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The human body naturally reacts the cold.
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It reacts to the cold unconsciously to preserve heat.
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The body feels the cold and works to constrict blood flow towards vital areas that need to be kept stable.
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It also releases hormones, like cortisol and norepinephrine.
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It induces involuntary muscular shivering and a change in breathing pattern.
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It's also painful and people would rather be warm and cruising, than frozen into a popsicle.
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So, scientists at Wayne State University School of Medicine designed a special suit to make people cold.
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Not because turning people into popsicles is hillarious
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But because it's interesting.
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They could use this special suit to measure the subjects in a PET scan or fMRI
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To really understand what happens in the body and brain in cold conditions.
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Specifically, it was an inquiry on Wim Hof's ability to withstand the cold.
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A man with the ability of increasing body temperature at will
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And survive under extreme cold conditions.
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The special cold suit had the ability to be infused with water.
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So, you could run cold or hot water through it and control temperature.
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All you had to do at this point was slap a few ordinary people in the suit and measure.
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Over 25 minutes they would measure skin temperature as they cycled water through the suit
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From neutral to cold and back.
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Here's the trend in the control.
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Nice and wavy between neutral - cold - neutral - cold - neutral
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Their skin temperature predictably falling as they were exposed to colder temperatures.
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After a solid control was established
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They asked Wim to undergo the same experiment without any kind of breathing technique.
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His response was very similar to that of the control
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Nice and wavy.
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They then asked Wim to undergo the same experiment, after priming his body with his own breathing and meditation techniques.
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The result was a sustained skin temperature of 34 degrees over 25 minutes.
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This is completely out of the ordinary!
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It's as if Wim just shrugged off the cold.
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This is also the point where scientists see this and out of excited curiosity, stuff Wim into a PET scan and fMRI
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To see what the hell is happening.
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Firstly, to see where all this excess heat was coming from in the body, using the PET scan.
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And secondly, to see what was occurring in the brain, using the fMRI.
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What was happening in the body, according to the PET scan
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Was that the intercostal muscles, the muscles between the ribs of the body
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Were chewing up glucose like mad
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And pouring heat into the body.
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Stabilising Wim's body temperature.
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Not only that, but it would keep Wim's average skin temperature
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At 34 degrees, without any significant deviation
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Despite cold and neutral conditions.
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So what was happening in the brain during all this?
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In many ways, the brain is an important player.
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Usually, the brain and body would react unconsciously to the cold.
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However, in this case, there seems to be a wilful subversion of that reaction
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Instead of the body preserving heat and regressing
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Skin temperature jumped up to 34 degrees
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And his body started expending more energy.
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Let's crack open the head and find out what's been going on!
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Although physically, borrowing and measuring a brain from someone who's alive is usually illegal
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We can use an fMRI instead, to see which regions of the brain had activity.
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It's safer, makes less of a mess, and is a lot more legal.
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First, the Insula of the brain.
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This is a region implicated in self-awareness of the body and emotions.
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What happened when the controls were exposed to colder temperatures
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Was a lowering of activity in the Insula.
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This drop in activity usually signals the onset of hypothermia.
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It's a normal reaction.
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Normal enough that even Wim's Insula had this drop in activity.
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Notably, his activity dropped much lower and peaked higher than that of the controls.
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This makes sense, given Wim's technique incorporates self-reflective meditation
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And his trained sensitivity to the cold.
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The cold, on the other hand, is interpreted by the body as a noxious experience.
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It causes stress.
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And engages the sympathetic nervous system to release norepinephrine and cortisol.
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It prepares the body to survive the noxious experience.
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However, because Wim primed his body with his breathing technique
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The sympathetic nervous system was already engaged.
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The body was physiologically primed and flooded with adrenaline.
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Because of this and the added stress from the cold
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A physiological threshold could have been crossed and engage the Periaqueductal - Grey area
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An area located in the midbrain of the brainstem.
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This area exploded with activity.
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The Periaqueductal - Grey area is used for the perception of pain and pain modulation.
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Pain killing.
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What was fascinating in Wim was that as activity in the Insula started dipping...
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Activity in the Periaqueductal - Grey area started spiking.
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In tandem.
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This spike of activity would stimulate the release of endogenous opioids and endo-cannabinoids.
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It would contribute to the high feeling one experiences when doing exercise.
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And contribute towards a deep sense of well-being.
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The control group showed no sign of activation in this area.
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No explosions.
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Nice and flat.
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Like pancakes.
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Or the Netherlands.
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What's speculated is that this activity in the brain facilitated a higher level of control
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Over key components of the brain autonomous system.
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Control over the parts of the brain that unconsciously regulate the physiological reactions to the cold.
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Allowing a seasoned practitioner, like Wim
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To assert control and allow a top-down modulation of his response to the cold.
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Keeping his vascular system open...
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Increasing metabolic activity...
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And heat production in the intercostal muscles.
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And subsequently, survive in extreme cold environments.
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We'd like to close this video with a question of "Mind over Matter"
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We'd like to argue that it's one in the same.
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In a way, yes..
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Priming and placing yourself in a difficult position
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Will cause the neurological processes in the brain to beautifully excite with activity
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Producing the conscious experience of that focused mind.
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Yet, the counter perspective can also be made.
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That focus, attention, and diligence
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Can stir and train activity within the gray matter of the brain
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And cause a change in experience.
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It's reminiscent of an upward spiral
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That the conscious decision to improve, in turn, creates new connections within the brain
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And causes a positive feedback loop that produces a new person.
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From mind, forming the physical brain...
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And the brain, forming the experience of the mind.
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It is with this wider perspective that we'd like to view this experiment.
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Here we have a man capable of overcoming deathly cold environments.
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Yet, we seldom considered that his neurophysiology was trained over time for such survival.
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That if he were to behave as a control, the body would react normally to the cold
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Yet with focus and honing of mind and body
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He is able to access those deeper layers of his physiology.
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Producing something truly spectacular.
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In this way, we leave you with this idea.
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Change, in any direction...
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Is possible.
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It can be incremental, small contributions every day towards what is valued
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But exponential in the long run.
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To the point where a person truly renews.
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This was a brief summary of a study published by Wayne State University School of Medicine.
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Thank you for watching!
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And consider...
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That change, however small...
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Can gradually transform a life!
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