eliminating contractions?

[superhornet59]

alrgiht, the mind is the most important thing in your body. now it controls everything, some things conciously, some things unconciously. now contractions are formed by high CO2 levels, and they are NOT the body's urge to breath, theyre the SUBCONCIOUS MIND'S urge to breath. so what if you went, and right into the depths of your mind, and totaly got rid of the contractions. i admit it would suck if you suddenly black out, but you could always have an O2 monitor to notify you went to come up . the point, can you rid yourself of those pesky contractions? personaly, i'm considering seeing a hypnotheripist (depending on the cost) to do some work. hypotherapy can do some crazy stuff like making you get stronger, even with less qorkouts then usual, and even lose weight for no apparant reason. so mabye, if i get hypnotherapy and manipulate the "hardware" of my brain, i can rid myself of those pesky contractions? id go but im worried about the cost, and Im kinda one of the people that has a pretty full mind. i can never shut those voices up . anyway, could it be done, the elimination of contractions, and even better the lack of desire for air (no... OMFG! I NEED AIR RIGHT NOW OMG OMG OMG! but more like gentle calm "i think ill go for air now, i feel i should get air but i dont feel any stress or unpleasant feelings"

any thoughts?

 

[efattah]

Contractions have nothing to do with your urge to breathe. They occur because your body is trying to increase the blood pressure in your head, and simultaneously extract more O2 out of the lungs.

You can stop the contractions by pinching your nose and exhaling extremely gently against your closed nose. If they don't stop, then you are not exhaling gently enough. Of course, no air comes out when you exhale against a pinched nose.

 

[ADR]

...yet again you blow me away with your knowledge Eric, I'm off to try that as the effort has to be less 02 consuming than the 160 odd contractions I go through for my modest static times.

 

[perow1]

Why do you want to stop the contractions? Because they are uncomfortable? If it is the way eric says, a way to increase the blood pressure to the head and a way of extractiong more O2 out of the lungs i may just be a part of the bodys way of dealing with apnea. Perhaps the contractions help you to stay concious. I am no guru or anything but for me the BEST holds are done fighting contractions. They are very unconfortable and hard, but I tend to feel less wasted in the head after.

 

[ADR]

In a max attempt my O2 saturation hits bottom at 45%-55%. Contractions for me start at 85-95%. I can see value in them towards the end of the breath hold for the reasons Eric and you suggest, but not for the bulk of the breath hold when O2 saturations are still high, as I guess they burn significant quantities O2 in themselves.

 

[perow1]

You are right there. In the beginning it might not be needed AND they may burn oxygen. Maybe I am not so keen on eliminating contractions since they never are that strong for med, more of a pulsating discomfort, but still they may burn oxygen. Psycologically it is important for me tho know that i can fight them aswell since they will occur.

 

[naiad]

I sometimes get contractions and sometimes don't. I didn't get any during my recent static PBs, so I do better when I don't get them. However, it may not be a good idea to try to get rid of them altogether, because it can be difficult to know when to stop.

When I don't get any, it doesn't always mean that I don't feel any urge to breathe! There can be an intense hypoxic feeling, even to the edge of LMC, without a single trace of contractions.

Sometimes I have even managed to do a very difficult CO2 table without getting contractions. There is an extremely strong urge to breathe towards the end which can last for minutes without ever starting contractions. I don't know what's worse!

Lucia

 

[superhornet59]

see thats what im focusin on more, removing that horrible urge to breath, and mabye making the contractions a bit more gentle and get rid of that bad feeling. im sure that way i could concentrate better, because i would try and fight the urge to breath, so it wouldnt be so bad.

think about it, if somebody pokes your arm, you know they are because you feel it. if they STAB your arm, you know they are their, but it is much less pleasant. so im trying to find some way, any way, to give me a gentle reminder to go up for air, not some damn stressing contractions. could hypnotherapy do anything? im afraid that if i try to remove the urge to breath, i might not breath in my sleep!!

 

[naiad]

im afraid that if i try to remove the urge to breath, i might not breath in my sleep!!

I do hold my breath in my sleep, especially when I have been training a lot! I hope it's not for too long!

About the reminder to go up for air, if you are experiencing huge contractions, maybe you are close to the limit already, and they are a useful warning! When do the contractions start, about how many are there and how long do you fight them?

Lucia

 

[superhornet59]

usualy 40, but they often start early underwater, and it depends whether you use the alkaline method or the acid method

. im just saying, though, what if instead of extremely unpleasant contractions, you could reduce their sharpness to a more gentle reminder. i realy am thinking of trying hypnotherapyto try and reduce that urge, that way i could concentrate more about whats around me, rather then counting contractions or something

 

[samdive]

I think you can do a lot with mind control - stop waiting for them to arrive and think about something else. When you do feel the first twinge, try and convince yourself its not really one.... think about the parts of your body that are comfortable and bring the focus away from the contractions - so that they may be happening but you are not having to fight them.... see if that helps...

I always get them but am managing to put them off later and later, and make the gap between them greater just by trying not to think about them! as soon as I start to think about fighting them I give up!

