Dominic Bowden on _WellBeings_

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen articles about Dominic Bowden on a new podcast about “wellbeing” called WellBeings. Dominic Bowden is a bit of a celebrity - having appeared on The Bachelor NZ amongst other shows.

The podcast purports to be science-based on how to live an extraordinary life. While the podcast mentions science quite often, from my initial listen to it, it appears to want to use the mantle of science for credibility, but doesn't really follow through.

This week, the podcast is embracing Wim Hof, who promotes the idea of extreme cold and breathing techniques as a means of improving one's health. The podcast is being promoted by Stuff, who have partnered with Bowden. The write-up of this week's episode talks about sceptics:

His message to the sceptics? “Be very critical. That polishes the diamond of the truth. Be critical, but have your two feet on the ground, because I'm doing my science.

“If you are still a sceptic, just try it once, and if it doesn't work, never do it again. But you will see if you do it once... you are hooked.”

Um, no, that's not how to tell if something works.

Having listened to the episode, there's some strong claims in there which we should be very sceptical of! (for example, that his method cured a woman of her endometriosis and allowed her to become pregnant.) Dominic Bowden himself seems to be a true believer, revealing that he's been doing the Wim Hof method of breathing for the last five years. (Actually, in the first episode he made mention of breathing too, so it appears that's his "thing".)

Harriet Hall wrote about Wim Hof's claims in a Science-based Medicine article.

Oh No, Ross and Carrie did a series of episodes that experiences the Wim Hof method. It's very good.