Question New OW diver and a vaper

[Jaan]

While for sure stopping vaping is a good thing. I’d say that practice breathing and more experience diving will improve your gas consumption over time regardless.

You’ll find lots of helpful tips and tricks on the forums to improve but the most helpful is probably to relax. Haha. And I suppose vaping helps you relax. Oops

 

[mbs]

A good yoga class could help you control your breathing... I say good because many I have been to skip the breathing part and just concentrate on physical. There's nothing wrong with taking a full deep breath. The trick is to slow down the exhale so you are not just puffing away.

 

[RobPNW]

Try counting during your inhales and exhales. Breath in slowly to a count of 4 seconds and then exhale to a count of 4 seconds. Then work up to about 6 seconds in and out. But spend an entire dive focusing on those counts and see how long your tank lasts.

 

[formernuke]

Slow exhales, and put the vape pen down and grab sunflower seeds or gum

 

[Guille G]

While vaping is probably not helping, it is likely not the cause of your high consumption rate. Plenty of dive pros are heavy smokers and have good consumption.

Breathing is also a skill that tends to get better the more you dive, the advice found earlier in the thread can help.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Slow exhales, and put the vape pen down and grab sunflower seeds or gum

It's not great for everyone but I used Chantix. Had very crazy dreams, but it made anything with nicotine taste awful. My last 2 weeks smoking were not enjoyable at all.

 

[Boarderguy]

thanks for the advice, it's really a psycological think so i guess stoping will not help is really like a muscle memory, becuse when my instructor mentioned it, i realized i'm doing the same while snoklering.

Quiting will actually help the process. Your "muscle memory" for taking a big breath and full exhale will change over time AFTER you've quit. I quit smoking and chewing in Oct 2005 (just realized it's been 17 years) and it took a couple months to stop holding a pencil between my fingers like a smoke. For about the same period I needed seeds or some other item tucked into my lip pocket. Both of those went eventually away as I continued to make a conscious effort to avoid relapse triggers. I did the same with drinking when I quit on Dec 2013. Make the choice and stick with it. Your body and mind will make the changes back to normal over time.

 

[SlugLife]

I'm pretty sure your main problem is breathing "wrong." That aside, some bonus tips (other than quit vaping):

• You'll need to "retrain yourself to breathe" as weird as that sounds. Pay attention to your breathing. Slow, moderate-sized breaths throughout your entire dive. Don't "suck" down air. Get more dives in and practice.
• Swim slower. Slower dives are longer dives. Any form of exertion means you use more air. If your treat your dive like a "race," the only race you'll win is the race to an empty tank and back to the surface.
• Ensure you are warm enough underwater. Add a thicker wet-suit, hood, or other thermal protection as needed.
• Ensure proper weighting. Not over-weighted, not under-weighted. There's a lot of information out there on how to properly weight, but essentially the "perfect" weighting is when at the end of your dive you're at your safety stop, near 500 psi, nearly empty BCD, and neutrally bouyant.
• Relax. Eliminate any stress, panic, frustration, etc. Stress tends to cause people to breathe more, and faster. It also causes your buoyancy to go bonkers.

Anyway, this is a very solvable problem!

 

[lowwall]

Vaping is not the cause. High air consumption is normal for new divers. To reduce it you need to change your breathing pattern to emphasize longer exhalations. You also need to relax.

Luckily the two things reinforce each other. Slow medium deep breaths tend to be calming because it reinforces slow movements and it efficiently clears CO2.

Most divers subconsciously figure this out as they spend time in the water, but you can shorten the process by doing it consciously. Try counting during the exhales or feeling the bubbles slowly flow out instead of forcing them in one big blob.

Slowing the inhale can help some, but it's less important than the exhale and depending on the characteristics of your reg may be a little tricky.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Quiting will actually help the process. Your "muscle memory" for taking a big breath and full exhale will change over time AFTER you've quit. I quit smoking and chewing in Oct 2005 (just realized it's been 17 years) and it took a couple months to stop holding a pencil between my fingers like a smoke. For about the same period I needed seeds or some other item tucked into my lip pocket. Both of those went eventually away as I continued to make a conscious effort to avoid relapse triggers. I did the same with drinking when I quit on Dec 2013. Make the choice and stick with it. Your body and mind will make the changes back to normal over time.

That's wild.. great for you.. I quit drinking 11/07/05. I could not imagine quitting smoking before alcohol.

I still find myself (sometimes) holding a pencil or stick or whatever like a cigarette. Very rare, but once in a while. It's wild how the body just goes directly to that... I've even flicked the imaginary ashes before.