S

 

[glennv]

Eric,

I mentioned this a long time ago on this forum, but still have not found any explanation for it. Maybe you can shed some light.
Untill about 1 year ago I NEVER got contractions. Statics was much easier for me and within 1,5 year after starting to freedive I hit 7 minutes dry and 6:30's wet.
Then suddely at a wet 6:45 attempt i got contractions starting at ~6:20. Of course i had no idea what to do with them and aborted the dive at 6:45.
Every static after this day the contraction started comming earlier , from initialy around 6+ to in the end as soon as 2 minutes.
During this adjustment period I never managed to do any good static anymore , since it was too hard and painfull to fight these damned things.
Since about 6 months I have forced myself to learn to cope with them better and better. Now it's sort of stabilised and i learned to handle 2+ minutes of contractions, starting at around 4-4:30 depending on the level of ventilation. My static times are back in the 6:30 range and increasing.

Can you give me any scientific explanation why my body suddenly started to react so differently to static apnea and why for such a long period I was able to do without contractions.
Do you have any ideas how it would be possible to achieve the reverse ?

(p.s. I did not make any significant changes in my lifestyle, food pattern, training pattern etc. It just happened 1 specific day and never stopped since)

 

[Ricochet]

While we are at 'Mind-Control':

I always try to put something positive into contractions.
Before contranctions start I can feel some kind of tension in my chest which gets stronger and stronger. This tension usualy vanishes with the first contraction and then builds up again.

Now the trick is to imagine how positive the contractions are... because they take these unpleasent tension away! This way the first minute of contractions becomes a pleasure

 

[kingohyes]

This is how I managed 3 minutes with contractions, but I also went into a kind of meditative state of mind, lowering the brain frequency.

Something I have experienced is that if I manage to push myself beyond a certain time with contractions, they actually seems easier to handle in the end...The contractions are usually (for me) hardest until about 1:50, and I often have to sit up within 1:40 of contractions..I think it is the feeling of blood rushing and heating up my head which for me is most unpleasant through the breathhold.

 

[naiad]

I can sometimes manage to hold back contractions by keeping a slight tension in my diaphragm. This only works if the contractions are weak ones, and sometimes it can be more effort than just letting them happen.

Lucia

 

[O'Boy]

Why do you want to stop the contractions? Because they are uncomfortable? If it is the way eric says, a way to increase the blood pressure to the head and a way of extractiong more O2 out of the lungs i may just be a part of the bodys way of dealing with apnea. Perhaps the contractions help you to stay concious.
(perow1)

Well written. I also find Eric's suggestion very interesting. Since I've addopted "No Warm-up, No Breath-up" as my main approach to the freediving I can add my experiences:

- my contractions are pretty intensive and start around 1'30"-2'00". I am able to deal with them for another 4 or 5 minutes (depends on the level of my motiavation).
- there was no samba nor BO for me since doing it this way. My head is perfectly clear every time I terminate the attempt.
- the only con is the headache I got after every max attempt caused by raised levels of CO2 (maybe also higher pressure in the head, mentioned by Eric)
- after all that time spent with contractions I find them no pain anymore

 

[perow1]

I too find no warm-up apnea good. At least for training. I started to do it because I was tending to wimp out to early. Deciding to fight your contractions has given me a lot. As for training, no warmup max static is quick aswell. Dealing with the pain more often is a good way of dealing with it when it matters. The only drawback i see is that the contractions may be consuming oxygen.....
O´boy, I was following your progress in the no warmup statics thread, how is it going? Any more progress? Are you stable over 6-7mins now?

 

[efattah]

GlennV,

Congratulations! You have proven an age old hypothesis I had.

I always theorized that with enough 'stimulation', a person who doesn't get contractions would eventually get them.

It certainly has something to do with the nervous system. I think in many ways what is happening to the nervous system is more under the aspect of yoga theory, since science really knows very little about this area.

Somehow, your nerve pathways were not 'activated' in the normal way, and yet by running lots of electricity through them, they suddenly 'woke' up, perhaps like the awakening of kundalini.

 

[naiad]

Maybe the opposite process has happened to me - whatever it is that controls contractions has given up its job.

I have tried the 'no warm-up, no breath-up' approach, but only as training. I have never managed to get anywhere near a PB using this method. 3:00 is about the limit!

The longest I have put up with contractions is 3 minutes. This was when I did 4:30 (dry), then 2 minutes rest, then 4:30 again. The second time, contractions started at 1:30, and I held on for another 3:00. I blacked out immediately afterwards. I have easily done longer dry statics with shorter intervals since then, and it hasn't happened again.

If I do a long static without any breath-up, or if I am at the end of a hard CO2 table, I sometimes feel close to LMC, even if the amount of time is not close to my max static time, and I am almost certainly not low on O2. Is it possible to LMC from CO2 alone?

Lucia

 

[O'Boy]

Unfortunately, I was not able to reach such results or even improve them. The main cause was that I spent last 6 months in such a hurry I couldn't find the needed relaxed state for the body and mind. I also sort of lacked the right motivation, so I decided to concentrate on dynamic rather then static.
So far I was able to add 5m in DWF (75m), absolutely clean. I hope it to be 100m this winter.