The legendary Wim Hof reveals how singing in the ice bath is his secret to finding his ultimate chill and strength in the cold
Wim Hof – The Iceman – is about to launch his highly anticipated debut album Into the Depths. With 91 million daily users of the Wim Hof Method, 11.5 million followers worldwide, bestselling books, TV shows, and scientific studies validating his impact on the nervous and immune systems, Wim Hof has become a global phenomenon – equal parts mystic and modern-day scientist.
Now, he’s making a return to one of his first loves: music. His debut single “Freedom” introduces an album three years in the making. This is music with a message: resilience. It’s also a rare opportunity to speak directly with Hof about his mission and why he believes that music (and cold plunges) have the power to heal the world. Men’s Fitness caught up with him to talk about the rhythm of breath, the meaning of sound, and the universal strength that lives within us all.
Men’s Fitness: Wim, many people know you for the cold exposure and breathing. But your new album shows another side – the musician. How does singing fit into your daily life?
Wim Hof: Every morning I sing. It’s part of my discipline, just like breathing or the cold. Singing is spiritual fitness – it’s training the heart, the soul. When I sing, it opens something inside me. It gives me lyrics, poetry, and emotion. I see differently, feel differently. It’s like the heart is breathing.
All my life, I’ve wanted to express the things that are hard to define – the soul, love, curiosity, trust. When I sing, all those questions become clear. The confusion disappears. It takes away the stress of not being recognized by yourself, because we’re always thinking. We think and think, but thinking clouds our deeper nature – our heart, our empathy, our imagination. Singing clears that.
MF: That’s a beautiful way to put it. So music is almost another form of your practice?
WH: Exactly. Thinking is great – I love languages, reading, talking – but the heart needs a different outlet. Music is that outlet. It’s a way to understand myself beyond the mind.
We express everything else in our lives – our work, our ambitions, our needs – but not the deeper realities. There’s often no time, no space, no one to share them with. The world is busy. You have to work, make money, survive. But that everyday noise blocks the soul. For me, singing is sanity. It’s like breathing from my heart.
MF: You’ve turned that practice into a full album. What’s the story behind it?
WH: The album is a story – a return to the tribe. We’ve lost that sense of being together, helping each other, solving things as one. Now we live in boxes, behind walls, each in our own little space. We’ve become over-individualized.
If you go to the bus stop, people sit like zombies, staring at their phones. Nobody talks. And that’s stressful for the soul. We are emotional beings, but we suppress it all. My music is a way to reconnect with that tribal feeling – with the collective spirit that says, I help you, you help me. That’s the energy of the album.
MF: You’ve said before that cold exposure changed everything for you. How does that experience link to the emotions you’re describing?
WH: When I was seventeen, I went into the cold water – and it broke the thinking pattern. In the cold, you have to feel. You can’t rely on thoughts. The mind is useless there.
At first, the body screams: Get out! But if you stay, something amazing happens – the deeper power of the body takes over. You overcome the stress, and your physiology adapts. That’s real inner power.
This experience taught me that we need to break patterns of overthinking. The cold forces you back into feeling – and from that space comes clarity, strength, even joy. That’s what I sing about. It’s the same energy.
MF: You’ve also taken your method into universities and labs. What does the science say about all this?
WH: I brought it all – the cold, the breathing – to science. We’ve done studies in Detroit, the Netherlands, and other places. Brain scans and fMRIs don’t lie. They showed that through my techniques, I could consciously influence my autonomic nervous system – what was once thought impossible.
In one experiment, while icy water was poured over my body, my skin temperature didn’t drop. The scientists saw it happen live. They said, ‘we’ve found compelling evidence of voluntary control over autonomic processes related to mood and temperature regulation. That’s what the data said.
But more than the science, it’s about feeling. If you can make the cold feel pleasant, that’s emotional power. The same goes for heat, or negativity, or pain. You can transform your emotions. That’s the real science of happiness.
MF: Many of our readers are health-conscious men. How can they use your approach in everyday life?
WH: Very simple. Take a cold shower. You have to shower anyway – just make it cold. Turn winter into summer.
Go outside, swim in a lake, feel nature. And know that you are built to handle it. We are made to endure cold, heat, adversity. Inside us is incredible power. Once you experience it, you never forget it.
You can also try deep breathing. Do 30 deep breaths – in, let go, in, let go – then exhale, hold, and do push-ups. People who could only do 20 press-ups suddenly do 40. That’s because the breath unlocks energy. It’s not magic – it’s physiology.
When people practice this, they connect with their inner strength. They feel it immediately. It clears the mind and balances the hormones. It’s free, it’s natural, and it works.
MF: You’re vocal about rejecting quick fixes – especially pills or shortcuts. What’s your view on that side of the wellness industry?
WH: Quick fixes are illusions. The only real quick fix is within.
If something feels wrong inside, don’t suppress it – cleanse it. Sometimes I water fast, like animals do. When animals are sick, they stop eating. They let the body heal itself. We should do the same.
When you take chemicals from the outside, you don’t solve the problem – you only delay it. The body will send the message again, maybe stronger, maybe “mutated.” Then you take more pills, and the cycle continues.
Nature gives us everything we need. Breathing, cold, fasting – these are ancient, simple ways to reset. Our bodies have evolved for millions of years to handle everything. We just forgot.
MF: That’s a powerful message. What do you hope people take from your music and your method?
WH: That we are not weak. We are not victims. We have enormous power inside – physical, emotional, spiritual. You don’t need to be extraordinary to feel it. I’m just like you, maybe less. But I found something that works, and I want to share it. Music, cold, breath – they’re all keys to the same door. They bring us back to the tribe, to trust, to the heart. Once you feel that, you’ll never want to go back to the rat race. That’s the real freedom.
Wim Hof’s new album blends his voice, ambient sound, and tribal rhythm – a soundtrack to the philosophy that made him a global phenomenon. As he puts it: “It’s not about thinking. It’s about feeling. The heart breathes – and when it does, everything becomes clear.” https://www.wimhofmethod.com/
