Breathing techniques for low air consumption

[Walter]

RJP and Orlando Eric nailed it!

 

[scarefaceDM]

Controlling your SAC rate BREATHING starts at the surface. Starts actually way before you get in the car to drive. Stress is a very bad word for divers. Leads to a domino effect and can hinder your SAC rate greatly. Physical fitness is also a factor. Smoking another. General health basically will affect your SAC rate. If you smoke a pack a day..stop..your killing yourself anyways....if you are out of shape..then you are unfit to dive...Being unfit does not mean physically fit. it also means mentally fit.

Having said that...

YOGA. DO Yoga. Works wonders. You need to be very relaxed when diving. As mentioned by a few, if you think you are going slow..you are not going slow enough and if you think that worked...you are wrong..go slower again. Yoga will improve your metabolic rate, will improve your flexibility, it will improve you overall strength. Thus improve your diving. And your mental well being.

I have been doing yoga for a few years with my wife...My strength has improved and so has my overall mental fitness. I am less stressed. Yoga relaxes me after a stress full day. YOGA brings all the bad stress down to nothing and I feel much better after a session. Also what works is Stretching. VERY important in diving. Being flexible helps greatly in reducing overall body stress and will inturn help lower your breathing rate and make you that much more comfortable in the water. It is all related.

Oter factors aswell have to be considered. Is yoru gear in top workign order. Have you serviced your regs. Also is your dive trainign up to par. Are you diving beyond your limits and trainign levels. Are you diving in conditions that you would not usually dive in. All this WILL stress you more and it will increase you air consumption becasue you are stressed. You my not be physically stressed but you can be mentally stressed. Regardless any form of stress levels will increase air consumption...you have to learn how to control it.

To sum it up. Scubadiving is a stressfull sport. If you are stressed underwater, you can have a bad day really fast. You need to be mentally and physically fit. It is that simple. Taking small steps to decrease your stress levels will help you and go a long way, so you can enjoy the sport of scubadiving how it was meant to be enjoyed....stress free.

 

[Indian Valley Scuba]

Keep in mind what makes us breath in the first place - CO2 build up in our lungs. Breathing is not a continuous process; rather, it is a batch process, only actually needed when the CO2 levels in our lungs trigger our personal tolerance setpoint. That is why respiratory rate increases with work or exercise (more CO2 being produced) and slows with rest or sleep. It is also why our moms don't have to sit by our bedside and poke us all night long to remind us to breath - the CO2 buildup makes that happen! And the actual gas exchange portion of breathing only takes place in the deepest reaches of our lungs, in our aveoli. No actual "breathing", as defined as our bodies obtaining oxygen or discharging CO2, takes place in bronchial passages, throat, windpipe, mouth, etc.

So, long, slow inhalations, that flood the lungs with breathing gas (air or whatever you are using) will help dilute the CO2 buildup and allow us the greatest dwell time to allow O2 to pass through the aveoli walls and into our blood. When we exhale, the longest, slowest exhalation you can muster, flushing out our lungs from the diaphragm, will help get rid of as much CO2-laden air as possible, and then refilling those lungs in the same manner will help ensure the longest possible time before our next 'urge to breath' occurs. This can cut your respiratory rate down from the average of 10-12 breaths per minute to as slow as 3 or 4.

The gain here is not that we use less air - in fact our body's oxygen metabolic rate remains unchanged, unless we are really working hard. Where the major improvement is lies in the fact that when we inhale, the only gas (air) that we will ever be able to use is what makes it all the way down into our aveoli. The rest of the inhaled breath just ends up 'stuck in traffic' in our mouth, throat, windpipe, major bronchial passages, etc. And when we start our next breath, the first thing we do is exhale, pushing all that perfectly good, unused air right out our exhaust ports, never touched by human lungs. What a waste!!

The volume of air that fills those parts of our body is constant, and has nothing to do with the volume that makes it further down to the aveoli. Therefore, in order to maximize our efficiency, we want to get the ratio of the 'dead air' stuck in traffic, to 'usable air' in our aveoli, as favorable as possible. This is best accomplished by those long, slow, full inhalations, followed by long, slow full exhalations. That reduces the actual number of breaths we take, and reduces the number of times we throw away all the good air from the unusable parts of our respiratory system.

