dmdoss
Guest
In and out works for me.
How should I breathe?
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SparticleBrane
Contributor
Breathe normally. It's really that simple.
Do that here on land for a few minutes and tell me how terrible you feel.fire_diver:
MeiLing
Contributor
Here is a link to a very good article on breathing and sports, including scuba diving: http://www.viewzone.com/breathing.html
They give as an example a Tai Chi breath exercise that is long, slow deep breaths with a short pause (2-3 seconds) between the inhale and exhale. This is how you should breath and it shouldn't cause problems with your bouyancy. You don't want to over-inflate your lungs as that will cause a desire to quickly exhale.
Breathe like in that Tai Chi exercise and you will be very relaxed as well and be great on air!
Sorry, fire_diver, but if you don't fully exhale than you are skipping on your breath cycle!:no
They give as an example a Tai Chi breath exercise that is long, slow deep breaths with a short pause (2-3 seconds) between the inhale and exhale. This is how you should breath and it shouldn't cause problems with your bouyancy. You don't want to over-inflate your lungs as that will cause a desire to quickly exhale.
Breathe like in that Tai Chi exercise and you will be very relaxed as well and be great on air!
Sorry, fire_diver, but if you don't fully exhale than you are skipping on your breath cycle!:no
fire_diver
Contributor
Hey, if you don't want to use my breathing technique, don't use it. It works for me. And yes, I do fully exhale. Did you actually read my posts?
FD
FD
fire_diver, I'm really confused by your problems with buoyancy with deep, rhythmic breathing. I've always found that it takes a couple of seconds, at a minimum, to see myself start to move with breath control, so it's not a wildly uncontrolled buoyancy swing. I can sit and breathe and enjoy myself drift very slightly upward and downward with my breathing pattern, but the total change in depth is just a couple of inches at most.
On the other hand, I agree with you that mid-lung volume is the neutral point, and you adjust your breathing swings around that. As Charlie99 has written before, I find myself unconsciously adjusting my breathing for my buoyancy, and if I realize I'm breathing mostly with my lungs full, I need to add air somewhere; if with them empty, I need to vent something.
On the other hand, I agree with you that mid-lung volume is the neutral point, and you adjust your breathing swings around that. As Charlie99 has written before, I find myself unconsciously adjusting my breathing for my buoyancy, and if I realize I'm breathing mostly with my lungs full, I need to add air somewhere; if with them empty, I need to vent something.
I find it somewhat entertaining that there are all sorts of methods and procedures for precisely how to breathe. Sure, there is the one rule ("Don't hold your breath."), and there are the two guidelines ("Deep, not shallow." and "Slow, not fast."), but there really *isn't* a procedure for precisely how to breathe on a real-life dive.
It's not evading the question to say that it's really more of feeling it and going with the flow. I can certainly tell when my breathing is elevated, as I'm sure most attentive divers would also say. At the same time, there isn't any particular regimen I use when breathing underwater. Even if I were to try some counting method or what have you, it would break down all the time, since breathing is my primary method of buoyancy control.
While I do not discount the idea that strict regimens of breathing can help some divers, for others, trying to follow a count simply adds another element of task loading while impeding the proper use of breathing for buoyancy tweaks. For those divers, it should be perfectly adequate to simply "concentrate" on being calm and relaxed, with the occasional thought toward breathing deeply.
If you come up with CO2-induced headaches from shallow breathing, by all means try one of the counting regimens to consciously force yourself to breathe more fully. If you've never had a headache and you're just wanting to do breathe the "right way", don't get yourself all stressed and task-loaded by trying to figure it out -- you're doing fine as it is, so just relax and enjoy yourself.
(I've never tried to adjust my breathing underwater. Diving is so relaxing, I'm naturally breathing slowly and fully. It never occurred to me to consider how I was breathing until I was showing my sister's family some dive home video I shot. They asked me, "Do you really breathe that slowly?" and obviously, the answer was "Apparently.")
It's not evading the question to say that it's really more of feeling it and going with the flow. I can certainly tell when my breathing is elevated, as I'm sure most attentive divers would also say. At the same time, there isn't any particular regimen I use when breathing underwater. Even if I were to try some counting method or what have you, it would break down all the time, since breathing is my primary method of buoyancy control.
While I do not discount the idea that strict regimens of breathing can help some divers, for others, trying to follow a count simply adds another element of task loading while impeding the proper use of breathing for buoyancy tweaks. For those divers, it should be perfectly adequate to simply "concentrate" on being calm and relaxed, with the occasional thought toward breathing deeply.
If you come up with CO2-induced headaches from shallow breathing, by all means try one of the counting regimens to consciously force yourself to breathe more fully. If you've never had a headache and you're just wanting to do breathe the "right way", don't get yourself all stressed and task-loaded by trying to figure it out -- you're doing fine as it is, so just relax and enjoy yourself.
(I've never tried to adjust my breathing underwater. Diving is so relaxing, I'm naturally breathing slowly and fully. It never occurred to me to consider how I was breathing until I was showing my sister's family some dive home video I shot. They asked me, "Do you really breathe that slowly?" and obviously, the answer was "Apparently.")
I'm with you, ClayJar! Breathing efficiently underwater is the only thing that came naturally to me, and I've never had to count or really think about how I'm breathing, except to learn to recognize how it can tip me off to a need to adjust buoyancy.
shotthebreeze
Contributor
I breathe like I'm ready to go to sleep. Very relaxed with long breaths. Sometimes you may have to change it up a little bit depending on your depth.
Now just to throw this out here - "slow" and "deep" mean different things to different people. I just timed my breathing at what "slow and deep" means to me and it took 8 seconds for the inhale and 8 seconds for the exhale. A natural breath may be 4-5 seconds each for inhale/exhale *for me*. When we first got in the pool in my OW class and swam around in a circle in the shallow end I floated to the top, sunk to the bottom, floated to the top... repeat
fire_diver
Contributor
I agree that we may be getting bogged down by symantics. My very first open water dives, I had SAC rates of .326, .388, and .331. This is just to illustrate that "slow" for you is probably normal for me. And slow for me might be breath-holding for you.
I also like to photog and examine things in our wonderful Oklahoma mud diving. Constantly shifting up and down several inches would ruin my shots and have me bouncing off the bottom that I am trying to shoot.
And ONCE AGAIN.... :shakehead I have said this before. Breath however the hell you people want. I explained what works FOR ME. If you like it, use it. If not, ignore it.
FD
I also like to photog and examine things in our wonderful Oklahoma mud diving. Constantly shifting up and down several inches would ruin my shots and have me bouncing off the bottom that I am trying to shoot.
And ONCE AGAIN.... :shakehead I have said this before. Breath however the hell you people want. I explained what works FOR ME. If you like it, use it. If not, ignore it.
FD
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