If you concentrate hard, can you raise the temperature of your little finger? The human body has a thermostat of sorts, a way of regulating its temperature and ensuring its heart keeps beating even when we鈥檙e freezing; but can we adjust it with the power of our mind?
That鈥檚 the alleged side effect of tummo meditation (rhymes with 鈥渟umo鈥�), a devotional practice found at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains which is meant to cleanse the body of improper thoughts. Tummo, also called g-tummo, teaches you to breathe in a special way: take a breath in, keep it in while squeezing your abdominal and pelvic muscles, then exhale, either forcefully or gently depending on the practice. While breathing, you are to imagine a flame which rises from your belly button to your head until you feel a heat emanating from your spine.
Details surrounding the precise method of tummo meditation are still hard to find. It was meant to be a secret held by Tibetan monks in exile, and it was only through intense negotiations in the early 1980s that the Western world was introduced to it. But does it work? Will tummo breathing or a similar practice prevent hypothermia if you find yourself in a freezing lake?
Benson burner
Tibetan tummo meditation had escaped westward via rumours and folk tales for a long time before Dr. Herbert Benson, who had studied transcendental meditation in the 1970s, decided to put it under the microscope. The Harvard-based cardiologist, who聽, would devote his career to investigating the link between the mind and the body. He spent a year discussing his plan with the Dalai Lama before he was given the go-ahead: in February 1981, Benson and his research team flew to Northern India with cases of portable scientific equipment in order to see, for the first time, if experienced practitioners of tummo breathing could really increase their body temperature. To have been a fly on the wall when Benson told the Dalai Lama that, in order to measure something approximating core body temperature, he was going to have to stick a thermometre 10 centimetres up where the sun don鈥檛 shine to see if, well, the sun聽肠辞耻濒诲听shine there after all鈥�.
Benson鈥檚 results were published the following year in the journal聽Nature. Finding papers on tummo breathing鈥檚 alleged thermoregulation is hard: Benson鈥檚聽聽and 2013鈥檚聽聽are pretty much the only ones, acting like a call-and-response separated by decades. In Benson鈥檚 pioneering experiment, the rectal temperature of the monks practicing tummo meditation did not change.
What did go up was the temperature of the three monks鈥� fingers and toes. Two of these participants were tested in their hermitages鈥攕mall, uninsulated stone huts with no heating at altitudes ranging from 1,800 to 2,800 metres (5,900 to 9,180 feet, roughly). The third was examined in a hotel room in Upper Dharamsala, India, home to the Tibetan government in exile. Fifth finger nailbed and fifth toe nailbed temperatures were monitored every five minutes throughout the meditation, which lasted almost an hour. Averaging the data from all three monks, finger temperature increased by 5.4潞C (9.8潞F); for toes, it was 6.4潞C (11.6潞F). Remarkably, monk #3 was able to raise his toe鈥檚 temperature by 8.3潞C (14.9潞F) from baseline, the largest increase recorded by Benson鈥檚 team.
In 1985, Benson, back in the United States, received a call from a representative of the Dalai Lama. Four years prior, he had wanted to witness an uncanny demonstration of tummo鈥檚 heat generation: a secret 鈥済raduation鈥� ceremony that was said to test meditators鈥� mettle by draping their shirtless torsos in cold, wet sheets. The internal heat they would generate apparently visibly聽蝉迟别补尘别诲听the bedsheets; upon being dry, the sheet would be replaced with a wet one, and it was a competition to see how many sheets a tummo trainee could dry without shivering. But the ceremony was rare: Benson had not been able to see one in 1981. Now? It was about to take place.
Benson and his team flew back to Asia, and in聽聽filmed contemporaneously, we can see what appears to be steam coming off of a meditator鈥檚 body covered in a wet sheet.
The Dalai Lama himself has said that when you control your inner elements, you can control external elements. Then,聽聽can be performed.
We could simply stay in awe of what was observed and measured and leave it at that. But a bit of skepticism and further experimentation has helped us figure out what is real in all of this and what has been misinterpreted.
Show me your hands
For decades, this was the state of our scientific knowledge on tummo meditation, since Benson 肠辞耻濒诲听聽to travel to India and decided to study other alleged benefits of meditation. In 2013, we see the publication of a new study in which an academic based in Singapore, Maria Kozhevnikov, went to Tibet to gather more data. In her paper, she and her colleagues take the opportunity to throw a much-needed bucket of cold water on the sizzling claims made for tummo.
The idea that the human body can turn into a sheets dryer on command may sound supernatural, but the steam would likely appear simply due to the difference in temperature between the cold sheet and a body at its usual temperature. And those fingers and toes? They did get much hotter, but not in excess of what is a normal body temperature. In fact, they reached a maximum of 33潞C (91.4潞F), a few degrees shy of normal core body temperature (which聽, like time of day, sex, and where it is taken, but orally is typically around 36.8潞C or 98.2潞F).
Importantly, the meditators鈥� hands were not at rest; they were often contracted. Kozhevnikov reports that during parts of the meditation, the monks would tense their hand muscles and press their fists against their hips, burying them into the dark pants they wore as shown in a photo published with the paper. If you do the same in the middle of winter while waiting for the bus, you will also notice your hands getting warmer. There鈥檚 nothing supernatural about it; it鈥檚 muscle action causing increased blood flow to the extremities, combined with the insulating power of fabric.
These monks are also known for sleeping outside in the cold wearing only lightweight clothes and doing just fine, but here too there is a simpler explanation than mind-over-matter: acclimatization. As one Dutch professor told聽, if you start taking a one-minute cold shower in the morning and increase its duration every day, you鈥檒l find yourself tolerating a 15-minute cold shower before the year is over. The body adapts. I am reminded of a聽National Geographic聽documentary in which an American geneticist travels to the northeastern end of Russia,聽聽that 鈥渋t鈥檚 a wonder people can live here today.鈥� Once inside the Arctic circle, he is greeted by a nomad who has been walking for six days and nights. On his own. There is no mention of tummo to light a fire inside his body.
