how did you lower your air use

[Finneli Felwitch]

I have always been somewhat of an air hog. My lungs are larger than my parents and brothers and so I do not use air as fast as they do, but there is still room for improvement.

Not having anything to do with scuba, I have always had very high stress levels and recently my doctor decided to run some Bio-feedback tests on me. Turns out I have been breathing the wrong way for as long as I can remember. Normal people use diaphragmatic breathing, while I use Chest breathing. The only time your body would use chest breathing is if you are working out or in a stressful situation. The goal of chest breathing is to bring in as much oxygen as possible into your lungs. Chest breathing uses more energy.

Since I have always used chest breathing, even when sleeping, I always feel tired because I am essentially doing a workout 24-7. With diaphragmatic breathing, take in less oxygen and use less energy. The amount of oxygen that you take in is enough to survive.

That is what I understand so far of these breathing patterns.

I have been training myself to use diaphragmatic breathing for 1 month and my stress level has dropped and I feel more energetic. I also feel better while diving and my air usage has improved.

 

[supergaijin]

I know all the basic answers, but there has got to be more

No there doesn't...

Slow down, breathe deeply.

When I'm at 30m I'm breathing 2-3 times/min. I've done dives where the max depth has been 30m and I've come up with half a tank after an hour underwater- it's not about maximum depth- it's the time spent at depth that matters.

 

[Diver0001]

I actually stopped calculating as you call it sac.
Because I wasn't happy with the numbers.
The problem is that I'm in a pretty severe depression and that tends to mess with your head. I'm never satisfied and trust me I'm not an air hog but I use more then my depression wants me to.

Ps: diving is the last activity I leave the house for.

Wow. I'd say your SAC should probably be the last thing you should worry about right now then. I know what it's like to be severely depressed and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

If you're in a state of mind to make a trip to Oostvoorne then I'd be happy to make a dive or two with you and give you some tips based on what I see. If you're not "there" just now then consider it an open invitation.

R..

 

[AlexL]

of course, all the other good suggestions apply as well; weight, trim, proper bc usage... but

Yoga [...] learn to meditate [...]. Some people even learn to lower their vital signs,which allows them to do breath hold free dives for longer lengths of time through practicing yoga.

yoga++ ; yoga is what prepares you to practice the breath (ujjayi, nadi-suddhi, kapalabhati, agniprasana, etc), meditation and mindfulness that will eventually allow you to slow everything down, and your RMV will drop accordingly. once you slown down to around 15 count inhales / exhales at rest (2 breaths/minute), something seems to 'shift' and everything sorta 'slows down'. its hard to describe and quite cool.

can't really breathe that slow when at depth (really screws your buoyancy up), but just having that mental reference point is quite helpful.

also helped, and continues to help, immensely with my own depression demons. its just you, on your mat, with your breath; everything else doesnt matter during your practice. gives you a nice stable fallback when life gets to be too much.

 

[tdtaylor]

I have asthma, and breathing during certain times of year can be hard. I also have large lungs, verified by all the tests, so my air consumption should be high. But I dive with a group of 1-2-3-4-5,000 dive individuals, and I never am the one to call a dive. Secret- relax and breath deeply and fully. Our students look for other answers, but it is really quite simple. Proper trim and buoyancy (trim seems to get short play), relaxing, and just enjoying the ride (some call it Zen-like) can go a long way. My daughter is half my weight, a fish, and beautiful in the water, but air is never an issue between us.

I have not taken Yoga, but my guess is that it would help greatly. When photographing, 4 to 5 cycles a minute for me is typical (wow, 2 per minute!), and with proper weighting, buoyancy is not an issue. Dive, dive and dive, learn buoyancy/trim, and just relax...you will be surprised.

Terry

 

[Kevrumbo]

I know all the basic answers, but there has got to be more cause I've met some divers that don't breathe during a dive.
meaning doing a 45m 30 meter/95 feet dive
And then coming up with 90 bars.
On a 200 bar tank.

Go tropical warm water wall/drift diving . . .with the current.

My SCR/RMV in tropical warm waters is typically 30% better than it is in temperate cold SoCal homewaters. However, after a week drift diving in Palau 30deg C water temp, I've lowered that to around 50% of my nominal cold water SCR (from 22 litres/min to 11 litres/min).

This is how I used this value with a 11 litres/bar tank (i.e. an AL80) with full fill 200 bar to start in Palau:
11 litres/min divided-by- 11 litres/bar equals 1 bar/min pressure SCR. [Compare: how much easier & intuitive is it to work with "1 bar/min" vs "14.5 psi/min equivalent" in US Imperial Units???]

All my dives are averaging 20 meters depth going with the drift current; 20 meters is 3 ATA (divide 20 by 10 and add 1 gives a depth in atmospheres absolute of 3 ATA).

