Never Ever Hold Your Breath But......

[DAVECOBRA]

As a new diver I have the honor of being the "gas guzzler" of our class. We all got together one night recently and were discussing my "limitations with air" (ok they were breaking my nuts LOL ).
We were discussing breathing control and bouyency control, when someone said that they tend to HOLD THEIR BREATH to control their bouyency. Then other people said that they also hold their breath when they want to rise up to clear an object such as a rock or even as a way to save air. The group also said that they only do this when they are at a level depth (drifting or swimming along an even depth). They all said that the NEVER HOLD YOUR BREATH RULE only applys to assents.

Is this a proper way of using breathing control?
I have always followed my instructors direction of "NEVER EVER OLD YOUR BREATH".

I did mention that I am a new diver and still need to learn and relax and trust myself and equipt. Any other suggestions would be helpful thanks Dave

 

[DivingPrincessE]

New divers are taught to "never hold your breath" because they aren't knowledegable enough to know when it is appropriate. Breathing is the best way to control your buoyancy once you are neutral. Don't hold your breath to save air, but if you need to rise a little bit you can take a big inhale and hold it for a second or two, if you need to drop you can do big exhales and only small inhales and you will drop. NEVER NEVER hold your breath when you are ascending though...EVER.

 

[alcina]

Short answer, no, it isn't proper breathing control. And it doesn't save air.

If you look at what you said they said "we only hold our breath at a level depth but we do it to go OVER a rock" you can see that they are immediately breaking the very rule they think they are adhering to. It just doesn't make sense

Inhaling and exhaling and establishing a good breathing pattern come with practice, it'll come. Just keep diving and you'll get better and better at it. You'll also probably find your air consumption drops the more you dive.

Never hold your breath is touted as the golden rule for a reason

 

[Ann Marie]

For people that are really concerned with their breathing, I have them do a little exercise. While diving, I have them take in a deep breath, go ahead and fill your lungs, and count how long it takes to take that nice slow, deep breath. Now exhale nice and slow. See if you can exhale for longer than you inhale. Get all that air out. Repeat. Try that on your next dive.

I don't recommend holding your breath. You can keep inhaling or exhaling at a small rate, but don't hold your breath.

 

[Blackwood]

New divers are taught to "never hold your breath" because they aren't knowledegable enough to know when it is appropriate. Breathing is the best way to control your buoyancy once you are neutral.

What she said. But rather than "knowledegable enough to know when it is appropriate," I'd say "don't know how to safely do it."

When you hold in a breath to rise, do so with your diaphragm. That way, air can still flow from your lungs and you don't risk an overexpansion injury.

And I'll echo the comments that suggest not trying to hold your breath to reduce gas consumption. It won't work.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Well, we do use our lung volume to help control buoyancy but I don't think "holding our breath" is a good way to explain it. You can, however, breath off the top or bottom of your lungs for a short time...but I think you should still be breathing and have an open airway. You also shouldn't have to be doing a bunch of this because you want efficient ventilation.

Canges in body position can also help with depth adjustments. You're neutral and horizontal and want to ascend a bit?...arch your back, shoulders back, head up a bit and your lungs rise enough to make you slightly positive and start upward movement. The whole package is a combination of weighting (balance), body position and breathing.

I think the best way to practice is to NOT be swimming. You're already under water at the dive site anyway, where do you have to go? Only kick when you want to move forward, turn or go backward. Spend enough time NOT kicking to know that you're actually neutral. Some folks fly through the water only to find out when they quit kicking they sink or rise...you shouldn't..and if you do, you're going to start huffing or blowing or messing with the inflator trying to get things fixed. You want to be comfortable and in control of your position without moving your hands and feet. If you aren't, there isn't any sense in kicking like a fool to go someplace and you're just going to use a ton of air if you do.

The trick to teaching a smooth open water class is to keep them moving so they don't sink to the bottom or float to the surface. The only problem is that nobody learns to dive that way. LOL

 

[Charlie99]

If your airway is OPEN then you won't run into any problems stopping your breathing with nearly full lungs in order to rise up a bit. Doing that with your airway CLOSED puts you at risk of lung barotrauma and then AGE.

Once you have figured it out, it is pretty clear whether or not your airway is open, but not everybody knows the difference, so the safer thing to teach is "never hold your breathe" or "always keep breathing".

Whether your airway is open or closed is determined by the doohickey at the back of your throat -- the epiglottis, glottis, or something like that. In any case, your airway is closed just before you release a cough.

If your airway is open, to keep your lungs full you need to use your chest and abdominal muscles. Once you close your airway, then you can relax your muscles. This is the condition that you want to avoid.

Yet another way of telling whether your airway is open or close is the push in sharply on your abdomen. If that forces air out, then your airway is open. If your airway is closed, then no air escapes.

Charlie Allen

 

[The_DivePirate]

Although holding your breath is a BIG no no, Pausing is an alternative too put uneeded air in your drysuit or bc. As stated above, pausing your breathing is a great way too adjust your depth in the water column. Your tidal volume of lungs will have the same bouyancy of about 7-10 lbs. of bouyancy. You should try this in about 20'-30', Get yourself nuetral and then take a deep breath, pause your breathing until you start too rise in the water column, then exhale until you become nuetral again. Then exhale a large amount of air until you drop in the water column, breath in until you become nuetral again, then breath normal you will find that this will help you in your bouyancy and air consumption. If you have any q's about this, get in touch via a pm.
Just remember NEVER HOLD your breath while ascending unless you want too pop like a balloon!(well, your lungs anyways)

Hope this helps,
Joe

 

[TSandM]

DAVECOBRA, what Mike said is right on. But I wanted to explain why people tell you they hold their breath, and why you were taught not to.

The reason you don't hold your breath is that, if you ascend while doing so and the air in your lungs expands, you can get lung injury or arterial gas embolism. This is because you have a gas in an enclosed space, and it's expanding, and something's got to give. The way to prevent that is never to close off your airway. If you are constantly either breathing in or out, you must have your airway open. Teaching "never hold your breath" is really teaching "keep your airway open".

If you're not sure what I'm saying, try this: Take a slow breath in by expanding your chest wall, using your chest muscles. Now just pause. Make sure nothing changes in your throat. This is "holding your breath" with an open airway. Now, as you sit there, close your throat so air can't get in or out. That's a closed airway. That's dangerous underwater.

Your lung volume is a handy and rapidly adjustable way of controlling your buoyancy. Mike's description of breathing off the top or bottom of your lungs is the safest way to use that volume adjustment. But it is possible to pause briefly with an open airway without being in danger.

 

[spt29970]

The point is to never close the airway. This is explained to new divers as always breathing in or out. It is fine to pause, so long as your airway remains open, however this point is too difficult to explain to new divers.

The simplest way to control buoyancy, as several other posters have pointed out, is to change the rate of inhale, relative to exhale. If you want to go up, breathe in relatively quickly and the breathe out slowly. This leaves your lungs inflated for the majority of the breathing cycle.

When doing photography, you find yourself "violating" the rules. You typically breathe shallow to avoid big buoyancy changes, and you find yourself pausing the breath cycle to avoid noisy bubbles. I never encourage others to do this since it requires you to be in tune with your body in a way that is hard to explain, and can be dangerous to those who misunderstand it.

Therefore, in my mind, the rule stands. Never hold your breath.