Ice Bath, Breathing, Pisco Sour and Anti-Aging

Rio de Janeiro, February 2022

Several times, I had been invited to private breathing sessions in a circle of friends, who followed the method of Wim Hof, but never participated in a professional workshop lead by a trained instructor. Guggi and I were fascinated of the ice bath and managed to stay in the shivering cold water for quite some time. Legs hurt like hell but with the right breathing technique, the body gets used to the cold shock. We did not slide-in completely with the full body but tried to maintain a minimum of at least three minutes, which is already something.

I was, though, mainly interested in how to rise the dopamine level in the blood, only by following an appropriate breathing technique. And even further: how to get high on your own dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and dtm, simply by regulating your oxygen circulation in blood and brain. Thrilling! Those very few dopamine-producing cells left in my brain, that had not been killed yet by death-bringing, nasty little proteins, got activated and I felt extremely happy to manipulate a little bit of my dysfunction.

After concluding the workshop, the dutch trainer accompanied Guggi and I for dinner to the best Peruvian in town, situated just around the corner from the venue and we had some very tasty ceviche, followed by a drink of Pisco Sour. I must say, after five alcohol-free weeks, that Pisco totally knocked me off my feet and I felt absolutely miserable next day.

It was that bad, that I even had to throw up next morning and preferred maintaining an empty stomach all day. Unfortunately, I had to work for the newspaper that day and missed the morning conference call as I overheard the alarm clock at 5.45 am. Given the fact, that my batteries were running that low, I could not properly make decisions nor actively do things. Guggi had to even help packing my small carry-on bag, because I was flying back to Madrid that evening.

We had an appointment in a Beauty Salon in the early afternoon and took the kids with us, cause they still were off-school during summer vacation. I just remember sitting in that waiting room with a very cold breeze coming from the air condition, freezing my ass off, and listening to the annoying sound of the kid’s games on their iPads, besides the horrible music coming out of an iPhone from the lady attending the patients in the waiting room. After about an hour, Guggi had finished her beauty treatment and I went in for my turn. The beauty doctor talked so fast and incomprehensible behind the face mask that I decided to say „ok“ to everything. I lay down and felt a big needle pushed in my cheeks, cruising all the way up and down my face under my skin, injecting some kind of liquid. No clue what was in it! The only thing I saw was my blown up face in the mirror afterwords. Guggi said, it would go away after three days.

Luckily, I could hide behind my face mask when taking an Uber to the airport. I was so damn tired and powerless that I did not even care about the middle seat, and squeezed-in between two people during the eleven-hour flight, I rejected dinner and doze off.

And all this because of a Pisco Sour? Hmm. Never again.