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Lower oxygen consumption levels.

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Thanks, 5kglifter! This is quite interesting. Yoga and other similar techniques are, of course, widely used among freedivers, and often part of freediving training or courses. However, this is the first time I see a scientific document speaking about yoga and oxygen consumption.

On the other hand, an advanced freediver cannot expect gaining 19.3% by simply applying cyclic meditation - most freedivers get to at least certain level of relaxed state even if they do not practice this specific technique. So although they can improve the relaxation, I do not believe the difference would be as big as in the study.

I am adding it to the Apnea Media Base, since it is apparently quite related, although I unfortunately do not have access to the full document.
 
Interesting concept that matches some training that I'm familiar with in other sports. Hope someone can add to this discussion or give simple examples.
 
That's okay Trux, glad it may be if some use, I cannot access it either. Having read up on some small aspects about what Cyclic Meditation entails, it appears to be just slow movements, so in theory it's probably not too much different to what freedivers do prior to entering the water etc. I know even before dry statics, I use slower movements when getting everything ready just to get the body prepped for lowering the heart rate, so in an odd way it's almost similar to cyclic meditation.
 
This is is really one of the most interesting studies I have seen recently! Not only it shows a great and paradoxical difference between cyclic meditation (alternating of relaxation with moderate exercise/awareness) and supine relaxation (meditating while laying on the back), but it also mentions other studies where there was found that yoga breathing (ujjaji pranayama) acts hyper-metabolically (increases oxygen consumption). So people doing pranayama before their performance (or even during the days preceding it), may be actually harming themselves. Well, the study did not look at consumption in an apnea following such relaxation practice, so the actual influence on O2 consumption during a maximal breath-hold may be very different than what the results show, but those using yoga methods, may be interested in the results anyway, and might want to experiment little bit more with alternating their preparation.


The study of the decreased oxygen consumption, comparing cyclic meditation, and supine relaxation was done on a group of 40 volunteers (so a relatively large sample). And the resulting decrease of O2 consumption of almost 20% was not caused by a lower ventilation as some of you may suspect - the real consumption of oxygen was measured. The volume of ventilated air remained quite close to the state before the exercise.
 
WOW that puts a different perspective on our preperation, however i think that although pranayama may increase O2 consumption it does great things for relaxing the mind before a dive therefore calming the part of our body which i think in most of us during a dive causes the first real problems. mental state i think has a huge effect on performance. however i dont see why cyclic meditation or transcendental meditation cant do the same thing. very interesting

DD
 
Aside from the obvious physiological effects of being very scared, or the tendency to bail out of a dive early, what effects do you think your mental state has on performance? I suppose if you are distracted then your technique can suffer.
 
The mental state has direct influence on metabolism, muscle tension, cerebral activity, and hence oxygene consumption. However, although there is relation, the study did not investigate how well the techniques change the mental state, but the influence of the two relaxation techniques (cyclic meditation and supine relaxation) on oxygen consumption.

EDIT: Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, so if you can influence the level of cerebral activity by meditation, it really may already play a significant role alone (in addition to the muscle relaxation, and slower metabolism).

Dive brainless = dive better
 
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Do changes in mental state alter the amount of oxygen the brain consumes, Trux?
 
Mullins said:
Do changes in mental state alter the amount of oxygen the brain consumes, Trux?
Click to expand...
Partially it depends on the way you exactly define "mental state". We can speak about emotions, about concentration, about cerebral activity, dreaming, sensorics, and about other states or function of the mind or brain. All of them influence blood consumption of associated brain centers locally. Stimulation of individual cerebral centers will increase their blood throughput and oxygen consumption.

In the awake brain, the global metabolic rate of oxygen consumption is largely constant, while variations exist between regions dependent on the ongoing activity. But during sleep, or during meditation, the blood flow and metabolism rates change not only locally, but may involve bigger parts of the brain, and hence significantly influence the oxygen intake.

That's the direct consumption of the brain itself, but then the mental state has also influence on activity of organs, blood circulation, hormon secretion, metabolism rate, muscle relaxation, sensoric sensitivity, etc.. influencing so the total body oxygen consumption greatly.
 
