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Question Consequences of Holding your Breath

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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anachron

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May 28, 2019
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Hi,

I'm not freediving (though the topic starts to interest me), but I guess that this community is probably the best place to ask my question and get an informed answer.

A friend introduced a breathing technique to me that revolves around sets of hyperventilation, breathing out (not completely, just relaxing the lungs) and then holding your breath without inhaling again. When you need to breath, you do, hold it for 15 seconds, breath out and start the next set. It's all done lying down and relaxing.

After one week I got to more than 5 minutes without breathing in. I thought I made a mistake measuring at first, but I was able to reproduce the result. Or rather: I stopped at 5 minutes, as I got kind of spooked by that. The technique is super relaxing, but I'm not sure that tricking my breathing reflex on a regular basis is really that helpful. 5 Minutes on a mostly empty lunge just doesn't sound healthy).

I tried Google, but it is hard to find good results. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Jörg

P.S.: This is the best article I found so far https://freedivingfreedom.com/risks...-cause-brain-damage-and-how-you-can-stop-it/; I'd like to know more before using the breathing technique on a regular basis.
 
Sounds near impossibe to me! If you have no urge to breath after a five minute exhale breath hold then you have something wrong (or right?) with your C02 sensors. This could kill you if you do it underwater.
 
This is why I find it so strange. My friend gets to about 4 minutes though - and that is not nothing either.

The way it goes for me is like this:
  • First set: about 1 minute 30 (pretty reliably)
  • Second set: About 2:30 to 3:30
  • Third set: Anything between 4 minutes and 5 minutes plus ... which I didn't push to the end, as the relaxing part gets less relaxing, when you start wondering about self inflicted brain damage.
I think one reason that the time is that high is that I'm kind of learning how to get through the part where you want to breath in. In the third set, the first need to breath comes around 3:00 to 3:30 - but I can kind of ride it out. It's less surpressing the need than just accepting that it's there and take it like a wave. It peaks in intensitiy and goes away - after that I have another 40 seconds or so before it comes back. At the peak, I have to concentrate so that I don't do microbreathing through my nose. There is a possibility that the 5 minutes had some slight intake of breath around the 3:30 to 4:30 mark (and I don't want to muck around in water just yet). But even then... I'm kind of flubbergasted and I find it interesting that this is possible.

Btw: The breathing technique comes from this Wim Hof method thing. But his videos are too guru like for my taste. I just don't trust that those people really know what they are talking about. I don't want to hear that "I'm breathing love" ... I want to know, if I'm killing brain cells doing the breathing exercises.
 
OK, I misread your original comment - I assumed you felt no urge at all. Just how much do you exhale? - a forced maximum possible exhale or just a natural exhale of normal breathing. If it's the latter then yous still have quite abit of air in your lungs. As far as killing brain cells goes - you're OK as long as you O2-sat remains high. O2-sat typically starts to fall around 3 or 4 minutes - but you are still fine at that point. But after 5 or 6 minutes you O2-sat gets too low for healthy brain function - this is when you start to pass out. But I don't really know if this is actually killing brain cells or not.
 
It's just relaxing and letting air out, not really emptying the lungs. I think I'll cut the exercise short at the 4 minute mark; at least until I know more.
 
Why don’t you do a full lung breath hold? Go for it. See how long you can do. I’m curious. This way your lungs are fully inflated and less chance of hypoxia. I’ve done 6:45 no passing out and no ill effects whatsoever. I do at least 5:00 min every day and it’s not an issue. No studies show brain injury.
 
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Anachron,
The passive exhale you are using is called FRC. Breath holds at FRC allow your dive reflex/blood shift to kick in faster and harder which conserves oxygen and keeps much of the co2 away from sensors in your core. There are a few divers (like me) who freedive exclusively FRC. It works really well in the right application. FRC is part of why your breathholds are so comfy. The other part, if I understand Hof's technique correctly, involves some intense hyperventilation. That lowers the co2 content of your blood and other body fluids, a lot the way Hof does it. Since your urge to breathe is primarily co2 driven, you end up with very long comfy holds. The down side for freediving is 02 content. It can fall very low before your co2 level gets high enough to make you breathe, can lead to blackout.

Hofs stuff in very interesting. For most divers, it looks to me like a great way to kill themselves via BO. However some advanced divers are using his stuff and getting good results. I've adapted a bit of it to my FRC diving and it seems to work in a very limited application. For the kind of thing you are doing, I would not worry about damaging your brain.
 
I thought if your O2 saturation falls too much so that it would damage brain cells you will BO. Then if you don't regain consiousness and normal breathing for some reason ( damaged lungs, you are underwater or something else ) after 1-2 mins you are into danger zone and after 5 mins you most likely getting serious damage in your brain. THAT's after you black out and you haven't breathed after that.
 
As far as I know, there is no evidence that brain cells are being damaged at 02 concentrations that result in BO. Damage occurs after that point as 02 concentration continues to drop.
 
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The brain is amazingly protective. First of all the best most oxygenated blood gets shunted to the brain heart and lungs so whatever the O2 sat is on the finger peripherally it’s much much higher in vital organs. In a black out situation it’s either low O2 or high CO2 or both but if it’s temporary and I say her ventilation going by a minute you are good. BO is never good tho and that’s why never do this stuff alone in the water. I do ridiculous stuff on land like 6:45 static and never go a day without at least a 5:00 static or usually 5:30. Im alone. I’ve never blacked out once but if I did I’d start breathing I’m sure. It’s not my goal tho to black out. Also if I took my O2 sat on my finger and I have many time after 5:00 min it’s in the low 60s by 6:00 low 40s but remember my brain is getting better oxygenated blood than that. It’s still a CO2 thing for me even at 6:45. I quit cause I couldn’t take anymore.
 
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