Tips for holding your breath

[oldmansurfer]

I heard this one today and really it is one I have heard many times so I thought I would mention this to you all. Learn to breath all your air out before you get a breath. I do this before I catch a big wave or these days not even so big of a wave. But when you come up for air after taking a pounding remember to exhale all your air first then take a breath. He doesn't mention it but make sure you have time to breath. Mark Visser is a crazy big wave rider (as if there is another variety of big wave rider). He was trying to catch the biggest wave in the world by getting dropped out of a plane along with a friend and a jetski. Then have a boat leave port from nearby (hopefully) to pick them up. They may actually have had to stay out in the ocean for a couple days with just the jet ski. I think he got injured and the plans went down the tube. Anyway he seems like a cool guy.
http://www.theinertia.com/surf/use-this-one-tip-to-hold-your-breath-longer/

[IanCaio]

It makes sense. Exhaling all your air you are taking the CO2 that was built up on your last breath hold out of your body before inhaling again. It doesn't necessarily means you have more oxygen available (probably you'll have a little more, since you gave some space for fresh air in your lungs) but the CO2 is what gives us that urge to breath, so throwing it out could make the next hold easier.

One thing that should be avoided though, is hyperventilating (breathing really fast to lower your CO2 levels a lot). This can give you the impression you can hold your breath longer and sometimes actually get your oxigen levels lower. This would make it easier for you to black out during a breath hold, even if you don't feel a really big urge to breath.

At least that's what I understand of it, correct me if I'm wrong!

[drowningbitbybit]

One thing that should be avoided though, is hyperventilating (breathing really fast to lower your CO2 levels a lot). This can give you the impression you can hold your breath longer and sometimes actually get your oxigen levels lower. This would make it easier for you to black out during a breath hold, even if you don't feel a really big urge to breath.

Yes and no...
You're right in what you say, but if the alternative is breathing in water, I'll risk the blackout...
Hyperventilation does help you hold your breath longer. I do this in the pool - I can almost double the distance I can swim underwater. Not sure how much of a difference it would make if passively sitting under water just trying to hold your breath for as long as you can, which I think would be more dangerous because the CO2 levels wouldn't recover as quickly.

I think that if you're in a surfing situation, you won't have the opportunity for a whole lot of hyperventilation anyway and the CO2 level will return to normal real quick, and so the few brief breaths you'll get before the wipe out will help. A bit.

[drowningbitbybit]

One thing I did learn the hard way... don't scream as you wipe out... you'll hit the water with empty lungs!

[oldmansurfer]

When you breath in the air is only 21% oxygen but when you typically breath out there is still a lot of oxygen left but a noticeably lower amount. Your trachea or windpipe has air that is functionally not available to you because when you breath in the oxygen left in your trachea just sits there. Like wise when you breath out the air left in your lungs has less oxygen than what you breath back in but the first part of it is expelled air from your lungs leftover in your trachea. If you haven't expelled all the air from your lungs then you have an even larger functional dead space of air. (Air that is not getting refreshed with breathing). Obviously if you breath out completely then you get more fresh air in and less left over from the last breath. I have been doing this consciously for bigger waves after I paddle out before I catch a wave or if I am winded I try to be sure to breath out entirely. I don't hyperventilate intentionally but may essentially do it about 3 or 4 times. You don't want to do it more than 4 times. If you were a skin diver you would probably know this. When I used to practice breath holding long long long long long ago I used to try to pull the air back from my trachea and push air from my lung in to that area to mix it up and get some of the oxygen from that air too. In my mind I thought it helped but perhaps it was just a psychological boost . I kind of pretended I was a fish moving my gills but really was expanding my cheeks and compressing them sucking the air back into my lungs.

[Big H]

http://www.shallowwaterblackout.org.uk/faqs

Shallow water blackout....I used to be a dive instructor and did a lot of free diving (usually to pull the anchor when it got stuck), 70ft for around 2min was my best.....btw, after you pass one ATM in depth holding your breath becomes easier, but doesn't really apply to surfing since one atmosphere is 33ft....