On the other hand, it would be premature to make any conclusions from the above mentioned study for breath-holding. Although the variation in oxygen consumption was very well detectable and quite evident, the impact on the extreme breath-holding was not the goal of the study and remains unclear. Who knows if such meditation does not hinder the diving reflex, or deplete certain oxygene stocks, or does not have other negative effects that partially or fully eliminate the apparent measurable advantage shown in the study. There still seem to be enough material for research by our dear freediving physiologists
 
mullins me personally i always get a bit nervous so have to basically calm my mind before any serious dives (i by nature overthink EVERYTHING) so a deep dive always raises plenty of issues and i find doing some form of breathing/meditation helps to calm my mind before a dive and without it i always find my attempts fall short. i think with some people getting the head prepaired for a really deep dive properly and at ease may help with the effects of narcosis at depth, however this is purely speculation (me thinking too much again) particularly for novice or intermediate divers (like myself) getting your head in the right place for what you are about to do really makes a difference. not to mention by relaxing the mind i also find my body relaxes therefore making EQ easier and dropping my heart rate.

DD
 
It would be interesting to see the results of a study that compared the oxygen consumption of relaxed divers to that of those under stress, with the assumption that they had reasonable self control and could 'go through the motions' regardless, as most people can given some incentive. I'm interested because I often find myself in the position of advising new divers, and manipulation of one's mental state isn't something I stress, or even mention. Perhaps I should... the reason I don't is that, in my case, the performance difference between extreme stress (adrenalin to the point of nearly throwing up, high HR etc) and complete relaxation seems to be somewhere in the region of 2-3%. I can see how mental state would affect equalising though, because it's a difficult technique and you need to concentrate on it.
 

In a perfect world I would like to see a body that is "stressed" (enhances DR) and a calm unstressed mind. But since the two are interlinked, that might not be possible.
With stressed, I mean a body under water realizing it is a survival situation and starts or deepen the DR.

What ya think?

Sebastian
 
Or a stressed mind/body with the ability to consciously override certain symptoms of stress, like muscle tension?

I guess the negative effects of stress (high HR, metabolism etc) in the first half of the dive may be balanced by positive effects in the latter half, when the response is inverted.
 
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A combination of both is not impossible, I'd tell. You can relax say an hour before the dive, and then let the stress fall on you, and prepare you for the dive immediately before the start without having great impact on your O2 stocks and metabolism.
 
this is becoming a pretty damn intersting thread! i think your right mullins and trux and cebaztian. if we could get the boy and mind to relax while still inducing a deep survival response then we would see some very big changes in max performances i think. i can undertand that in really elite freedivers which have the mental disciplin to push through any barrier and have all movements automated so that regardless of stress levels the dive is performed correctly having a calm mind may not be such a big deal. but for myself i get quite nervous doing deepm dives and need to relax myself and basically convince myself that this dive is easily done then i start getting deeper faster. its a comfport thing for me (and for many other divers i think as well) which is where this kind of meditation etc really helps. but from what i understand mullins is that you aere able to push through virtually anything (hence the impressive results i gues) which unfortunatelyn is something i am unable to do yet.

DD
 
Just last Saturday I changed my warm-up in the way we discuss here - I relaxed about 15 minutes (dry), and then started my DNF swim without wet warm-up, hence inducing high stress. I improved my DNF PB by 40 meters! I already made some no-warm-up attempts before, but it never worked. This time it kicked in perfectly, and I think that both, the meditation and the stress played an important role. Well, there were other factors too (Orca RS1 wetsuit, better weight, reduced breath-up, more training), so I cannot tell the difference was only due to the combination of relaxation and stress, but I am presuaded they were important.
 
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Interesting viewpoints...I'll have to read this more in depth later.
 

...40 metres !!!...WOW!..that's by far the biggest gain on PB in DNF I know of...Congrats Trux! Would you mind telling us what was the PB you've improved on? I'm looking for inspiration as I've just recently started working on DNF. It's hard going for me compared with fin assisted and at the moment I have a very modest DNF PB of around 60 metres. My immediate goal is 75 and I'll definitely give it a serious go using the method you described next time around in the pool.
 
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