I was at a party last night where we had a breath-holding contest. I won at 1:53, although I was REALLY dizzy afterward. (In the words of Homer Simpson, “Me lose brain? Uh-oh!”)
I’ll also point out that this was in normal atmospheric conditions. Holding your breath underwater is a LOT harder.
Anyway, I’m curious on the Doper record. (And please: I hope nobody out there is going to try holding their breath alone and timing themselves. I don’t want anybody passing out and hurting themselves.)
We always have such a contest in the pool. I can hold my breath for nearly a minute. But I never hold it until I feel like I have crayon in my head 
Someone please tell me how pearl divers hold their breath for 5 minutes.
Right now I just held my breath for around 2 minutes. A while ago as a camp counsellor, a bunch of the kids wanted to see how long I could hold mine and I held it for 3m45s. The strange part was, that for the first 1m30s it was very hard but then all of a sudden it got very easy. At the 3m45s part a bunch of people got scared and made me stop. I’m not sure how much more I had in me though anyhow.
Ok, let me try to beat ya!
I start now and I will post again when I’m finished!
i can do 1:30 without any strain ( i get bored late at night ).
i’ll give it a go, and post when i’m done.
should there be some kind of disclaimer kicking about???
To get a real reading you have to do it underwater, no matter how hard you try diffusion (or osmosis or something) makes you cheat a little if you just try holding it without having your nose and mouth underwater.
Navy SEALs have to be able to swim 100 meters underwater IIRC without a kickoff to get past the first few weeks of training (be careful trying this at home, pretty easy to drown yourself if you black out underwater).
I’ve been able to build myself up to just over 2 minutes at a pool in the summer after a week, when I was younger and had little else to do. Then I discovered bikinis.
Well that was 2:20 for ym first serious attempt.
everything was as expected until about 1:50, and at 2:00 i could hear the blood schooshing in my ears.
the fact taht it was almost exactly on 2:00 suggests to me it was probably something i diid, rather than a result of the time past.
anyhow, interesting fun
ohkio. trying to think of a safe way to do the water thing…
I’d like to disclaim any liability in the event that anyone here ends up hurting themselves while holding their breath underwater… :rolleyes:
People, please: don’t try this alone.
I can usually go about 2:20 out of water, without too much trouble. If someone had a gun to my head, I could stretch it to 2:40 or so. Underwater, I get closer to 2 minutes even.
As long as you aren’t actually swimming when doing the water thing you can’t drown yourself. Just get a large bowl of water and dunk your face in - if you’re paranoid just balance it on something so if you pass out into it you’ll tip it over. But I’m pretty sure the passing out and dying bit doesn’t happen unless you’re actually swimming in a pool.
Severin! Severin! Are you still with us? You can let go!
** sivispacem **i just noticed, you were probably typing your post as i was holding my breath.
i expect passing out in water would kill you regardless of depth. If you were sitting at your desk with yuor face down in a mixing bowl full of water, i think you would drown unless you upset the bowl when all your weight hit it.
My suggestion would be the bowl of water and a friend, but generally plunging your head into a bowl of water and trying to push yourself cant be classed as safe.
Qis: " if i pass out save me "
Friend: " sure"
…
Friend: " Qis, that’s been 15 mins now, how am i supposed to know if you’re passed out or still holding your breath?"
…
Qis: Died fighting ignorance.
If i have drowning nightmares you’re all in big trouble.
-Qis
Until the Canucks win the Stanley Cup… 33 years and still holding my breath
I could certainly be wrong on this (and I hope no one proves me wrong) but I’m pretty sure that the reason you can die swimming underwater and not just with your face in a bowl has to do with the body’s “save itself” mechanism.
So if you’re swimming underwater and you have one last survival jerk to the surface… might not be enough. But with your face just in a bowl you’ll pull yourself up no matter what.
My timed record was 3 minutes and 11 seconds. This was underwater, no cheating. I have no trouble at all holding my breath 2 minutes, but it gets really hard after that.
I have a slightly over sized chest capacity and as a young man could do quite well.
Indians from high in the Andes have major over size lungs and at sea level with a little mental training can make turtles look average.
Like a runners high, you must be real careful under water because you CAN suppress your bodies instinct to live.
All those that are messing about in pools should have in the water trained assistance if you are normally capable of self inducing trances or are used to going for the runners high.
YMMV
I always found it easier to hold my breath when I was underwater.
My personal record is 2 minutes precisely.
Hang on… breathes in deeply…
…Crap, 1 minute 9 seconds
It depends. If I’m just sitting there underwater not doing anything except trying to hold my breath, my record is exactly two minutes (my lungs were bursting by that point, and I was timing). If I have some sort of goal in mind then I can usually manage longer - I think I’ve managed close to 100 meters underwater (2 1/2 lengths of a largest pool), and 10-20 meters straight down in salt water. (It was a while ago, so I forget exactly how deep it was - part of the great barrier reef in Australia).
It’s been a while though, so I’m woefully out of practice. I doubt I could manage very long right now.