1. The "Iceman"
You don't earn the nickname "Iceman" without doing something outrageously cool (pun very much intended). Wim Hof is a Dutch endurance artist who spends most of his life submerging himself in ice. Amongst other things, Hof has managed to endure being fully submerged in ice for 1 hour 52 minutes, climb Kilimanjaro in just two days wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and complete a full marathon in the Arctic circle, again wearing nothing but shorts. He also attempted to climb Everest (in his beloved shorts) but had to turn back due to a foot injury. Amazingly, the Iceman's achievements seem to be thanks to his remarkable ability to manually control his autonomic nervous system through yoga and meditation. Whilst this seems like one of those fluffy woo-claims, research has shown that this is probably true. Hof insists that anyone can do what he does and, in
research at a university in the Netherlands, he appeared to have passed his skills onto 12 other people, teaching them to actually control their own immune systems.
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