Careful breathing for buoyancy control

[Garrobo]

TS&M: Yep, the old glottis trick. I've used it for years to control an arythmia. I've gotten PVC's (premature ventricular contractions) since I was a little boy. In 1988 my doctor started me on a beta blocker to control them since they were getting to be bothersome. He retired and a Chinese doctor took over his clinic. He took me off the meds and, as you described, showed me how to do the inhale, hold it and grunt. This procedure actually stops the heart after a little while and when it starts back up it is re-regulated. Kind of scary at first but it does the trick temporarily. I've had other doctors tell me, when I told them about doing this, that I was a damned fool and shouldn't be doing that. But what's life worth without a little danger?

 

[TSandM]

Garrobo, that's one of several of what are called "vagal maneuvers" for stopping certain arrhythmias. For some people, it works quite well. There is little danger involved, so long as you know what the arrhythmia IS. But if you have frequent episodes, I would highly recommend considering electrical mapping and ablation, which can solve the problem for once and for all.

 

[garyd54220]

And then the whole thing goes to hell when you switch to a rebreather!
:shocked2:

 

[SlowAndEasy]

The humbling part of being a new diver is the realization that one needs to relearn things previously taken for granted... like breathing.

Fantastic guidance -- thanks for your advice.

Regards,
Steven

 

[paddler3d]

The humbling part of being a new diver is the realization that one needs to relearn things previously taken for granted... like breathing.

They say yoga can work wonders with that as well.

Most serious freedivers I know, do yoga specifically for the purpose of freediving.

 

[herman]

It isn't that you want to hold your breath while diving, you never want to close the epiglottis while ascending. When you were doing your CEA or CESA during OW your instructor had you say the 'ahhhhhs' while ascending. This was actually making your keep your epiglottis open.

You absolutely use your lungs to tweak your buoyancy.

More important the breath control for buoyancy is proper weighting, hands down. If you are overweighted, your going to have more air in your BC than your need. As you ascend, and descend for that matter, that extra air is subject to the Boyle's Law, which creates more buoyancy change than is necessary.

When you have your weight correct you'll find that with subtle differences in breathing you can cover a whole range of depths without adding and removing air to your BC.

Once you settle on a depth, you can adjust the air in your BC and then using a relaxed natural breathing style, you'll stay exactly where you want.

As mentioned above, 'shallow breathing' can lead to hypercapnia, or CO2 retention, which can lead to other things.

A way that I've found to really get the feel for what your breathing is doing is to focus and practice hovering is shallow water. Practice hovering at 15 ft, or just off the bottom of the deep end of the pool, or hover mid water in the shallow end of the pool.

Thanks to Boyle's Law, the greatest change in gas volume occurs in the first atmosphere.

As you overbreath or underbreath, you are going to notice the change much more in shallower water. Feedback will be more immediate in shallow water.

That is not the case. Your buoyancy changes because you change your displacement as you breath in and out, the amount of displacement you create by breathing does not change reguardless of depth so the buoyancy change you get from breathing is a constant reguardless of depth. What does change is the responce of any wetsuit or air in your BC, that on the other had is much more noticable at shallow depths.

 

[Rubber Duckie]

ya you want small deep breaths from the bottom of your lungs to prevent CO2 build up.
Like Devondiver said, you want to use your lungs for minor buoyancy changes, but never for full buoyancy control.
I've seen a video of a girl embolise in 3 feet of water and almost die because she took too deep of a breath. Not pretty at all.
BC for rough tuning, to where on an almost empty breath you just barely start to sink then control the rest of it with your lungs.
Proper weighting is also huge here since you don't want a whole lot of air in your bc because it will make all of your depth changes much faster

I am having trouble picturing how you could embolise from taking deep breath.

 

[tbone1004]

Take a full full breath, close your epiglotis, ascent. done....

This was a rare circumstance, and she freaked out really bad.
Basically don't close your epiglottis and you'll be fine.

 

[dive brat]

They say yoga can work wonders with that as well.

Most serious freedivers I know, do yoga specifically for the purpose of freediving.

Yoga works well for me. Helped with breath control and improved my air consumption. Viniyoga is a type of yoga that focuses specifically on breathing, but most yoga types are good for breath control. Also a great workout and reduced my tension headaches... go figure!

d.b.

 

[ChaosHokie]

Tai Chi is another way to learn excellent breath control..