From the attached article:
"Usually, we let our bodies take control of breathing - we don't have to think about when to take a breath, it's done automatically. This way the body can best regulate the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Of course, sometimes we take control of breathing for ourselves and we need to know if we are taking enough breaths. The way we know this is by the sensation we get when our carbon dioxide level gets high - an overwhelming desire to breathe. For some reason we don't have the same feeling when our oxygen level gets low. If we hyperventilate, or possibly if we breath-hold after prolonged vigorous exercise, our oxygen levels can go critically low whilst our carbon dioxide level isn't high enough to make us uncomfortable. By doing these things - breath-holding and hyperventilation – we are going outside the body's "design limits" which is hazardous. It is worth remembering that hyperventilating won't actually get any more oxygen into your body - it just gets rid of carbon dioxide."

Don't hyperventilate....blow out through the mouth then one deep breath and go....


Here's some you tubes for you OMS....

[oldmansurfer]

OMG I have been hyperventilating 4 time for years and years and years.....oh well I guess I am still alive so no harm done.

[benjl]

My kickboxing training of breathing out when getting hit sounds about the worst possible skill to have for surfing when wiping out.. hahah.

perhaps might explain why I've nearly drowned on some not-big waves!

[oldmansurfer]

I used to dive for a couple hours and I would go down maybe in the 30 to 50 foot range come back up then take 4 deep breaths and go back down.. Never had a problem but never pushed it either. I also dove alone most of the time which is probably worse than surfing alone. The only time I free dove 70 feet I got some kind of sinus squeeze that felt like someone drove a nail into my mouth right above my two front teeth. That was after coming back to the surface. Not sure what that was but I moved to shallower water.

[drowningbitbybit]

Don't hyperventilate....blow out through the mouth then one deep breath and go....

I have to disagree when it comes Jo average who can hold his breath for 30 seconds...
For free diving and when you're pushing your biological oxygen limits, yeah, don't hyperventilate, you might do yourself some damage.
But if the CO2-driven imperative to breath kicks in at 30 seconds, you're basically being fooled by it - you've got ages before you'll black out due to lack of oxygen. So, for Jo average (like myself), to modestly hyperventilate and then to hold their breath for a minute is only a good thing.

[Big H]

Don't hyperventilate....blow out through the mouth then one deep breath and go....

I have to disagree when it comes Jo average who can hold his breath for 30 seconds...
For free diving and when you're pushing your biological oxygen limits, yeah, don't hyperventilate, you might do yourself some damage.
But if the CO2-driven imperative to breath kicks in at 30 seconds, you're basically being fooled by it - you've got ages before you'll black out due to lack of oxygen. So, for Jo average (like myself), to modestly hyperventilate and then to hold their breath for a minute is only a good thing.

Shallow water blackout is a killer....Jay Moriarty, proven waterman and big wave surfer who had that movie Chasing Mavericks loosely following part of his life story died while free diving in the Maldives....it happens to average joes too; honestly there is no reason to do it...try holding your breath with one breath then doing like OMS said about the trachea thing which is fooling your physiology into believing you took a breath without opening your mouth or just mind over matter and willing yourself through the breathe reflex....hyperventilation at any level is tempering your body's warning system and essentially moving the safety margins closer to critical; so why do it when an average joe on a regular single breath can hold his breath for longer than they would think esp. with a little practice. The thing about the blackout is that it comes without warning if you disable your system by hyperventilating, and then once blacked out as the article said, you have already burned the residual oxygen in your tissues that normally resides that drowning victims unknowingly utilise to skirt death....once blacking out almost certain brain damage and unless someone is there to fish you out, you are done.

[Big H]

I used to dive for a couple hours and I would go down maybe in the 30 to 50 foot range come back up then take 4 deep breaths and go back down.. Never had a problem but never pushed it either. I also dove alone most of the time which is probably worse than surfing alone. The only time I free dove 70 feet I got some kind of sinus squeeze that felt like someone drove a nail into my mouth right above my two front teeth. That was after coming back to the surface. Not sure what that was but I moved to shallower water.

SCUBA you can't go faster than your air bubbles when you ascend....depending on your diving schedule you might need time to decompress and release nitrogen from your tissues on the way up....research dives I did on air to around 180ft included long decompression times (around 2h) on a drop line with tanks attached....not really romantic when you are at 47min and still have more than an hour before you can come to the surface.....rocking up from depth when free diving has its risks too and it isn't encouraged; quick pressure changes within your body affect gases inside your body and what was compressed under 2 atm will expand relative to the ambient pressure....coming up fast means fast expansion and if you don't give the gases time to dissipate as you surface the quick expansion can cause an air embolism, more common in the pulmonary system (lungs) but in your case it sounds like the sinuses and air expanding inside was not able to escape fast enough and that nail in the mouth thing resulted.

