Addiction to nitrogen narcosis
- Thread starter Scuba-guy
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
The abstract from:
January 2004International Journal of Sport Psychology 35(1):1-12
To investigate the endocrine response (ACTH and beta-endorphin) to scuba diving in the open sea, in individuals with different levels of training. Materials and methods: Samples of blood and urine were obtained from two groups of divers: El (n=6) had over 4 years' experience, with frequent dives below 35 m; E2 (n=6) had 3 years' experience or less and had not dived below 15 m. A sedentary control group (n=11), who did not practice sports, was evaluated to establish basal measurements. The test consisted of submersion in the open sea to a depth of 25m (3.5 ATA). Results: In E1, there was a presubmersion increase in plasma levels of ACTH and beta-endorphin (p<0.05) and a significant decrease after the lest. In E2, levels of these hormones were significantly higher after submersion (p<0.05). Discussion: These changes are related to an anticipation phenomenon in the El group, in which adaptive mechanisms to hyperbaric submersion come into play, due to their greater experience than the E2 group. The submersion itself did not present an additional stimulus for the members of the El group, which explains the fall in hormone levels observed after the test.
January 2004International Journal of Sport Psychology 35(1):1-12
To investigate the endocrine response (ACTH and beta-endorphin) to scuba diving in the open sea, in individuals with different levels of training. Materials and methods: Samples of blood and urine were obtained from two groups of divers: El (n=6) had over 4 years' experience, with frequent dives below 35 m; E2 (n=6) had 3 years' experience or less and had not dived below 15 m. A sedentary control group (n=11), who did not practice sports, was evaluated to establish basal measurements. The test consisted of submersion in the open sea to a depth of 25m (3.5 ATA). Results: In E1, there was a presubmersion increase in plasma levels of ACTH and beta-endorphin (p<0.05) and a significant decrease after the lest. In E2, levels of these hormones were significantly higher after submersion (p<0.05). Discussion: These changes are related to an anticipation phenomenon in the El group, in which adaptive mechanisms to hyperbaric submersion come into play, due to their greater experience than the E2 group. The submersion itself did not present an additional stimulus for the members of the El group, which explains the fall in hormone levels observed after the test.
CG43
Contributor
Hello
Many, especially older divers know what you describe here and have enjoyed it.
But it's always problematic to write something about air deep without encouraging other divers to dive beyond their current and situational limits. Otherwise you would have many more answers to your question here.
A few years ago I was in Egypt for diving with my buddy . Our guide told uns that the deep limit by the goverment was 30 m . Ok we dived 35 m , everything was nice .
Fish .clear water with pleasant temperature, corals.
Nevertheless, I was not really satisfied, something was still missing. I made it clear to my buddy that he should wait for me at his place and then dived a little deeper. 50 m, 55 m, 60 m . There was the good feeling that I was looking for .
In 65 m stop and safety check.
Boddy :breathing , heartrate . Mental :Feelings , Memories of early childhood events :
math. add. of two-digit numbers , differentiation of a polynomial . Result : Slowly but just passed .
Now : right hand to buckel weight belt , left hand on inflator and a short shot of air .
And then the very important SPG . This time I had to go up to my buddy and made some deco .
In 50 m the deep rush symptoms disappeared again and made way for relaxation.
And certainly the good feeling after such a dive lasts for a while.
Is there a habituation to great depths ?
My experience is yes and no.
After 12 very deep dives, all pleasant euphoric feelings were gone. No more rush, but the narcotic parts remained the same. That's not so nice, but a little safer because you can recognize your mental limitations better. This habituation do'nt hold long .
From this very limited amount of experience I would not derive any general validity.
And last but not least:
Every dive close to your own limits is unsave
This is the best description of the positive sides of the deep rush that I have read so far !
Many, especially older divers know what you describe here and have enjoyed it.
But it's always problematic to write something about air deep without encouraging other divers to dive beyond their current and situational limits. Otherwise you would have many more answers to your question here.
A few years ago I was in Egypt for diving with my buddy . Our guide told uns that the deep limit by the goverment was 30 m . Ok we dived 35 m , everything was nice .
Fish .clear water with pleasant temperature, corals.
Nevertheless, I was not really satisfied, something was still missing. I made it clear to my buddy that he should wait for me at his place and then dived a little deeper. 50 m, 55 m, 60 m . There was the good feeling that I was looking for .
In 65 m stop and safety check.
Boddy :breathing , heartrate . Mental :Feelings , Memories of early childhood events :
math. add. of two-digit numbers , differentiation of a polynomial . Result : Slowly but just passed .
Now : right hand to buckel weight belt , left hand on inflator and a short shot of air .
And then the very important SPG . This time I had to go up to my buddy and made some deco .
In 50 m the deep rush symptoms disappeared again and made way for relaxation.
And certainly the good feeling after such a dive lasts for a while.
Is there a habituation to great depths ?
My experience is yes and no.
After 12 very deep dives, all pleasant euphoric feelings were gone. No more rush, but the narcotic parts remained the same. That's not so nice, but a little safer because you can recognize your mental limitations better. This habituation do'nt hold long .
From this very limited amount of experience I would not derive any general validity.
And last but not least:
Every dive close to your own limits is unsave
- Messages
- 20,838
- Reaction score
- 20,499
- Location
- Philadelphia and Boynton Beach
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
I have always thought that one's experience with narcosis is largely dictated by earlier experiences. I have never found narcosis unpleasant.
DiveLikeAMuppet
Contributor
A little bit of narcosis from nitrogen? That’s cool. The dark, nasty, creepy, paranoid nark and perceptual narrowing from CO2 when you need to work harder underwater? Definitely not nice. No you cannot get habituated. Yes you are impaired. Go dive a deeper wreck in low visibility with deep air and then trimix. Two totally different dives.
CG43
Contributor
I just read an article in divemaster magazine No. 108 by Dr. Frank Hartig
about Rapture of the Deep.
The doctor is a highly qualified diving physician and diver. The article is in German. Very interesting, (and I'm reading this for the first time),
it also contains something about effects after diving deep air.
The observation can therefore be proven with measurement methods .
There are various hypotheses about the causes.
During deep air, the CFFF (Critical Flicker Fusion Frequency test) decreases, which is considered a low level of attention.
And that sometimes remains even after the dive.
Trimix divers had a high level of attention (hight CFFF) but poor memory .
With airdeep the memory performance and attention were equally bad.
I'm not sure its on topic, but a capri sun stored in a drysuit pocket can wet your whistle too.
CG43
Contributor
Yes , that works , but it is better to buy at least the 2000 g bottles , or go to your medical gas supplieThese would work between your dive trips.....
and rent a bigger one !
Similar threads