Therefore 1bar/min multiplied by 3 ATA equals a depth consumption rate of 3 bar/min at 20 meters. Checking my bottom timer every 10 minutes, I expect to consume 30 bar (3 bar/min multiplied by 10min equals 30 bar), and accordingly my SPG should read 30 bar less in that 10 minute time frame.

So by 30 minutes elapsed dive time at 20 meters, I expect to be down 90 bar or at half tank (AL80 full tank is 200 bar). At 40 minutes elapsed time, I'm ascending off the wall into the shallow coral plateau around 9 meters (down 120 bar from 200 bar total, or 80 bar remaining in tank). And finally at the 45 to 50 minute mark, I'm at 6m and my 3-5min safety stop with 60 to 70 bar left. I surface and I know even before looking at my SPG that I have around 50 bar remaining in my tank.

 

[t4e]

I have always been somewhat of an air hog. My lungs are larger than my parents and brothers and so I do not use air as fast as they do, but there is still room for improvement.

huh?...i would think larger lungs would use air faster

 

[jord1990]

Hmmm my lungs are huge 5.6 liters.....
I could always have 1 lung surgicaly removed

 

[Diver0001]

of course, all the other good suggestions apply as well; weight, trim, proper bc usage... but



yoga++ ; yoga is what prepares you to practice the breath (ujjayi, nadi-suddhi, kapalabhati, agniprasana, etc), meditation and mindfulness that will eventually allow you to slow everything down, and your RMV will drop accordingly. once you slown down to around 15 count inhales / exhales at rest (2 breaths/minute), something seems to 'shift' and everything sorta 'slows down'. its hard to describe and quite cool.

can't really breathe that slow when at depth (really screws your buoyancy up), but just having that mental reference point is quite helpful.

also helped, and continues to help, immensely with my own depression demons. its just you, on your mat, with your breath; everything else doesnt matter during your practice. gives you a nice stable fallback when life gets to be too much.

I'd probably hurt myself if I tried to do yoga at this point in my life but I can really appreciate the gist of this post.

Personally, my problem is that the moments when I would benefit most from mediation are the same moments when I find it most difficult to back away from the thing that's bothering me enough to actually go and sit.

The only thing that works with me is structure-structure-structure (and when that doesn't work then I go for structure-and-discipline). I meditate on a strict schedule because otherwise I wouldn't do it at all.

I've actually prescribed meditation for one of my scuba-students in the past and gave her some books on the subject from my personal library to get her started. She had severe difficulties learning how to dive but her problem was not technical or even skills related. It was much MUCH deeper and couldn't be addressed with traditional approaches to diving education. So I offered her a new way of coping with stress in a more general sense. Even if she never dives again it might have been worth her while in many aspects of her life to take that diving course and stumble upon an instructor who could show her an open door to a new way of seeing oneself in relation to the world around us.

That was before I had the bout of severe depression I mentioned above. There were days during about an 8 month period that for me the difference between life and death was that I couldn't find the motivation to tie my shoes so I could go outside and throw myself in front of a train. Yes, you read that right. The ONLY reason I am still here is that I was *too depressed* to actually commit suicide.

And believe me when I say that no amount of yoga or meditation will help that. Meditation, yoga, fitness (I run), getting enough sleep, eating right and all that other stuff that adds up to a happy and healthy life are things that you don't -- and can't -- do when you're massively depressed. The "problem" in Holland is that doctors and psychologists are rather "anti medication" so even when you are suffering from a life-threatening depression, as I was, they will still hesitate (ie refuse) to prescribe anti-depressant medication. The Dutch cultural roots go *very* deep in to their Calvinistic past and even for things like major depression their best medical and psychological advise is to "suck it up".

For other examples of how Calvinistic thinking affects every day events I'll write at some point about child birth and vasectomies.

Actually, I'll write about vasectomies now that I mentioned it. Shortly after the birth of our 2nd child I wanted a vasectomy. To make a long story short, a close friend of mine got a vasectomy in Canada in the same week as I did. In his case, they did it with a needle that had some kind of laser attached to it. He was in and out of the hospital in an hour and experienced little to no discomfort after the fact.

*I*.... on the other hand, had to endure the Calvinistic approach. They used what can only be described as "farming implements" to perform a form of vasectomy that hasn't changed in this part of Europe since Roman doctors were performing vasectomies with rusty weapons of war. My recovery was 6 weeks because the doctor said, "oops" while he was setting one of the stitches and I just had to "suck it up".

R..

 

[BRT]

I'm 205 lb and out of shape and use less air than my much smaller wife (who doesn't use much). We both have run a small Mexican divemaster out of air. I'm going to go out on a limb here and get in trouble. Yes it gets better with lots of diving. Yes buoyancy is important. You will use a lot of air swimming up all the time, but one thing that I believe makes a difference is if you were going to do something as foolish as pausing your breathing momentarily, do it with your lungs on the full side instead of on the empty side.