Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Mann.
Hi Tim, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
First and foremost thank you so much for taking the time to interview me! I feel honored to share what I’ve learned throughout the years with you. To sum up thirty five years in a few pages… I was born and raised in Chelsea, Michigan. I have two siblings, an older sister, and a younger brother. I have two great parents who did an outstanding job raising their children. I graduated from Chelsea High School in 2005 and went on to graduate from Northern Michigan University in 2010.
In 2011, I worked with International Wilderness Leadership School and spent prolonged periods of time in nature, specifically Baja California around two islands called Isla Espirtu Santo and Isla San Jose. During this time, I noticed frequent rushes of endorphins throughout my brain and body while engaging in everyday life. These rushes of endorphins were similar to the rushes of endorphins you get when you work out or when you listen to touching music. Whether I was kayaking up the coastline, setting up camp, cooking dinner, having an interesting conversation or looking up at the night sky… endorphins would come and have my hair stand on end. I noticed when I would focus on this feeling and simply breathe into it the amount of endorphins would increase.
These rushes of endorphins happened so often that over the course of a few weeks I was able to simply breathe and trigger there release. When I returned home, I looked this up and found it is called voluntarily generated piloerection (VGP). See definition below.
Autonomic systems in the human body are named for their operation outside of conscious control. One rare exception is voluntarily generated piloerection (VGP) – the conscious ability to cause goosebumps – whose physiological study in scientific history is confined to three single-individual case studies.
To say I was obsessed with this phenomena is an understatement. I was absolutely fascinated. Quite frankly I still am. I constantly practiced, spoke about it with others and read as much as I could find on the subject although there wasn’t much. Due to the lack of scientific research, I had to dig through eastern literature in order to find anything remotely close to what I was experiencing. Soon enough I took a graduate assistant position with the collegiate level basketball team at the University of Detroit Mercy and began studying psychology. I worked with the team during the day and enrolled in night classes, earning a master’s degree in counseling. Shortly after graduating I started working at Detroit Cody High School as a school counselor and planned to put a program into the school in order to teach others how to voluntarily influence their autonomic nervous system through focusing intently on breathing. I began working at Detroit Cody High School for just one week until…
One night on my way home from work, I got a flat tire while driving on the highway. I called my girlfriend at the time (now my wife), to let her know I was going to be home late due to this flat tire. As I was sitting in my jeep, talking with Samantha and getting ready to change the tire… I was hit by an impaired driver. The police report says he crashed into me going eighty miles per hour. When his car crashed into mine, it sent me inside of my jeep rolling down the side of the ditch. I immediately snapped my left arm in half. As the Jeep continued to roll, I bounced around inside the vehicle and continued to fracture five vertebrae, break my right ankle, lacerate my liver, tear my medial meniscus, dislocate my jaw and fracture my skull in multiple places. I was now knocked unconscious, trapped inside of my jeep. The boy who hit me fled the scene of the accident. Luckily, a third party had stopped and called the ambulance. When the paramedics and rescue team arrived, they used “the jaws of life” to get me out of the vehicle. I had multiple seizures the night of the accident, one of them as I was being rolled into the intensive care unit. I had intracranial hypertension as my head had swelling up like a balloon. Brain surgeons drilled a hole in my head to relieve the pressure and save my life. I woke up from a coma eight days later, tied down to the hospital bed, unable to move and not knowing where I was.
After weeks in the intensive care unit and months in the hospital, I began to walk short distances, urinate without a catheter, drink fluids, and chew food. I was taking a combination of muscle relaxers, oxycodone, and Ibuprofen for pain management. Not a day had passed by for over a month that I had not had some form of narcotics passing through my veins. Fentanyl, dilaudid, oxycodone, hydrocodone, tramadol, morphine, codeine, you name it, I had it. I went home with a number of prescriptions. Repercussions of the traumatic brain injury had me living with an emergent mood disorder, having high peaks and bottomless lows accompanied with frequent emotional outbursts. I was in a neck brace, boot, cast, and sling, not to mention addicted to painkillers and struggling with symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
While home, I was sitting on the couch listening to the Joe Rogan podcast and came across Wim Hof. I still remember hearing Wim for the first time, stating that he had scientific evidence we can voluntarily influence our autonomic nervous systems. I was excited, better yet ecstatic! This is what I had been talking about and obsessed with for the past decade! I listened to the rest of the podcast and then researched Wim and his method. I came to find that Wim had already developed a systematic and scientifically backed breathing practice that teaches individuals to raise their adrenaline levels at will. A study done at Radbound University in 2013 found for the first time in scientific history that human beings have the ability to voluntarily influence their autonomic nervous system through a training program Wim developed! This was so similar to the program I had planned of implementing in schools, but now the groundwork had already been laid and scientifically backed through a tried-and-true method!
The Wim Hof Method (WHM) was developed by Wim Hof. A man who has twenty six Guinness world records for all sorts of impressive feats. He has hiked up Mount Everest in shorts, ran a marathon in the desert without water and been submerged in ice for hours while raising his core body temperature, to name a few. Scientists became interested in Wim and began to study him. Wim has always said that he is not special, but that he created a method that is special and teaches others to have the same control of their mind and body that he does. The WHM Method consists of a committed mindset, breath work and gradual cold exposure (cold exposure being cold showers or cold water submersion).
