive

The Transformation

Day 1, almost everyone looked grey. Pale. Exhausted.

Day 4? I couldn't believe the change.

Everyone in the group is fundamentally transforming. Our inner fire blazes, turning us into radiant light beings 

We are remembering… Who we really are

And frankly, everyone is looking like 10 years younger. Not only on the outside, but on the inside. Everyone in the group felt it:

More energy. Clearer minds. Brighter eyes. As if we suddenly tapped intoo  some ancient fountain of youth.

The Mitochondrial Dance

I kept thinking: What's actually happening inside our bodies?

Later, I discovered the science behind what we felt.

And it blew my mind.

Deep inside your mitochondria, there are five special proteins' floating in a sea of cellular water that are key to our energy production.

These five special proteins make up the electron transport chain, and together, they produce ATP = Energy that you need to function, think and live a healthy life.

These protein complexes pass electrons back and forth in a precise rhythm.

Here's the part almost no one talks about.

When you're young and healthy, these proteins sit extremely close together separated by distances measured in angstroms. An angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter. To put that into perspective_a human hair is about one million angstroms wide.

And for every 1 angstrom increase in distance between them, the electron transfer efficiency drops exponentially by  5 to 10 times

This is an exponential drop in energy efficiency

So when those proteins drift apart by just a few angstroms:

That's when you feel it:

==> Brain fog

==> Fatigue

==> Low motivation

==> Irritability

All because proteins that should be close together are now are apart.

What keep your mitochondria healthy

Nature has a solution for keeping those respiratory proteins close together:

==> Infrared and UV light form the Sun

Did you know that about 47% of sunlight is infrared light ?

Infrared penetrates deep into tissue, into muscles, organs, and cells.

And when it reaches mitochondria, it changes the water surrounding those proteins.

This is where the work of Dr. Gerald Pollack comes in.

Pollack's lab at the University of Washington showed that water next to hydrophilic surfaces , like mitochondrial membranes and proteins, forms a fourth phase of water, called Exclusion Zone (EZ) water.

This water is:

Most importantly, it shrinks when energized by infrared light.

As EZ water forms and contracts, it pulls those five protein complexes closer together.

Not by millimeters. Not even nanometers. By angstroms.

And that's enough to restore electron flow.

That's one of the reasons why sunlight feels so good.

It optimizes your mitochondria by reorganizing the water that holds them together.

Why We Felt so Alive in Poland Without MUCH Sunlight

So what happens when sunlight, and especially infrared, is scarce?

Nature doesn't leave you helpless.

Your mitochondria can generate their own infrared light.

When you're exposed to cold, mitochondria increase metabolic rate to generate heat.

That internally generated infrared creates the same effect:

That's why we felt so alive in Poland. Why our skin looked better. Why our minds were sharper.

How Artificial Light Breaks This System

Now here's the modern problem. Artificial blue-heavy light does the exact opposite.

Research discussed by Dr. Glen Jeffery (UCL) on the Huberman Lab Podcast shows that excessive exposure to blue-dominant LED light:

At the water level, isolated artificial blue light disrupts coherence. Instead of supporting structured EZ water, it dehydrates the cellular environment

When structured water collapses, the proteins drift farther apart and energy production plummets

This is why modern life feels draining, even when you "do everything right." Your mitochondria are being pulled apart at the smallest possible scale.

5 Actions to Activate Your Inner Fire

Start With One

You don't need to do all of this at once.

Pick one action.

Maybe it's 30 seconds of cold water at the end of your shower.

Maybe it's stepping outside for 5 minutes without a jacket.

Start small.

Stay consistent.

Your body will respond.

Because this isn't about forcing yourself to be tough.

It's about reminding your body what it already knows how to do.

The Science Behind This Blog

Continue Your Winter Flow Journey