Scientists have long established that the human body can do without food from fifty to seventy days, and without water you can live up to ten days. But the most important for life support is the need for breathing. Without oxygen, the body will last only a few minutes.
Recently, it has become a popular tendency to set various records and achievements in many fields of activity. Testing the capabilities of the human body is no exception. Divers and athletes compete among themselves, trying to break the world record for breath holding. Everyone understands that an unprepared person is not able to do without air for a long time. Therefore, despite the breath holding record, the champion had to train for a very long time.
Body features
Under normal conditions, a simple adult can hold his breath for forty to sixty seconds. It's no secret that this ability is individual, and in the process of training you can achieve more effective and lasting results.
The breath holding record helps to establish hyperinflation of the lungs, that is, frequent and deep inhalation of atmospheric air. After this exercise, divers can be under water for up to nine minutes. The first record for holding breath in depth belongs to a Frenchman named Michelle Bade. He sat, without moving, under water for six minutes and four seconds.
Little trick
It is established that, having previously inhaled pure oxygen, it is possible to do without air for a longer time. The world record for breath holding at a depth of six meters without special equipment was set in 1959. At the age of thirty-two, Robert Foster, a native of the United States, sat under water for thirteen minutes, forty-two seconds. Pre-inhalation of pure oxygen for thirty minutes helped establish the achievement of the champion.
Body oxygen reserve
With a phenomenon such as apnea (holding your breath), the human body uses almost all of its oxygen stores. The reserve of this vital compound is about two liters. Of these, nine hundred milliliters is present in the lungs of a person, six hundred milliliters holds blood, and five hundred milliliters is in the muscles. Of the total number of people who set a world record for breath holding, could use only a half liters. A further stay under water would cause direct damage to health, due to a sharp decrease in the concentration of this important substance and oxygen starvation of cells.
World achievement
The Guinness Breath Record belongs to a German freediver named Tom Sitas. This man survived without air under water for twenty two minutes and twenty two seconds.
Ricardo Bahi, who did not breathe for twenty minutes and twenty-one seconds, set the previous world record in breath holding. The new champion Tom Sitas, five hours before the competition, refused to eat to slow down the metabolic processes in the body, and immediately before immersion he breathed pure oxygen. It should also be taken into account that the world record for breath holding helped him to establish a large volume of lungs, which is twenty percent more than that of an ordinary person.
Inexplicable but the fact
Few people know that in 1991 a seventy-year-old Indian resident named Ravindra Misra, in the presence of observers, specialists, as well as a group of scientists, could survive under water for six days. All this time, under the supervision of a special device, the man meditated. Dr. Raksh Kafadi carefully observed that the guru did not come up to the surface to take a breath or use other tricks to deceive many observers. At the end of the set time, Mishra surfaced in a healthy mood and mind. The researchers confirmed that the man spent one hundred forty-four hours, sixteen minutes and twenty-two seconds under water. All this time he was sitting in a lotus position at a depth of nineteen meters. Experts believe that Mishra immersed his body in a special state of meditation, when the vital activity of all organs was reduced to the maximum. Using this method, a man avoided the phenomenon of oxygen deficiency. Mishra himself said that the ancient goddess supposedly helped him sit under water for such a long time, in whose honor he set this record.
Phenomenal immersion
In the same year, a resident of the Philippines named Jorge Pachino, a simple fisherman, stayed under water for one hour and five minutes. At the same time, the immersion depth was sixty meters. Special devices and scuba gear allowing breathing under water were absent. This was witnessed by operators filming the immersion on film. Physiologists cannot explain the process that made the ordinary person of the ordinary fisherman from the city of Ampari famous.
The dangers
Meanwhile, prolonged respiratory delays and apnea training techniques are quite likely to cause detrimental effects on the health of the body. Hyperventilation of the lungs can directly contribute to loss of consciousness. And the method of buccal pumping, during which air pre-drawn into the mouth is involved in breathing, can even lead to lung rupture. In this regard, any freediver must observe safety precautions. All training should be carried out only in a group and under supervision, even if the depth of immersion seems small.