ICE-LOVING Dutchman Wim Hof has survived the coldest locations on Earth, but could he last a winter in a draughty house in Hounslow with a cheapskate dad? These are his tips:
Cold showers
All of my crazed followers begin their day with a cold shower. Starting your day in the worst conceivable way means it can only improve. 120 endless seconds bollock naked under what feels like a hailstorm and you’ll agree with your dad that 17.5ºC between 6pm and 10pm is indisputably the correct setting for the thermostat.
Breathing
Your body is a heat factory. You must learn how to use it. Hyperventilating as if you had dunked your jaffers in an ice-bath will oxygenate your blood, warming you from within. Your father might have access to fan heaters firmly locked off, but he cannot stop you from breathing.
Mental resilience
Feeling cold is simply a state of mind, albeit a state of mind that can lead to hypothermia and death. When a parent informs you that frost on the inside of windows was fine when he was a boy and suggests putting on a third jumper, simply imagine yourself somewhere warm like a sauna, an equatorial village or hell.
Follow nature’s way
In survival situations you can sleep inside the carcasses of large mammals, as demonstrated in the field survey The Empire Strikes Back. If your father, as many do, let himself go once turning 50 and is no longer of practical value, his corpse could mean surviving the night. Or, once he is departed, you could simply turn the heating on.
A onesie
Being entirely honest, sometimes my whole ‘Iceman’ schtick gets a bit much. So why not snuggle into a fleecy onesie, wrap your hands around a warming mug of hot chocolate and kick back with my favourite show Married at First Sight. No amount of central heating can close to the warming power of hygge and an oil-filled radiator on maximum.
