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Breathe-up vs hyper-ventilation

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
e. Is it (increased) total ventilation volume over time that defines hyperventilation, or the proportion of time exhaling as compared to inhale times?

We cannot recognise hyperventilation without knowing your current level of physical activity, which translates into CO₂ production.

To get a useful definition of hyperventilation - over-breathing - let's first define adequate breathing.

If we can agree that breathing is a CO₂ down-regulating mechanism, then adequate breathing would be breathing that maintains (or works towards) a normal (yes, that word is almost meaningless) CO₂ level in the body and over breathing would thus be breathing that reduces the CO₂ level below its normal state.

How much breathing is adequate, we can only know if we look at your current physical state, your CO₂ production.

If - at a normal CO₂ level - your CO‚₂ production == CO₂ down-regulation, then you are breathing adequately and any more breathing than that would be hyperventilation.

Let's throw some reality at this to visualise and help understand and recognise adequate breathing:

When you are at rest, you don't breathe much, which is perfectly adequate. Why? Because at rest, you don't produce a lot of CO₂, so you don't need to breathe (out) a lot (of CO₂).

When you are exercising, say, you are running, you will be breathing more, increased breathing amplitude and frequency. This is also adequate in this situation, as you are producing more CO₂ and need to breathe (out) more (CO₂) to maintain your normal CO₂ level.

Here comes the interesting point: Neither slow, easy breathing, nor fast, deep breathing are hyperventilation given the described circumstances.

Yet, of course, fast, deep breathing would be hyperventilation if you were to breathe like that while at rest.

Now, we have looked at a high-contrast scenario to gain an overview, and we will find that this understanding of adequate- and hyper-ventilation also helps us understand our own breathing when freediving.

If you are at rest before a dive, how much do you need to breathe? - Well, not much, because you are not producing a lot of CO₂. So adequate breathing would be quite slow and shallow. -- What about breathing (almost) full lungfulls before a dive? Is that adequate or more than adequate? (Yes, I am deliberately keeping this question vague.


Facit: Using the above definitions and understanding, we can make sense of pretty much any type of "breathe-up" and find out for ourselves if/when it would be adequate or too much breathing.

HTH,

Richard
 
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