pulse rate

[newd341]

Ok folks. I know that when I hold my breath my pulse is supposed to drop as my diving reflex kicks in. My resting heart rate is 53bpm. When I hold my breath for any length of time and over multiple repeated attempts my pulse rises to 67-70 bpm. I amcompletely relaxed while doing this. Can anyone help me understand why my body is doing the opposite?

 

[sims]

To my knowledge, the diving reflex is associated with having your face submerged in relatively cold water rather than holding your breath, so assuming you're doing this dry that would explain the lack of reduced heart rate.

Also for me personally when doing dry breath holds, my heart rate seems to increase somewhat when inhaling fully and decrease somewhat while exhaling (find it harder to fully relax while holding a full breath).. and it goes up signifcantly during the recovery after a longer breath hold.

But I'm still comparatively new at this, so more experienced people may have a different reaction.

 

[MarcinB]

Face immersion is not mandatory for initiation of the diving reflex. Breath holding plus increased CO2 and/or decreased O2 level in blood is usually sufficient to activate the diving response. Face immersion only makes it stronger and speeds up its initiation. However, some people have weak diving reflex and they need stimulation of facial cold receptors to kick it in. Sometimes it's so weak that even face immersion does not help much and the heart rate doesn't drop or even tends to increase during breath holding.

Newd341 try to hold your breath with face immersed in a bowl with cool water and observe the effect on heart rate. Remember to have someone watching you when you try it.

 

[Kars]

Maybe your body has been programmed to raise your HR when stressed?

Having a dropping HR reaction is part of the freediving conditioning process. For most it's there and can be improved (a lot), for others it needs to be established and improved.

The key is developing the right association with water immersion. So when you relax and think of diving do you then experience a calm flooding your mind and body?
Doing maximum dives is counter productive, it creates the wrong association, and anchors the existing stress = high HR.
What you will find more beneficial is making your dives as comfortable as possible, and stay within the easy zone of the breath-hold.
Comfort is aided by forgetting about numbers, Enjoying a loose, fluid and lazy style. (No hurries, no worries). Just enjoy the water and freedom. Also start doing only easy and slow breaths. No full inhales or exhales, just "letting go"out, and inhaling "easy energised oxygen" in. Partial inhale dives makes going down and staying down much easier, avoiding you needing to disturb and spoil that surface relaxation to force your self to get down. Retain and bring your relaxation down with you.

Let us know how you go.

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

 

[Lauri_A]

I think the HR depends on your breath hold time, f.ex. when doing dry statics I can observe the same.

When drawing the last breath, my HR goes up a little, maybe to 70-80
After a while it drops back to 50-60 range when I'm relaxed
After 1-2 minutes it drops below 40 when the dive reflex kicks in, this can be a lot longer if doing full lung

So I'm guessing your dive reflex hasn't kicked in yet. For me it's easy to tell if it kicked in, after the hold when relaxing my resting HR stays lower than normal, in the 40-50 range for about 1-2 minutes.

 

[Diving Gecko]

I think the HR depends on your breath hold time, f.ex. when doing dry statics I can observe the same.

When drawing the last breath, my HR goes up a little, maybe to 70-80
After a while it drops back to 50-60 range when I'm relaxed
After 1-2 minutes it drops below 40 when the dive reflex kicks in, this can be a lot longer if doing full lung

So I'm guessing your dive reflex hasn't kicked in yet. For me it's easy to tell if it kicked in, after the hold when relaxing my resting HR stays lower than normal, in the 40-50 range for about 1-2 minutes.

I am pretty much the same as Lauri though I take a bit longer to drop. My first contraction is normally around 1:45 and perhaps 20-30 secs later, my pulse rate starts dropping substantially.

D.

 

[Kars]

Just to inform you:

It's not about getting the HR down, it's about getting the blood flow and metabolism down.
Blood flow is determined by HR and Volume per stroke.

I've seen HR charts of people doing 7 minute holds with high HR's like a 100 to 80 in the first 4 minutes, then having a drop to 50s and then slowly go down to 40s before the end.

I think that instead of worrying about HR, one would benefit more from learning how to get and retain the surface relaxation.
HR and other indicators, are just indicators. Now explore what factors, which skills (!), can make your dive experience better.

 

[Bill]

Don't worry about the heart numbers. Yesterday my heart rate was elevated about 15%, resting and on the bike, but my static was within 5 seconds of a PB. If you are less aggressive with the breathe up it helps calm things down.