Am I damaging my brain?

[crashball]

Hey,

I have a question regarding the effects of holdings ones breath for long peroids. I have been recently trying to increase static and dynamic apnea times by doing apnea walks and tables. I have made alot of progress going from about 1:30 to 4 mins in two weeks. However I would just like to know if I am doing any kind of significant damage to my brain. I use the word significant because I know that brain damage can result from as little as a few pints. On one occasieion after doing a few static holds I noticed my lungs felt a little sore for about a day. I also have expericanced a blackout while doing apnea walks needles to say I was pushing it a bit hard. It happend after I had reached my target (about 100m) I felt a bit dissy and next thing I remember my dog was licking my face.

Cheers

 

[Rogert]

There have been a few threads about this in the past, one being asked by myself. but what i have learned you are not damaging your brain while doing a static or dynamic breathhold. A lot of people who have not looked into this sport think that holding your breath for more than 4mins will give u brain damage. Wrong. Brain damage will only occur a few minutes after blackout. You would probably be more likely to get brain damage from apnea walks if u blackout and smack your head on the cement or something. but luckily you had your dog there with you. hope this helps buddy. Im only a junior on this forum there are a lot more people who would be able to explain this better

 

[drunkinbda]

ya from my understanding (from various sources/fields), the blackout is your bodies way of STOPPING brain damage. When you hold your breath, your blood oxygen level obviously decreases. When you need some more, you get the urge to breath (although more triggered by CO2).

Freedivers try to suppress this urge, causing the blood oxygen to drop more. Eventually when the O2 lvl gets dangerously low, your brain blacks out so that whatever conscious decisions you are making that are affecting oxygen levels will stop. Then reflex (unconscious) signals keep you breathing to replenish your oxygen supply. Basically from what i know blackouts are just a failsafe to stop you suffocating yourself by holding your breath or using more oxygen than you are getting.

Unfortunately for freedivers, when this happens underwater the whole reflex thing is kinda useless.

If anyone is more in the know, please feel free to correct me.:martial :martial

 

[trux]

According to some highly respectable DB members (for example Eric Fattah), blackout is not really a protective mechanism, but simply and plainly a brain failure due to the lapse of oxygen, when neuronal transfer functionality starts to fail (that's in fact also already the case at LMC/samba too). I tend to agree with it - I highly doubt the blackout (or samba) saves any more oxygen. Hence by blacking out, the brain does not offer any additional protection against hypoxia (for itself or for other organs).

I do not know when exactly brain cells start to die, but holding your breath until blackout is definitely not a thing any experienced freediver would recommend. By holding your breath into LMC (samba) or blackout you are already entering the twilight zone, which is the starting point of neuronal damage. Hopefully, accidental short blackouts cause no serious or irreversible damage, but they are definitely something any freediver wants to avoid.

The purpose of freediving training is not only increasing the hypoxic/hypercapnic tolerance, but also teaching the body to respond with strong and quick diving reflex, diverse physiological adaptations, relaxation and self-control skills (and learning the technique, of course, too). The target of a recreational freediver or a spear fisher is to increase endurance and bottom time while keeping the same level of oxygen saturation (or security margin) at the end of the dive, or even increasing it in comparison to the previous (untrained) state. Increasing the hypoxic/hypercapnic tolerance is only important for extreme cases (competitions, records, unplanned situations), and a freediver without safety divers must never rely on it. It is in fact the last thing you should learn, but when training it is practically impossible to avoid increasing the psychical tolerance and reducing so the security margin.

The conclusion - always consider any blackout a serious accident, get a few days off to recover, and think about what you did wrong, and how you can see it coming or avoid it the next time.

 

[shoutatthesky]

It would be interesting to get an idea of just how common it is for freedivers to BO. I have been going a couple of years now and have had no LMC or BO. With a PB of 4:15 I don't feel I have come anywhere near close. But that doesn't necessarily mean I havent been. I guess with my serious shortage of buddies I havent been pushing too close to the break point.

