Breathing

[buton]

Breathing with your abdomen is the clue, it holds more air and it reduces the urgency to breath while exhaling...

That's what I remember from a class I took to improve air consumption, the class was teach by Dan silveirA a professional of free diving and spearfishing...

Some free diving techniques are applied to scuba...to increase you bottom time...

While on the pool I compared the stimated time remaining from my air integrated computer while breathing like I normally do vs the new technique...and it works according to my computer...

Google !!!!!

 

[Scuba_Shane]

I find that holding my tongue to the roof of my mouth assists in slowing down my breaths. I typically take long slow breaths. Depending on my buoyancy needs, I adjust my breathing to stay down or rise a little if I am to close to the bottom.

 

[Hank49]

Breathing with your abdomen is the clue, it holds more air and it reduces the urgency to breath while exhaling...

That's what I remember from a class I took to improve air consumption, the class was teach by Dan silveirA a professional of free diving and spearfishing...

Some free diving techniques are applied to scuba...to increase you bottom time...
!

We were shown the abdominal breathing in my Performance Free Diving class also. "It's how babies naturally breath", we were told.
I don't focus on how I breath on scuba anymore. I just breath. Maybe I could milk a few more minutes out of a tank if I really tried to conserve but it's not that big a deal to me.
It IS more work to breath DEEEEEEEEEEEP and EXHAAAAAAAAALLLLLLE. And it's the same free diving. On the surface, relax and take abdominal to chest breaths. Relax. This increases bottom time. Forced inhaling and exhaling shortens my bottom time. relaaaaaaaax. That's the key.

 

[Doppler]

If anyone wants to quote from the chapter on breathing from the six skills, they are welcome! LOL



OK... to the OP, the best general advice apart from reading that book is to read up on Yoga and/or Tai Chi breathing exercises. Develop the habit of being able to breath effectively and with control when on OC scuba or (perhaps especially) on a rebreather.

Breathing and breath control will deliver a much more valuable result than more bottom-time by the way... better control over CO2 build-up and the potential to panic.