[News] Freediving Research Project Calls for Participants

[NewsBot]

Palo Alto, CA - A new research initiative at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology has been announced by Jennifer Housely. Ms. Housely is an experienced freediver herself, and is a candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree.


The study in...



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[BennyB]

32. Do you think marriage is old-fashioned and should be done away with?

And what exactly does that have to do with freediving??

[Kars]

I'm sorry to tell you that I find many questions confusing and unclear what you specifically want to know.

Let me give you some examples:

32(b). Please indicate if you experienced any of the following during your personal best static performance: Loss of Motor Control, Black Out, Both, Neither, Decline to state?

I and many other Freedivers don't consider a performance an personal best unless it's a clean performance, meaning no BO nor LMC.

33. Excluding your personal best, please provide the duration of your last three target breath hold attempts:

I don't have any targets, I just do my best and see where it ends. Setting targets does not work for me. Tough offcause I'll hope to discover something new and enter a new realm of performance resulting in a new pb.

41. On average, how long are you able to tolerate this mental discomfort?

Usually very short, that's why I need to deal with it right away and solve it.
To me it a bit like Paul Kotics' story porttrays, being in the zone. In there there are no thoughts that get any grip, I just let every of them go as they come. And when I cannot come or stay in this state I could start to mentally travel around in my body and find some distraction of listening to my heart, talking to my body to relax etc.

42. How would you rate the level of mental discomfort you experienced during your best static performance on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being little to no discomfort and 100 being extreme discomfort?
Like I said before, I cannot endure it for long, but I can acknowledge the disturbances (like a flooding mask)and put it to rest and focus on the things I can do. The perfect static for me is like a long deep relaxed state sleep, with in the end a short period (1-2 min) of selfobservation in order to come up just before a LMC, comming up clear and easy with the sensation you could on for longer.

With CB/CW:

61. Please rate the degree of mental discomfort (e.g. anxiety, self-doubt, fear, etc.) you experience during constant ballast attempts on a scale from 0 to 100 with 0 being no discomfort and 100 being extreme discomfort?

In general I don't experience any, I just make fun dives and return when I feel I need to. In competitions I do have some worries, especially when I know some circomstances are less than what I'm used to. Things like cold and stess, have caused me to BO twice in a depth competition like situation. I write it off to much affected reserve buffers, and my failiure to recognice these factors in time.
Before on of these BO's when I turned and started to acended the idea of not making it to the surface indeed poped into my mind; but what can you do? I just figured down there I could at least try to do my utmost best and see where it ends.
During one of my last few deep dives I was a bit worried about technical things like when to do the mouthfull, and total dive time. But I would not call it fear.

The 4.a. Self Efficacy: Overall questions were also difficult for me to awser:
Most of the time I wonder what it is you're exactly asking:

"This inventory looks at how confident you are that you can reach your personal best in your sport given the circumstances described below. "

Combined with:

"1. I previously imagined I would perform well "

I thinking of a question like: 'When I previously imagined I would perform well, would I feel confident to reach my pb because of this?' (A, No but it helps a bit in the positive direction)
Or is the question: Do I feel more confident to reach a pb because of the stated? (A, hardly anything)

Shall I fill in 10 (for the confidence it gives), or shall I fill in 60 pointing out it's a bit to the positve, just over the nutral 50 points?

"4. I am feeling stressed"
When am feeling stressed, do I feel confident that I can reach a pb?

I just know 99% (because miracals do happen) I will not from experience. I know that stess makes me very sure I won't reach a PB. What shall I fill in here? 0 No confidence of obtaining a Pb?

I've now filled it in as anything below 50% reduces my confidence, 50% is of no signicicant influence, and above helps to create confidence.

I regard the 4a awnsers also to apply for the individual disciplines as marked out in 4b-4c and 4d.

Kars

BTW I'm the 1m 89Cm guy of 28, 68Kg From the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

[pkotik]

Originally Posted by BennyB

And what exactly does that have to do with freediving??

Don't you think it's useful to explore correlations with attitudes, personal relationships, etc. ? You know - psychological variables ? Um, it's a study about psychological factors and freediving. Little is known about this. More can be, but only if we investigate.