Deep dive breath rate?

BPM?

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  • Total voters
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@Patoux01 it's a conscious effort to expel the last bit of air out of your lungs when diving deep to prevent any CO2 buildup in your lungs. It's not an automatic response unless something is wrong. It's not really taught by most instructors, but it gets important when gas density goes way up as you get deep
 
I don't recall ever counting, tracking, or being at all concerned with my breaths per minute. I'm more concerned with my gas consumption rates and breathing fully and deeply. So I just watched a few video segments I shot and I seem pretty consistent at about 9 breaths per minute in them. Not sure what the relavance is. My surface consumption for doubles is generally around .45cfm swimming, more into flow, less on deco or scootering. I tend to make 2-3 hour dives.
 
I normally do about one breath every 12 seconds (5 per min) but at 45 m (150 feet) it is more like once every 10 seconds (6 per min). This is because I am carrying more gear and also we normally have a current when diving the wrecks at this depth.
 
I don't recall ever counting, tracking, or being at all concerned with my breaths per minute. I'm more concerned with my gas consumption rates and breathing fully and deeply. So I just watched a few video segments I shot and I seem pretty consistent at about 9 breaths per minute in them. Not sure what the relavance is. My surface consumption for doubles is generally around .45cfm swimming, more into flow, less on deco or scootering. I tend to make 2-3 hour dives.
I concur. . .

A quantitative measurement like "breaths per minute" is highly variable with exertion and physical activity & fitness from diver to diver and as a metric has little relevancy in the immersed hyperbaric environment. -->Shallow or deep, the point is it's whatever qualitative dynamic respiration rate you have to sustain on demand in order to ventilate metabolically generated Carbon Dioxide; if you cannot expel this CO2 build-up and subsequent retention then you risk Hypercapnic unconsciousness.

Look again at this simple graphic demonstration of immersion work-of-breathing, exercise, and ambient pressure differential, and the slight but building physiological stressor of just trying to talk and tread water at the surface at the same time:
Now imagine the difficulty if @Dr Simon Mitchell in the video was in a current at a depth of 10 ATA in heavy physical exercise and further handicapped by the extreme narcosis, increased gas density and regulator WOB (Work-of-Breathing) of compressed Air -->All it takes is an inevitable increased spike of metabolic CO2 that he may not be able to effectively expel fast enough through regulator breathing cycles resulting in CO2 retention, with worst case overwhelming acute deterioration into uncontrolled spiraling Hypercapnia.
 
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Do you know a good mathematical model for ventilation that allows simulating the effect of a scuba diver's breathing pattern on the efficiency of CO2 elimination? Then we could simulate different patterns and see if the difference is significant.
God already took care of that. Each and everyone of us are different and respond to CO 2 in a different manner. Normal CO2 is 35-45 and to most of us a primary stimulus to breathe. But not so true for Real CO2 Retainers. The person sitting next to you, and functioning appropriately could have a CO2 of even greater than 60. It is where they live. So in order for us to do a complete study, I would have to account for depth, comfort, current, gas, work level, temp, respirator rate, etc. Then obtain an ABG, see what your CO2 is and advise from there. If it was high then you need to breathe faster or take deeper breaths. So in reality, and why I said God already took care of this, is because your brain and body are wired to off gas CO2 without you thinking about it. The problem we run into is trying to make that cylinder last longer and longer. We do this by skip breathing, pushing forward when we are clearly exhausted, fighting a current, etc. Stop, relax and breathe. Breathe as your body urges you to.
 
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