Per stories released this week about her in Avatar 2 she broke Tome Cruise’s ‘Hollywood’ record by holding her breath for over 7 minutes underwater. While I’ll concede that Winslet and Cruise are both in great shape, it’s hard to believe. Is this really in the art of the probable, or is this just Hollywood PR?
world record is 18.5 minutes . I suppose if you train 7 minutes is doable.
So: yes, humans can hold their breath for 7 minutes or so.
However, most people can hold their breath for somewhere from 30-120 seconds, so at the very least it seems unlikely that either Tom Cruise or Kate Winslet would have been able to hold their breath for more than 3 times as long as most people would be able to IMO.
I guess that 18 minutes I found was an old record . People in Nepal can climb very high with less oxygen in their tanks because they do it a lot . And they are used to living high up with less O2 all the time
I agree – possible, but seemingly unlikely, unless Winslet (or, for that matter, Cruise) has undergone extensive training in freediving or other activities involving long-duration breath-holding, or is somehow on the very far end of the bell curve for natural ability to hold her breath.
7 minutes? More like Tomb Cruise amirite?
7 minutes might be achievable with training. I remember something about people training for this, as mentioned above 2 minutes is about the limit for the average person. Once someone gets used to the feeling of holding their breath longer than that and develop some control they can get out to around 5 minutes maybe without great difficulty. The problem wasn’t running out of oxygen in just 2 minutes, it’s just a sort of panic response by the body so it’s a while longer before lack of oxygen becomes a problem. Then there was preparation also, sort of hyperventilating to start with to get plenty of oxygen into the body.
So maybe with enough training, the right person might get to 7 minutes. But the name Tom Cruise makes it all suspicious from the git go.
That’s actually what makes it seem possible to me. Tom Cruise is well known for doing so much of his own stunts, training up for them. Like he actually hangs on to a jet.
Sure, maybe all of that is lies, too. But if it is true, then training enough to hold his breath that long seems like something he would do.
Oh, and in my experience, it’s not so much a panic reaction as the muscles holding in the breath getting so tired you can’t keep holding in the air.
Is there a link?
Cruise does some stunts that don’t seem to use a stunt man or camera tricks or CGI He probably does not do as many as he claims
Without trying to look up any details, they could have been breathing pure oxygen prior to the attempts.
My other issue is that when people are trying for records they are usually as still as possible. In theory, these two are, you know, acting and moving about.
I used to practice holding my breath when I was in 5th grade. I had a digital watch with a stop watch. I worked my way up to two minutes or so. I had to develop techniques to stop the urge to gasp in air. I still remember what I used to do, but not sure how long I could make it now. I believe you could work up to something like 7 minutes with training. And be able to be active – that’s what pearl divers do.
ETA: Not having practiced in 39 years or so, but using the techniques I remember, I’m at about a minute on my 2nd try. I bet I could get back to two minutes pretty quickly. It’s mostly about how to fight that urge to gasp in some air. Exhaling some, and working the diaphragm muscle without inhaling is what I do.
You don’t have to hold in air at all. If you exhale while you do it, it’s still “breath holding” because you aren’t inhaling. There should be no fatigue from holding air in. You could also start from having just exhaled, but of course your time will be shorter.
The Nepalese and some folks in the Andes have genetic advantages that allow them to operate at high elevations much better than most humans. A few westerners also share the specific genetic advantage or just won the oxygenation lottery. Certainly, practice at altitude and proper acclimatization are important, but without the right genetics most humans simply cannot operate in the Death Zone without supplemental oxygen.
When I was a competitive swimmer in my teens I could hold my breath for 3-4 minutes while active. If I wasn’t moving much I’m sure I could have made 5 minutes. We weren’t training specifically for holding our breath, it was more a byproduct of our workouts. With specialized training and good genetics I don’t see 7 minutes as very hard to believe.
I don’t know much about Ms Winslet, but knowing Tom Cruise’s work ethic about stunts I tend to believe it.
Which I heard is a very dangerous thing to do. One can by doing so inhibit the breath reflex, fooling you into thinking you are perfectly fine down there. Until you suddenly lose consciousness.
TL:DR: DON’T DO THIS AT HOME [or your backyard pool rather]
Can someone explain how these people achieved durations so much longer than in the past?
In the early 1970s, I remember the Guinness book listing the record from around 1930 by a French diver, who had held his breath for around five and a half minutes.
In an episode of the TV series “Sea Hunt” in which Mike Nelson was practicing holding his breath longer, this record was referred to as a sort of six-sigma performance, which no one would ever come close to beating.
How are these dramatically longer times possible?
As John_DiFool mentions, Guinness stressed that such feats were indeed extremely dangerous.
I doubt Guiness worked very hard to find out what the actual record was. There must have been many divers who exceeded that listed record. ‘Sea Hunt’ is an even less reliable source.
Also, about 5 minutes seems to be a typical limit for people who train for this, not so much a record setting time.
The point of hyperventilating isn’t to increase oxygen stores, but to get rid of carbon dioxide. The urge to breathe comes not from low oxygen levels in the blood but from high CO2 levels. The partial pressure of CO2 in blood is normally about 40 mm of mercury. The urge to breathe kicks in when that rises to about 50 mm. Hyperventilating before a breath hold can reduce the partial pressure of CO2 to about 15 mm. It takes quite a while for the partial pressure to rise from 15 mm to the urge-to-breathe point of 50 mm. In that time it is possible that you can run so low on oxygen that you can lose consciousness either without feeling any urge to breathe, or only a modest urge that is easily overcome (until you pass out).
Diving to considerable depth while holding your breath can be even more dangerous. At depth, the high water pressure against your thorax increases the pressure of the gases in your lungs, facilitating the diffusion of oxygen from your lungs into your blood. But when you start to rise again, the water’s pressure on your thorax is reduced, causing the partial pressure of the oxygen in you lungs to be reduced. Then the oxygen in your blood is at a higher pressure than the oxygen in your lungs, causing oxygen to diffuse out of your blood into your lungs, potentially leading to sudden loss of consciousness.