BTW, I spent two days in a decompression chamber with type 2 decompression sickness / level three (rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being dead according to the doctor) .....it was due to a build up of residual nitrogen in my tissues as a result of too many consecutive dives over a long period of time.....an unceremonious end to my diving career.

[oldmansurfer]

It's true that hyperventilation can make you more likely to have shallow water blackout but everyone I knew did the 4 hyperventilation breaths thing and none of them got shallow water blackout. Apparently if you only do 4 hyperventilation breaths you don't blow off enough CO2 to cause shallow water blackout........for most people.

[Big H]

I ride a motorcycle without a helmet sometimes.....my friends do as well.....none of my friends have died in motorcycle accidents......when my kids ride with me they must wear their helmets. I tell them when they get older they can make their own decisions but as kids I'm going to make sure they are safe.

I used to smoke too....I have no rationale for that at all.

[oldmansurfer]

I think it's more like if you drink too much alcohol it's bad for you but if you drink alcohol but not too much it's not bad for you and maybe actually good for you.

[Big H]

My analogy is accurate; you could ride down the same street the same way on a motorcycle 10,000 times and the 10,001st time you fall and hit your head and die on the spot even though you'd been doing it that way forever.

Depending on your varying physiology that not only varies from day do day based on your physical condition, alcohol consumed, flights taken, increasing age, etc, the margins that you push back with hyperventilation may still allow for the variance on most days but all it takes would be that one day when your body is in an unusually poor state and the margins when pushed back extend beyond what you are able to handle and stay conscious, which in the water usually means dead.

Whatever you want to believe....any degree of hyperventilation tricks the body into allowing you to hold your breath longer and pushes back the boundaries of the body's built in safety margins. How much you're comfortable doing that is up to you.....too much can result in shallow water blackout. Those are the facts.....no offence fellas, but if you "think" anything different it is wrong, dead wrong; what you do with the facts is up to you.


This is an excellent video detailing what happens in your body when you hyperventilate giving you the tools to make your choices:

[oldmansurfer]

Where are the scientific studies? that is just so much hyperbolic mumbo jumbo. It is the amount of CO2 that you blow off that matters. Every time you breath you blow off CO2....maybe the safest thing is to not breath? What if you hyperventilate one time? Two times? the idea that you can't hyperventilate at all and be healthy is just like the idea you can't drink at all and be healthy. This video says that hyperventilation does allow you to hold your breath longer. It also says "this take home is not a moratorium on hyperventilation in breath holding" but just a description of what happens and why you need to moderate it.

[Big H]

OK OMS....I learned a long time ago there is no "winning" an argument with you. All the facts are there; do with them what you want.

[oldmansurfer]

If you are skin diving and going underwater and holding your breath then you should do so with another person because you never know what might happen. I think getting to know your body and what it does when you are lacking oxygen is helpful in keeping you alive. I haven't dove with a person who didn't hyperventilate a little every dive. I think it is automatic to take a deep breath or two at least before you dive. I don't know how this all this hyperventilation talk relates to surfing since you rarely if ever get a chance to hyperventilate before you are involuntarily held under. Instead you are actively trying to surf or avoid getting pounded and needing to breath rapidly anyway.

[Sandiegosurf]

I heard this one today and really it is one I have heard many times so I thought I would mention this to you all. Learn to breath all your air out before you get a breath. I do this before I catch a big wave or these days not even so big of a wave. But when you come up for air after taking a pounding remember to exhale all your air first then take a breath. He doesn't mention it but make sure you have time to breath. Mark Visser is a crazy big wave rider (as if there is another variety of big wave rider). He was trying to catch the biggest wave in the world by getting dropped out of a plane along with a friend and a jetski. Then have a boat leave port from nearby (hopefully) to pick them up. They may actually have had to stay out in the ocean for a couple days with just the jet ski. I think he got injured and the plans went down the tube. Anyway he seems like a cool guy.
http://www.theinertia.com/surf/use-this-one-tip-to-hold-your-breath-longer/

I'm not sure if everybody experiences this but anytime i go underwater in the ocean like a duck dive for example, my breathing is really bad. I work out everyday at the gym and do cardio, im not overweight or anything, but when im in the ocean my breathing just sucks... also, when in a pool, i can hold my breath way longer. when im forced to stay underwater like after a wipeout, its not bad but after duck diving my breathing is so heavy and i have to wipe my eyes everytime i come up or else i cant see, it really bothers me.