Now, back to me going through rehabilitation after the accident… At this time I am living at home with a fractured neck and back, broken arm and ankle, addicted to pain killers, living with an emergent mood disorder and depression while experiencing symptoms of PTSD. I was in rough shape to say the least.
Now I just learned about Wim’s method, and I couldn’t take ice baths or cold showers at this time due to the neck brace, boot, and cast, but I could breathe… I began to do rounds upon rounds of breathing every day at the house. The breathwork would trigger the release of endorphins, but it also flooded my body with strange feelings of hypoxia. Hypoxia is the deficiency of oxygen reaching the bodies tissues, a common symptom of practicing WHM breathing. The breathwork was intense, and quite strange at first. However I noticed after I would practice I would have more control of my mind and feel better mentally and physically. I wondered if this had something to do with the amount of adrenaline that gets released when practicing the breathing. After all, it has now been scientifically proven that the breathing technique brings about more adrenaline throughout the body than someone who is actually bungee jumping!
It’s been scientifically proven (and I can personally account for) the WHM Breathing exercise triggering the release of endogenous opioids and endocannabinoids (the body’s natural painkillers) that help with pain management. After practicing the breathwork each day multiple times… two weeks had passed, and I found myself off the oxycodone, muscle relaxers, and ibuprofen. My mood became stable, and I had transformed from being bitter, resentful, and depressed into radically accepting the experience while maintaining a strong commitment to life.
Eventually, the neck brace, boot, cast, and sling came off. Understandably, I was still experiencing some residual pain from all of the fractures, broken bones, and brain injury. I began to take cold showers and ice baths. It wasn’t until this point that I realized that not only the breathing exercise, but also a cold shower/ice bath makes our hair stand on end! Wim had connected the dots and found hacks into deep parts of our own physiology. I kept training, taking ice baths, and practicing the breath work resulting in a FULL RECOVERY from my auto accident. As far as I could tell, through consistent practice and dedication, the ice baths rewired my nervous system and trained my body and mind to stay calm in stressful situations. I no longer experienced “a jolty nervous system”, jumping at loud bangs or people walking around corners. I was able to start driving again and passed my driver’s examination. Nightmares from the accident became less and less frequent. I found myself now living without symptoms of PTSD.
The Wim Hof Method had helped me overcome so much that I decided to go to Poland and train to become an instructor so I could help others. Soon enough I found myself in Poland, swimming in waterfalls in the middle of winter and getting certified as a Wim Hof Method instructor. Since then, I have trained hundreds of individuals in the Wim Hof Method and feel honored to keep going!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. It’s been full of bumps, potholes and detours… but that’s what makes life interesting and worth living. If it was smooth all the time it would be boring.
PTSD, mood disorder, traumatic brain injury, depression, addiction and physical injuries.
We’ve been impressed with Train the Brain, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Train the Brain offers a variety of workshops to sports teams, police and fire departments, search and rescue teams, physical rehabilitation centers, mental health clinics, gyms, yoga studios and local businesses.
Workshops consist of introductions, Tim’s personal story, the psychology of a growth mindset, the science supporting breathwork and cold exposure, guided breathwork, cold water immersion training and last but not least ice baths!
Workshops for police and fire departments have a specific focus on mastering the stress response and processing traumatic events through connecting with others, breathwork and cold exposure.
Workshops for sports teams, gyms and yoga studios focus more on the application of the WHM to improve sport performance and speed up recovery from workouts.
Workshops for local businesses focus more on team building activities, as well as breathwork and cold exposure.
Workshops for physical rehabilitation centers and mental health clinics focus more on the clinical application of such practices in order to meet clients where they are and help them overcome the challenges they face.
For those who don’t know… taking a simple cold shower or going further and taking an ice bath floods the brain and body with healthy and happy hormones and neurotransmitters that significantly boost ones mood and energy levels for hours and hours afterward. Cyclical hyperventilation followed by breath retention (WHM breathing) releases anti-inflammatory cell messaging proteins into the body that fight off acute and chronic inflammation. Cold water immersion and breathwork are hermetic stressors (forms of exercise) that strengthen the mind and body. I love teaching these workshops because it gives people the power and understanding of how to use low cost and accessible resources to improve their mental and physical health, well-being and productivity. It’s all quite simple once the individual knows how to use these tools.
I’m currently on the cutting edge of scientific research as I’m co-authoring a research paper in collaboration with Wayne State Universities Behavioral Neuro-psych & Neurology departments. This study aims to further interpret what happens in the brain and body through the consistent practice of breathwork and cold water immersion.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
If you want to host a workshop for your sports team, police department, mental health clinic / physical rehabilitation center, business, etc., simply give me a call or send me an email. My contact info is on my website posted below.
If you don’t want to host a workshop, but simply want to check one out… we offer workshops that are open to the public at large. Check out trainthebrainllc.com and click on “upcoming events” for more information. We would love to help you understand and cultivate the self-discipline to implement the use of cold water and oxygen into your life in order to improve your health and well-being!
Contact Info:
- Website: trainthebrainllc.com
- Instagram: trainthebrainllc
- Facebook: Train the Brain, LLC
- Youtube: trainthebrain181
Image Credits
Nick Battistone
Shadow Glass Films