 

[azapa]

Adam: I hope this helps the thread other than Hijacking it. I have been freediving for about a year, and too often alone. I have never had a BO/LMC either, but feel I have been close in observed pool practice. On a 60M DNF (long for me) I would slowly "white out" in the last few meters. On ocean dives, alone, I head up on the first contractions, with dive rarely longer than 1:15, and depths to 15 to 20M. I have never had any symptoms. How do you maintain your comfort zone? On my longer dives in the ocean, the only symptom I feel is leg burn at the top.

 

[amihov]

Something about Ocean dive. Maybe it will be better to test your limits in a swimming pool before you try it in the Ocean. I have had contractions when i was swimming lengths in the pool. You can get contractions in the Ocean too .All you need to do is get more rest before the dive and breath up some more so you get more oxygen in your blood and less co2. And then you can swimming longer whit out getting burn in your legs .

 

[shoutatthesky]

I can only hypothesize that we are far from reaching our limits. As I am often not being spotted I don't push it in the pool. I limit myself to single lengths of a 25m pool with ample rest. When doing dry statics where I have been able to push I have felt a bit 'out of it' but in full control of my functions.

 

[amihov]

Pushing your limits in the pool it is the closesed simulation of ocean conditions. So in reality dry static or dynamic apnea may help you but training in water is the best . If you are afraid to do it alone just find someone to spot you when you are in the pool. I use my wife for that. She is not aware of what i am doing but at least you know that there is some one to look after you.

 

[SnuFPunK]

If you are afraid to do it alone just find someone to spot you when you are in the pool. I use my wife for that. She is not aware of what i am doing but at least you know that there is some one to look after you.

I don't intend on offending anyone but...

:naughty
Practicing in water (even though its "just a pool") alone is simply irresponsible of the person who does it. So is having somebody "spotting" you without being aware of what you are doing !

If you lose conciousness in the water with your face in it, and your alone - you DIE. And what good is someone whos watching you but has no idea if/when your supposed to come back up ?

Always practice in water witha buddy who is well aware of what you are doing, preferably with CPR knowladge.
Use a tapping system if your doing static, and have your buddy swimming over you if you are doing dynamic.

~ Snuf.

 

[sanso]

I'd like to point out that, when diving alone, You can never be sure if You suffered from LMC or not. Often people come out of a samba with violent cramps and can't remember a thing of it.

Facit: Not remembering LMC does not mean You're on the safe side!

 

[maytag]

During a samba/LMC episode, are there changes in heart rate that could be identified on an EKG reading?

Sanso, funny avatar. I spit out my breakfast when I saw it. rofl

 

[sanso]

During a samba/LMC episode, are there changes in heart rate that could be identified on an EKG reading?

Sanso, funny avatar. I spit out my breakfast when I saw it. rofl

I'm not sure about the EKG, I'd assume there would be well-measureable increase of activity during a samba. The pros often get used as gunea-pigs by scientists Maybe they know about this?

The avatar is actually taken from a Gary Larson cartoon, all credit (and some rep) to him! I admire his works.

 

[jimqpublic]

In my mostly forgotten emergency medical technician (EMT) training 20+ years ago they talked about brain damage starting a few minutes after the heart stops beating. I find it hard to believe that brain damage due to hypoxia can occur while the diver is conscious- or even after several seconds of blackout. This isn't based on science though.

Is there any science on the subject?

 

[maytag]

I'm not sure about the EKG, I'd assume there would be well-measureable increase of activity during a samba. The pros often get used as gunea-pigs by scientists Maybe they know about this?.

I was just thinking that if sambas/lmc are accompanied by arrhythmias (tachycardia), recording heart rhythm during a dive might help identify whether a samba/lmc episode occurred ex post if there is no one there to tell you you had one. I hear there are tiny EKG-like devices that can record heart rhythm and transmit them to MD offices and they are no larger than a credit card. Perhaps such a feature could be incorporated into wrist computers if it would be helpful? But perhaps not. No doubt I'm speaking nonsense... :duh

 

[shoutatthesky]

Nonsense? Absolutely not!

In the near future, and to some extent now, freedivers will train with all relevant vital stats measured and recorded. It is what will be done with the results that will be really interesting.
I just can't wait till I get my oximeter in a few weeks and start having some more data to work with. Oh the experiments that lay ahead on the bright horizon of world freediving. It's all so exciting!!!