MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

125 words :: Leslie Anthony They hunch in swimsuits on cramped wooden benches, surrounded by firewood and snow-caked boots. Some steaming, having just stepped from the sauna, sweat dripping from their noses. Others flushed, having climbed up a four-metre snowpack from an icy river, bodies pink and eyes flashing like Christmas lights. One by one they fit a space-age headband onto their skulls and sit stone still while their brainwaves download into an app on Brent Martin’s phone. The headgear is a Muse 2, a multi-sensor EEG device widely employed by neuroscience researchers that you can buy on Amazon. Marketed as a meditation aid, it provides real-time feedback on brain activity, heart rate, breathing, and body movement. In this case, users are tracking their response to thermoregulatory stress. Can you be a more physiologically efficient sauna-er? A more meditative cold-water plunger à la Dutch specialist Wim “The Iceman” Hof? Of course, and biofeedback can help accelerate the process. When each person is done, Martin shares their results. They nod. Then the hot clamber down to the river, and the cool head into the sauna, both with the same thought: I can do better this time. This is flow science. This is X Camp. The ad went something like this: Join us at X Camp, a four-day backcountry gathering to stoke the soul and awaken the spirit. We’ll combine the latest neuroplasticity and brain tech with embodied experiences to help you tap into flow state and raise your game. Unplug your electronics and prepare for an exploratory journey of inner and outer discovery… BACKYARD GOWITH THE FLOW Welcome to X Camp, where you’ll leave walking the walk better than you ever have before X Camp fireside chat might be a bit more cerebral than your average après. ERIC BERGER