Becoming a natural mouth breather

[jborg]

I'm a newish diver with 40 dives logged. So far in my diving I've been working with my breathing to slow it down and to control my buoyancy. To some extent that's successful -- I can follow a bottom contour adjusting for a few meters up and down with decent precision and hold a safety stop to within .25-.5 m without problems. (Water here being murky sometimes helps as there are lots of particles to act as visual reference in the water column...) My SAC is in a place I'm happy with, when I'm relaxed.

However all of this comes at the price of breathing not being or feeling natural. That is, every or most breaths are calculated and deliberate, and not simply something handled by my unconscious in the same manner as when I sit in my office chair typing this, caring nothing for my breathing.

And as an obvious result of this, a lot of my buoyancy control goes out the window when some minor issue occurs (like a cramp) that takes focus away -- typically I'll breathe in more, becoming more positive, adding to whatever annoyance was the problem initially.

So my question is does this get better? Am I on the right path and at some point this will become second nature and I can do this subconsciously while looking at the pretty fishes (such as they are, around here)? Clearly I've already improved some from my first dives and I can see that it does become easier and more natural with time, but the "zen state" I see some divers describe seems a long way off...

 

[Raphus]

I think what you describe is very typical for new divers. For me there was a sudden change around dive #50, where i didnt have to fokus on breathing that much.

I think its similar to muscle memory. At the beginning you need to fokus more. And after some time it gets a habit and you will do it subconsciously.

Thats why we train a lot, so all our "skills" are build in, in our muscle memory and are automatically available in an emergency.

What helped me a lot: once i was able to hold depth, like you described. I started to dive with a camera or assembling /disassembling my dsmb. This way i had to do multitasking and i fokused more on my hands then on the breathing.
And if you loose bouyancy you can just stop and adjust breathing. After a few dive this increased my subconscious buoyancy a lot.

 

[rick00001967]

i think raphus hit the nail on the head. you are doing great. keep it up.
i 100 % agree that if you try adding different tasks you can use that as practice to improve.
you can try holding your position and deploy your spool and smb. remove your gear and put it back on. maybe even try running line off a reel if you have one. mask drills. reg drills. etc etc.
eventually you will be able to do more than you can now and still hold position.
just be sure to practice these things in a controlled environment. i would first do them in lets say 30 feet or so, then move shallower. obviously you know that it can be more difficult in shallower water due to the greater relative pressure changes if you were to ascend or descend a little.

 

[Raphus]

And please let us know, if you improved. Or maybe other questions that appear during the "training".
And dont forget, diving is about fun (and safety)

 

[Edward3c]

Just continue to go diving. One day you will realise your not thinking about the breathing, but won't remember when it happened.

 

[Bigbella]

As others have said, all of that automatic behavior will come in time; don't even recall precisely when, myself -- until such time, though, that you decide to use a full face mask, which allows you, once again, to breathe through your nose as well -- heh, heh, heh . . .

 

[jborg]

Thanks all for the encouragement. I will continue my breathing and not sweat it, until at some point I realize it comes naturally.

 

[johndiver999]

However all of this comes at the price of breathing not being or feeling natural. That is, every or most breaths are calculated and deliberate, and not simply something handled by my unconscious in the same manner as when I sit in my office chair typing this, caring nothing for my breathing.

And as an obvious result of this, a lot of my buoyancy control goes out the window when some minor issue occurs (like a cramp) that takes focus away -- typically I'll breathe in more, becoming more positive, adding to whatever annoyance was the problem initially.

So my question is does this get better? Am I on the right path and at some point this will become second nature and I can do this subconsciously while looking at the pretty fishes (such as they are, around here)? ..

I think the altered breathing pattern (of deeper and slower) will become more natural, especially if you don't try too hard to change you natural breathing pattern.

With respect to floating up when there is a problem. That is something I do as well. You are presented with a challenge and you may well take a big deep breath (not so different from when you have a challenge on land and one you don't want to over react to). It is important that you have been observant enough of your diving to recognize that this happens.

What I often do is try to force an exhale a little harder after the deeper breath. This allows you to sink back down. If the "problem or situation" is going to take some increased physical activity for a duration of more than a few breathing cycles, then you need to vent a puff of air from the BC so you can handle and deal with the problem in a neutral condition, while your average lung volume is increased as a result of the elevated work load.

So if you are going to actually be working harder, you probably need to dump a little air. The alternative is trying to manipulate your breathing to a lower tidal volume (than feels comfortable) during a stressful situation - not a good idea and can actually increase your stress level.

 

[Neilwood]

I think that, at the start, you tend to focus on every aspect of the dive be it depth, breathing, trim etc.

At some point, you get used to performing a lot of the actions that initially take a lot of focus to do (muscle memory type reaction) so you focus less on the technical aspects of diving and more on what you see and enjoying the experience.
You don't swim along the bottom and consciously think " I need to adjust my buoyancy here to go over that rock so I will breathe in a bit more and then once I am over it, I will breathe out and sink back down", you just do it. You will probably not notice you have reached that point until you sit and look back at a dive. One of the earliest moments I had with that was diving with a group of buddies (2 groups of 2) where we spent most of the time mucking about (going vertical to see where buddies were instead of dippiing my head or turning, poking about in holes for lobsters etc). I didn't think during the dive that I had achieved "zen" but afterwards thought about it I realised I wasn't concentrating as much on technique but more on the fun of the dive.

One of the moments where I realised I had "it" was during a dive where my DSMB and reel separated during a giant stride entry meaning I had about 20m of line and a half my DSMB loose behind me. Just started reeling it in while watching what was going on around me and following the group not for a second thinking about how to maintain my depth or trim. The only time I focused on the reel/DSMB was actually putting the bungee back round it and stowing it.

 

[Marie13]

Addressing the thread title specifically and only half joking.

Develop allergies that stuff you up. Mouth breathing happens without thinking.