holding breath on scuba

[miketsp]

guess no-one trained as a classical singer then?! nor played a wind instrument?!

an alternative technique is a very sharp and wide and deep breath using the side of the lungs and the diaphragm and a very slow gentle release of air and bubbles. You remain level throughout. However, you do need a very responsive set of lungs to do this though and you need to practice.

A very sharp deep breath is a waste of energy once you get down to any decent depth, if not an outright impossibility. Once the air gets dense it doesn't move around very fast.

 

[Biking4ever]

as long as you don't completely close your airway, you're ok.

rather than saying "don't hold your breath" the maxim should be "don't close
your airway"

you can "hold your breath" (i.e. neither inhale nor exhale) and still have your
airway open, which is perfectly safe, as any expanding gas can escape your
lungs freely without doing any damage.

my favorite breathing technique is to slow my breathing down just below normal,
and keeping my airway open, i

inhale
pause
exhale

another possible problem is shallow breaths, where you are getting enough
O2 but not getting rid of enough CO2 (a sure sign of this is a headache
and maybe slight nausea).

thus, i make my actual breaths as normal (and full) as possible. i just slow down the rate a bit and pause after inhaling.

 

[Biking4ever]

Hi,
what happens to the breather's air supply to your mouth at this equilibrium moment in between breaths in/out? The reason being is that my air is coming to my mouth I wanted or not. Kind a forcing me to continue inhaling so when I'm at a pause it kind a comes out into my mask. Not free flowing. Just some pressure. Reg is serviced and well adjusted, checked again and again although has tendency to freeflow on the surface. What I'm saying it is difficult to pause but need to do as my partner is half of my size therefore a lot of air comparing to me.

 

[Biking4ever]

However, you may find that if you exhale very slowly through your nose/mask, the bubbles are more diffused and don't make quite as much noise as if you do a regular exhale through your reg.

Sounds silly, but I've used that technique in conjuction with remaining motionless (or moving in very small, slow increments) to get close to critters.

Hi,
do you find this exhale very slowly through your nose/mask flooding your mask or not?
This use this technique and I love it the only problem is I'm getting my mask flooded. Still can't figure it out. But exhalling to the mask is so awesome and easy to control breathing speed and the pause just the mask leaks like crazy. I must be doing something wrong, Any thought?
B4e

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Hi,
what happens to the breather's air supply to your mouth at this equilibrium moment in between breaths in/out? The reason being is that my air is coming to my mouth I wanted or not. Kind a forcing me to continue inhaling so when I'm at a pause it kind a comes out into my mask. Not free flowing. Just some pressure. Reg is serviced and well adjusted, checked again and again although has tendency to freeflow on the surface. What I'm saying it is difficult to pause but need to do as my partner is half of my size therefore a lot of air comparing to me.

Sounds to me like your regulator might need adjusting. It should stop delivering air when you quit inhaling.

And don't worry about how much air your partner breathes ... we all need what we need and trying to reduce your air consumption to accommodate a dive buddy is potentially dangerous. You plan your reserves, and your dive plan, around the person who's going to use the most air. If it bothers you, the appropriate response is to bring a bigger tank ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[REVAN]

You are much safer if you never hold your breath underwater.

As a freediver, blanket statements like this make me chuckle - :lolabove:

Warning - Blindly following the advice in the quote above can lead to drowning and death in many circumstances!

 

[Biking4ever]

I'm with you on this one too,
it is just the main stream advise not to hold breath under water to be on a safe side
B4e