Hope this helps!

 

[TSandM]

Do not breathe out all in one go. This will cause your lungs to require oxygen quickly and you consume more than you expect.

This doesn't make any physiologic sense.

The amount of air you HAVE to move through your lungs in a minute is determined by your production of carbon dioxide, and that's determined by your basal metabolic rate, combined with the amount of muscle effort you are using. (That's why slowing down helps your gas consumption, because the less you move, the less CO2 you make.) But this is the amount of gas that has to go through the small air cells in your lungs, so the air has to get down there to be effective.

The air moving through the upper airways -- your larynx, trachea and major bronchi -- does not participate in gas exchange, and is termed "dead space". If you breathe very shallowly, a large percentage of each breath simply ventilates the dead space, and only a small fraction gets down to the air cells. If you take a slow, deep breath, a much larger percentage of it is getting to where it needs to be.

Watching students in the pool this week, it was so clear to me how many of them are just "huffing" little tiny breaths in and out very rapidly. This is extremely inefficient ventilation. ANY technique which causes you to slow your breathing and take longer, deeper breaths, will help your gas consumption. I think yoga is an excellent suggestion, because it teaches that kind of breathing pattern.

In addition, breathing that way actually helps you achieve relaxation. There is something very meditative to slow, deep, rhythmic breaths, which is undoubtedly why they are part of yoga and meditation techniques. Achieving relaxation underwater also leads to reduced movement and less CO2 production, so this is a very constructive spiral to get into.

Good buoyancy, horizontal trim, efficient propulsion techniques, and slowing your speed through the water will all have enormous impact on your consumption, but a reasonable breathing pattern is a requirement, as well.

 

[diverdown78]

I have found that Aikido,a Japanese martial art,has helped out with my gas consumption.The art teaches breathe contol with body motion.

 

[RJP]

I have found that Aikido, a Japanese martial art, has helped out with my gas consumption.

And if you run out of air, you can overpower your buddy and take his tank!

 

[rstofer]

This is all too complicated for me. I let my body breathe like it ordinarily does and I don't spend more than an instant calming myself at the start of the dive. Maybe I'll breathe a little deeper but I certainly don't count strokes.

My tanks have always had enough air to reach the NDL so why should I care about my SAC rate? I'm never going to do decompression diving of the type that requires deco stops and I'm never going to exceed recreational depths. If I need more air, I'll get a bigger tank.

At least for square profile dives, an Al 80 holds enough air for dives beyond 40' reaching the NDL and I don't have the attention span to want to reach the NDL for 30' dives, especially in cold water with crappy viz.

This deliberate breathing thing just doesn't make sense to me. Let your body do what it wants.

Richard

 

[spectrum]

Prior to diving I happened to do a good amount of skin-diving and (don't laugh) singing, albeit bad. The madness behind it is explained here. When I began scuba diving I fell into a very desirable air usage range. Let it suffice to say that if skin-diving still had it's rightful place as the gateway to scuba life would be easier for a lot of compressors.

Pete

 

[ptyx]

Exhale slowly through your nose.

That is also a very good way to fog your mask in cold water.

 

[ptyx]

To lower your gas consumption, you want to keep your metabolism level as low as possible - as close as how you'd feel lying on the couch at the end of a day:

• low heart rate
• relaxed mind
• as little physical exertion as possible
• relaxed breathing

If you do yoga, think Savasana (corpse pose).

Breathing exercises (both above- and under- water) will help bring your body and mind to that relaxed state - however, they are only a technique to get there. If you're stressed mentally and flailing arms and legs like a windmill, the breathing part alone won't do much good.

There are may other ways to work on those goals:

• Cardio training will improve your heart rate
• Taking a 5 mins rest at the surface if the surface swim was rough will help your heart rate as well.
• Training and experience brings confidence, which means less stress.
• Confidence and efficiency with your gear reduce the inevitable stress happening on a boat when everyone wants to rush to the water.
• Trim, streamlined gear, efficient propulsion techniques, and limited arms movements reduce exertion during the dive.