How do you breathe under water? Any Advice?

[ScubaSam]

Aside from all the great advise already posted (trim, relax, slow, no hand swim, etc), one trick that I learned from a cave diver was to slowly hum, yes, it's not a typo, hum into my regulator when I exhale. It relaxes me and and also extends my exhales.

I find that when I'm getting stressed underwater, I'll hum and it calms me down. In a recent training class, I was trying to learn the back kick, stressing about not getting the kick and realizing I held my breath when I was loading my fins to do the back kick, so I forced myself to hum and guess what, I have a back kick.

 

[dhuskins]

I understand where you are coming from. I used to hoover through a tank of air in no time flat.

Breath control is important. Slow, deep, inhales followed by even slower exhales gives you the most O2 and clears out the most CO2. I used to concentrate so hard on it, that I missed out on what there was to see underwater.

A friend sold me a clue and I have been much better ever since. He simply said "Relax".

It is difficult to have good breath control when you are tense or fighting with buoyancy.

Simply learning to go limp and relaxed in the water is the first skill to learn in breath control. Surprisingly, it is the best skill to learn for perfecting your buoyancy as well. I dropped over 5 pounds of lead when I began relaxing. My descents became easy and my overall diving improved.

Shortly thereafter, I was on a dive with my wife and a DM only. I was at 1700 psi when the DM gave me the half tank signal. I signed back that, no, I was not there yet. He responded by telling me that he was. Relaxing, like a boneless cat, helped me improve my diving considerably.

 

[Kingpatzer]

You've gotten great advice (though the pause 5 seconds bit is something I personally feel should not be done). The one thing I'd add is this:

Do Not Compare Your Air Consumption With Anyone Else But Yourself

As you get your SAC rate lower and lower - which comes from a combination of experience, comfort in the water, and gear configuration choices - you'll soon level off knowing you've pretty well reached the limit of what you can achieve given your current level of aerobic health. And that's fine. Now, you can extend it a bit more with exercise and diet, but mostly you'll just be where you are.

And whatever that is, it's ok.

I've dived with people who could stay down 3x what I could, and I've dived with people who needed to surface when I had 1/2 a tank left, and I've had great dives with both types of divers.

 

[lord.harshil]

Do Not Compare Your Air Consumption With Anyone Else But Yourself

Nonsense! How else will I prove my manliness?!?!?!? :mooner:

 

[Atomic_Diver]

one thing that helps me is i take my mask off for a few mins between 0'-20' and for some reason that usually calms my breathing down quite a bit, work on your sac rate in a pool, since its a (reletivly) safe enviroment, and try slow Deep breaths w/o a mask and exhale through your nose for about 5 mins and then with a mask try Slow Deep Breaths, and exhale fully and repeat the process, it helped me when i first started diving... now my sac rate falls at anywhere between 14-16 psi per min at the surface.....

 

[Teamcasa]

You have been good advice (except the silly BC comment) so far.

I just tell new divers to breathe normally. Don't try to think about it too much, you have many other things to do while learning and experiencing this new sport. But, in order to relax new divers that seem to be huffing and puffing, I just tell them to count to 4 when the inhale and count to 5 when they exhale, no pausing.

Enjoy this sport, dive safe and have some fun!

 

[ScubaSam]

Nonsense! How else will I prove my manliness?!?!?!? :mooner:

Or my womanliness!!! Is there such a word???

 

[TSandM]

Oh and being horizontal has nothing to do with your BC. rather its about weight distribution on your body and BC with trim pockets will make no difference.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. It IS about weight distribution, but trim pockets are a place to put some weight up higher on the diver's body, which is where most people need to put it to balance in a horizontal position. Without them, or if they are located too low on the BC, you have to find another way to move weight upward. Camband weight pockets can be useful, or a tank weight, even wrapped around the tank neck. One of the biggest advantages of a backplate is that it moves 5 lbs up onto your back.

 

[Interceptor121]

I agree with Teamcasa
My advice to new divers is to move slowly and breathe normally focussing on exhaling properly, I have seen many new divers inflating their lungs fully and then exhale quickly and shallow ending up in a situation in which their lungs are always 80% full which makes them more buoyant and therefore require extra kg weight cutting their dive short. Besides only exhaling clears out the co2.
Telling the students to relax and breath normally remembering to exhale because they will not run out of air usually fixes this problem quite quickly
I usually avoid to say to my student to focus on deep breaths because I have seen that if they do that they tend to fully inflate their lungs more than breathing naturally and hence they go up and down as they get an extra lift of at least 2 kgs at full lungs and -2kg at empty lungs.
Those same two kgs are then required to keep them down during the dive and they end up struggling with the excessive weight (as they then have to fin during the dive never finding neutral buoyancy because of the excessive inflation/deflation of the lungs) and cutting their dive at least 5/10 minutes shorter.
I have the same pace breathing underwater than I have when I am out. I do not make any effort to breathe more or less deep, and my air consumption is in 90% better than all the divers when I am guiding, with the exception of the odd skinny woman that has 2 liters lungs!!! :-D

 

[lord.harshil]

Or my womanliness!!! Is there such a word???

must...resist...sexist...comments *runs away from sam(antha?)*

Coin it then! mwahahhaha~!

You have been good advice (except the silly BC comment) so far.

I just tell new divers to breathe normally. Don't try to think about it too much, you have many other things to do while learning and experiencing this new sport. But, in order to relax new divers that seem to be huffing and puffing, I just tell them to count to 4 when the inhale and count to 5 when they exhale, no pausing.

Enjoy this sport, dive safe and have some fun!

you're no fun. I dont love you anymore. :mooner: hrmpf.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. It IS about weight distribution, but trim pockets are a place to put some weight up higher on the diver's body, which is where most people need to put it to balance in a horizontal position. Without them, or if they are located too low on the BC, you have to find another way to move weight upward. Camband weight pockets can be useful, or a tank weight, even wrapped around the tank neck. One of the biggest advantages of a backplate is that it moves 5 lbs up onto your back.

eh good point. what I meant to say was...what did i mean to say...ah yes, its more about the distribution than the equipment. seen divers with brilliant trim despite using rental gear. kudos to them!