Deep breathing at depth

[Diver_Jan]

I have trained myself to breath using relaxed diaphramic action. My breathing is fairly consistant throughout the dive regardless of depth. I usually need to detune my reg 2 nd stage as I feel I am getting more than enough gas. One of my dive partners thought I slowed my breathing down even more the deeper I went. (I don't know) Now it seems like I just breath the same way always

Hi GDI,

I completely agree with you. I have done the same. I find that having a relaxed diaphramic action lengthens my dive time rather than uses up my air even at depth. More often than not, I come up with 1000 PSI or better, after a deep or long dive. I wish my buddies would be more consistant with their air consumption! ...grins.

 

[dvoodoo83]

ya id have to take indigoblue's side u r probley getting Narced and you can get by that by diveing a lot your body will get use to it just like if it was the first time u drank u would get drunk a lot faster then of u had been drinking for 10 years at least thats how i understand it dvoodoo83

 

[ScubaJorgen]

The deeper you dive, the more your body has to work against the higher ambient pressure to expand your chest and draw a breath.

That is not the case. The ambient pressure outside is higher, the pressure inside your lungs also. They compensate (in fact if they did not your lungs would collapse).

So you breath air at higher depth at higher pressure. Air at higher pressure is more dense (it contains more air particles per unit volume). This makes the air more sluggish: you have to breath harder to fill your lungs.

If you ever end up in a deco chamber try to whistle at high pressure. You won't get any sound out of your mouth because of the denser air. BTW: I really hope you never, never have the chance to do this experiment...

Your lungs become compressed at depth and your body is probably trying to compensate for the lesser space

Your lungs do not get compressed more or less than when you breathe at sea level. Your lungs only get compressed when you hold your breath and go down. When you normally breath, your lungs do not get compressed.

Original question:
So the air being dense makes you have to work harder. This might perhaps (just guessing) give you a feeling of shortage of breath and might stimulate you to breath deeper.

Some (most?) regulators blow air into your mouth, after an initial effort to start breathing (you have to overcome the resistance, then air starts to flow on itself). It is interesting to know if your 'problem' occurs using such a regulator. Usually, when I switch my regulator for my snorkel, this feels awkard, because I have to suck in air myself instead of that it is blown in my mouth.

 

[Lightning Fish]

Even though this thread is a few months old, I'm going to throw this comment out. What type of BC do you use? Is it possible for a jacket style BC to restrict your chest, thus making it harder to expand your chest and breath? The deeper you go, the more air you add into your BC, the more restrictive a jacket BC can become. My thoughts are this would compound the problem.

Bill.