Once I read on the internet that there is a very good chance for “adults” which was vague but let’s just say above 25, to have a high chance of dying from a heart attack if they sucked their thumbs. I think it was in that “dangerous” way of sucking on things by using your lungs to draw air in with your thumb in an airtight seal inside your mouth, and not sucking normally with your mouth.
I mean, it does feel vaguely risky when you do that, so surely something has to give, right?
Also, does over breathing and then holding for a few seconds have a good chance of seriously damaging something?
Both activities are completely physiologic and do not cause any increased risk for untoward outcomes. Everybody does some sort of physiologic equivalent of those activities, in the form of valsalva maneuvers or ordinary eating and swallowing, daily.
I mean sucking from the lungs, not the mouth. Most of the time, such as when you are drinking through a straw, you are sucking through the mouth, but I was talking about attempting to pull air through the lungs through your mouth when there is a blockage.
Surely at the least this would put strain on the lungs and prolonged sucking would make them rip or tear apart.
I tend to breathe through my nose. Doing that is sufficient for all but the most labor-intensive activities. Were I to be sucking my thumb, it would not be creating a blockage, and it is not common for thumb-sucking to occur during heavy work or exercise. So, no, no risk. At all.