Kozhevnikov鈥檚 study, in which she tested 10 Tibetan meditators (including seven women) who were practicing tummo in rooms that were typically around 0潞C (32潞F), confirmed that indeed finger temperature goes up, especially when the meditators flex their hands and bury them in their pants. Nothing unusual here.
But unlike Benson鈥檚 study, the meditators鈥� core body temperature聽诲颈诲听go up. The increase was mild when they breathed in and out forcefully鈥攊nhaling loudly and exhaling with a vocal 鈥渉uh鈥濃�攁nd it was more pronounced when they were told to additionally visualize a flame rising from their navel. Based on this small experiment, forceful tummo breathing causes the body鈥檚 temperature to rise a bit, and imagining a source of heat can sustain this rise over a longer period of time. Why didn鈥檛 Benson spot this? Rectal temperature and armpit temperature, while both approximating the temperature deep inside the body, are not quite the same, with armpit temperature being less precise. Was the rectal probe distracting? Was 1980s technology too inexact? Were the two groups of meditators a little bit different? Were the environmental conditions for the two experiments not similar enough? I don鈥檛 know.聽
It is interesting, however, that the second part of Kozhevnikov鈥檚 paper presents the results of an experiment done in New Jersey, in which a group of mostly women with no tummo meditation experience were briefly trained in the forceful breathing but not the heat visualization. They too were able to raise their armpit temperature a bit, to a maximum of 37.0潞C (98.6潞F). I鈥檓 not sure this would come in handy in a snowstorm if I were underdressed.
But what if you didn鈥檛 even have to breathe a certain way to achieve similar results, at least when it comes to warming up your fingers?聽
Number go up聽
It鈥檚 called Raynaud phenomenon. Due to either cold exposure or emotional stress, a person with Raynaud phenomenon will notice a finger or two turning white, then blue, and then red. The reason is that blood vessels in the finger constrict. Through biofeedback, researchers wondered if people could will their blood into returning to their affected fingers.
With biofeedback, a person is hooked up to a device that measures a variable in their body, like heart rate or brain waves. In this case, it鈥檚 the temperature of one of their fingers, which they can see on a monitor. Through training, they try to force their finger into getting warmer鈥攂y imagining a flame inside of it, for example鈥攗ntil the temperature really does go up on the monitor. The idea is that, eventually, they should be able to cause the dilation of blood vessels in their hands before heading out into the cold or doing something stressful, without the use of the biofeedback machine, to stop Raynaud phenomenon from manifesting altogether.
Does it work? I have found conflicting information. A聽聽of three trials concludes it is indeed 鈥渆fficacious鈥� for Raynaud, but a聽聽says there鈥檚 insufficient evidence. Biofeedback has been tried to help control pain, headaches, even incontinence. Results may vary.
Wim and vigor
I can understand why Benson looked into transcendental meditation and tummo breathing in the 1970s and 80s. New Age had captured the imagination of many, encouraging them to shed the rigid and well-worn structures of Christianity and embrace the esoteric, the foreign, the supernatural. Tibetan monks channelling a psychic fire in a faraway land? The expression 鈥渓ike moths to a flame鈥� seems appropriate here.
Today, our seductive gurus are of a secular kind. It鈥檚 impossible to write about a heat-producing breathing technique now and not mention Wim Hof, the Iceman. The Dutch record-breaker made his riches teaching people how to withstand the cold鈥攖hrough lucrative speaking gigs, workshops, consultancy, and winter retreats. There鈥檚 a lot of money in making people believe they too can become extraordinary.
The breathing technique promoted by Wim Hof is meant to give you control over the involuntary functions of your nervous system and thus protect you from cold air and water鈥攏ot unlike tummo breathing. And sure enough, a聽聽done on this technique calls its use 鈥減romising;鈥� but its reliance on hyperventilating 30 to 40 times before holding your breath makes this technique dangerous.
It can result in passing out, and if you happen to be in the water when you do this, you can die. Reporting from the Netherlands posited that a number of pool drownings were聽聽with the practice of Wim Hof鈥檚 breathing method.
We shouldn鈥檛 take Hof at his grandiose words鈥攅specially given the serious allegations raised against him by his own family聽. As for the practitioners of tummo meditation, there is limited evidence that what they do can raise their body temperature. But travel to Northern India and Tibet is expensive, research grants are hard to get, and negotiating for an opportunity to wire up and gather data on someone who has devoted their life to chastity and privation is not easy. In the absence of rigorous scientific inquiry, acclimatization and small rises in finger temperature due to embedding your fists in the crease of your pants are transformed into unexplainable feats of spiritual elevation.
There seems to be聽something聽to the breathing and the visualization, but I think we need more investigations to understand what part of the process is responsible for what, or what鈥檚 really going on under the hood of the proverbial car. Will the monks let us?聽
Take-home message:
- Tummo meditation, which typically involves forceful breathing and imagining a flame rising to your head, can raise body temperature a little bit, according to limited scientific research.
- The large, often-quoted increase in temperature due to tummo meditation involves fingers and toes, and we know the practitioners will flex their hands and bury them in the crease of their pants, which explains the rise in temperature.
- Biofeedback has been tried to help people who regularly experience bad blood circulation in their fingers, but the evidence for its benefit is mixed.
- Wim Hof鈥檚 breathing method is alleged to help you withstand the cold, but its reliance on hyperventilating can make you pass out and drown.
