Intermittent Living Interventions

"The use of ancestral challenges as a vaccine against the damaging effects of modern life"

The Modern Medicine

Why Intermittent Living Apply interventions in everyday life?

We no longer have to move to find food, drinks are plentiful, clothes are available, if we are cold we turn up the chauffage and if it is hot we turn on the air conditioning. In today's society, we no longer have to adapt as we used to. In addition, antibiotics and hygiene have greatly reduced bacterial risk.

We all live in luxury, but there is a flip side to the coin. Our natural protective mechanisms are no longer activated. Modern diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, chronic fatigue, rheumatic diseases,... are daily occurrences.

The less flexible you are at metabolic, immunological, psychological and neurological levels, the more fragile you are to these risk factors. Fragility leads to chronic stress, which accelerates ageing and increases susceptibility to disease.

Intermittent Living is a science-based strategy in which we start activating our natural protective mechanisms back through short stress stimuli. We make our bodies stronger again by administering short, acute stress stimuli.

The concept is based on the knowledge from scientific PsychoNeuroImmunology, PNI.

Health equals flexibility

Intermittent Living is a natural vaccine against modern risk factors for developing disease.

Our body is capable of resolving a disturbing factor as quickly as possible, returning to its former balance.

Intermittent Living Interventions help us regain and maintain that state of flexibility. We make ourselves anti-fragile to the risk factors we can no longer avoid.

The Intermittent Living Interventions

Intermittent Cold
Intermittent Heat
Intermittent Drinking
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Hypoxia
Intermittent Hypercapnia
Intermittent Exercise

Intermittent Cold

Short-term exposure to cold stimulates the immune system and protects us from infections and oxidative stress. It stimulates the production of brown adipose tissue and converts white fat to beige fat.

Beige and brown fat release energy as body heat and increases basal metabolism. The more brown adipose tissue, the better fat burning and the faster you lose weight.

Applying Intermittent Cold in your daily life? Start with cold shower and then switch to ice baths.

We ourselves also offer Cold Therapy Workshops combining various intermittent stimuli.

Intermittent Heat

Short-term exposure to heat helps against depression, makes you get and stay healthy, is a cure for obesity and increases your decision-making skills in difficult circumstances.

Prolonged heat formed an adaptive system based on multiple heat shock proteins (HSP). Heat is therefore much more threatening to humans than cold.

When you are cold, you can dress yourself, move around, shiver, etc. With heat, however, things are different. The only thing the body can do to cool down is to sweat. When you exercise, your body temperature increases. Once you reach a certain threshold, the brain protects itself and further muscle contraction and heat production is not allowed.

Hyperthermia directly interferes with brain function and disrupts neurological control of muscles, increasing injury susceptibility.

You can train thermoregulatory capacity by "overdressing", for example, or by a thorough sauna visit prior to loading.

Experiencing Intermittent Heat? We organise workshops where we teach and let you experience all the effects.

Intermittent Drinking

The evolutionarily strong thirst regulation centre of the average human is completely disrupted.

Our contemporary drinking behaviour causes us to lose our sense of thirst. Most people no longer know when they are really thirsty. Thirst is a brain sensation and in most of us, that regulatory centre is completely dysregulated.

Society has told us to drink small amounts throughout the day to stay hydrated. Moisture is very important; for hydrating the skin, disposing of waste products and to regulate body temperature. BUT just as it is not good for your body to process food all day, the body is also not going to be happy if you drink anything all the time.

Man never did this before in his history, until recently. Actually, our body (and certainly our stomach) understands nothing about drinking without thirst.

So drink only when you are thirsty!

Intermittent Fasting

Periodic fasting clears old damaged cells, increases sensitivity to the hormone insulin, inhibits cell growth (and thus ageing) stimulates fat metabolism and quiets the immune system.

Intermittent Hypoxia

Create brief exposure to oxygen deprivation.

Prolonged or chronic oxygen deprivation cause damage and increased oxidation of tissues such as:

A sedentary lifestyle contributes to diseases related to chronic oxygen deprivation. We sit way too much every day. The number of sitting hours per day, is directly linked to arterial stiffness and obesity, both increasing the risk of artherosclerosis and heart disease.

Intermittent hypoxia, or the provision of controlled oxygen deprivation, plays an important role in preventing and curing the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle. O

Intermittent hypoxia improves blood glucose levels and insulin sensitivity. In addition, positive cardiovascular effects occur.

Intermittent Hypercapnia

The most unknown and unloved acute stimulus.

It is the medical term for excessive levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the blood. We induce hypercapnia by breathing in and out into a plastic bag, for example.

Chronic hypercapnia causes various disorders such as dizziness, confusion, drowsiness, headache, tremors, shortness of breath and even cardiac arrhythmias.

Controlled application of carbon dioxide provides:

better regulation of the immune system
improved lung functions
counteracting brain damage
better oxygen uptake
anti-panic
pro-inflammatory (pro-inflammatory due to acidification)
protection against brain damage
protection against damage caused by a CO2 increase.
rise in blood CO2 levels, causing us to mildly activate the panic system. Train the brain stem to respond appropriately to this, rather than going into freeze and stiffening when stressed or unforeseen.

Intermittent Exercise

It is best to move as much as possible throughout the day. Do you have a sedentary job? Then sitting breaks are an ideal method to counteract the negative effects of sitting.

How? By moving for two minutes every half hour, or five minutes every hour.

Why. It's important to get your heart rate up in the air for a while. So you can easily choose to run up and down the stairs a few times, pump 30 times, do some burpees, ...

everything is fine as long as your heart rate peaks for a while!

Intermittent Living

For which health effects concerns Intermittent Living Interventions?

Protecting your cells from oxidative stress
Inhibition of inflammation in your body
Boost your brain, body and immune system
Support of fat metabolism
Makes you more decisive
Detoxification of foreign substances