
What It Takes to Hold Your Breath for 24 Minutes (2017) - indumania
https://www.wired.com/story/what-it-takes-to-hold-your-breath-for-24-minutes-yeah-its-a-thing/
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fenwick67
On this topic, David Blaine's TED talk about holding his breath for 17 minutes
is probably the most interesting TED talk there is.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min)

~~~
catbird
Thanks for sharing - that was an incredible story. I find David Blaine
fascinating because many of his magic tricks aren't tricks per se, he just
does things that would be unthinkable for the average person. For instance he
often takes a bite out of a wine glass and chews it up, and it seems like
there must be some trick to it, except in one of his TV specials he goes to a
dentist and reveals that his teeth are all worn down and messed up from eating
so much glass.

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Tomminn
This one is great:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAs11gkqKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAs11gkqKE).

Ricky Gevais: "Sorry sorry David seriously, this isn't a trick. You're just
sticking a needle through your fucking arm. What are you doing? That's fucking
horrible. You're a maniac. That's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."

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chrischen
Why was there no blood?

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laurieg
Likely because it's a magic trick and he didn't really poke it through his
arm?

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tuesdayrain
You're just guessing. He really did poke it through.

~~~
laurieg
I had a look around at David Blaine poking various things into himself. I
think I was probably wrong. It looks like poking a needle into a bicep is a
somewhat common trick[1]. I assume he just takes the pain.

Still, I would tell everyone to be cautious believing a magician's explanation
for any trick. Lying to mould people's memory of the trick is a really common
technique. In one version of David Blaine's icepick through the hand[2] he
says "This is the first time I let someone else choose the place" When he
clearly chooses where to push the icepick through.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/33462933](https://vimeo.com/33462933)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-l5SW5hik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-l5SW5hik)

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chrischen
I'm thinking the healed piercing thing is what it is. Basically he has
something akin to a fistula
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fistula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fistula))
from repeatedly poking the same spot, but the outside heals over so you can't
see the hole.

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TheGrassyKnoll
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/breath-holding-games-are-
killin...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/breath-holding-games-are-killing-
swimmers-cdc-warns/)

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zlynx
Wow. That's approaching the time for dolphins, whales and similar sea mammals.

Of course, his record is without doing any work, unlike a dolphin which is
swimming.

Free divers are swimming though and their underwater time is very impressive.

~~~
anitil
In another life I spent some time training in freediving. I wasn't
particularly good, but got to around 4:45 for raw breath hold, a 36m dive, and
swam maybe 110m in a pool, all done under strict supervision. Fun sport but
very strange, it seems to attract an odd bunch.

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Rotdhizon
Doesn't the brain start to die after 10-15 minutes without oxygen? How could
he possibly go that long without breathing without suffering any brain damage?
I remember when David Blaine was going for the records, the biggest concern
was that he would irreversibly and severely damage his brain.

~~~
rrauenza
He does start with a lung full of pure oxygen.

~~~
kazinator
That seems like a poor idea.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity)

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Shish2k
oxygen toxicity at sea level (1 atmosphere of pressure) would require a 140%
oxygen mixture - it's only when you go to higher pressure environments (eg 10m
underwater = 2 atm) that it becomes an issue (at 2atm, 70% oxygen is toxic; at
4atm, 35% oxygen is toxic, etc - regular air is 21% oxygen, which becomes
toxic around 7atm aka 60m underwater)

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matt_the_bass
You’re generally on the right track, just off slightly. In the scuba diving
world 1.4atm partial pressure of Oxygen is generally considered the maximum
safe partial pressure when working (ie swimming). 1.5 atm for rest. This makes
the depth limit for regular air to be 216 feet. Though there are a lot of
divers who dove deeper than that befor trimix became so common.

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jboggan
That's very cool but it's definitely a stunt, breathing pure O2 is definitely
not normal.

I'm more impressed by spearos going down for several minutes, swimming hard,
doing work, fighting a fish on a line and coming back up. I can manage 1:30
with that kind of activity but I have met folks who can go several minutes.

~~~
exikyut
I'm very curious: once you've practiced for a bit, are you still having a
gigantic fight with your brain/lungs to take a breath, or is that "put off"
until, in your case, 1:30?

~~~
anitil
Not GP, but have trained freediving and used to spearfish almost daily.

There is usually an easy period until the desire to breath starts, from 1 to 2
minutes in. The next minute or so is tricky, you get contractions as your body
tries to breathe. After that you start to slowly zone out, but you're no
longer in pain. Eventually the world closes in around you.

When spearfishing you're typically fairly conservative and never get past the
first easy section.

~~~
exikyut
Huh, so that uncomfortableness thing actually lengthens with time.
Interesting.

</completely_naive> :)

 _Adds learning how to hold breath safely to todo list_ ( _Todo list falls
over_ )

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newnewpdro
What blows my mind is the guys that actually perform activities diving while
holding their breathe for similarly long durations.

Learning to control your body in idle circumstances is impressive in a
meditative sense, but how people manage comparable durations while physically
active is a different thing entirely.

~~~
LarryL
Some people seem to have _evolved_ to be able to hold their breath (over 12
minutes) and work.

Look for the "sea nomads", there have been articles about them recently, a
recent (2016) research (
[https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30386-6](https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674\(18\)30386-6)
) suggests that their ability could be because they evolved a larger spleen
(which helps with red blood cells).

~~~
kevindqc
I thought it was interesting that there are also sea nomad children who are
able to see clearly underwater: [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160229-the-
sea-nomad-child...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160229-the-sea-nomad-
children-who-see-like-dolphins)

Although that skill didn't evolve. It's just something kids can do with
practice, and the ability is lost as we age and our lenses become less
flexible.

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dbatten
PSA: Trying to hold your breath for a long time is dangerous, especially if
you hyperventilate first. People die this way.

The hyperventilation thing is because your brain needs oxygen to live, but
your impulse to breathe is driven by carbon dioxide saturation. When you
hyperventilate, you get rid of a ton of carbon dioxide, and you can get into a
situation where you don't have enough CO2 buildup to trigger the signal to
breathe, but you have so little oxygen that your brain is dying.

Personally, not something I'd like to mess with.

~~~
56chan4
CO2 levels rise to unhealthy levels (700ppm) within a few hours of a typical
bedroom if you keep the doors and windows closed. Its also why Submarines have
CO2 scrubbers.

~~~
bukka
Do you have any source for this? A bedroom isn't sealed shut like a submarine
would be?

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Steel_Phoenix
I have a CO2 monitor, and I can confirm that it goes up at least that fast in
my home. I can't speak for submarines or healthy levels. I've been wondering
for a while why environmental rhetoric only talks about the global rise in CO2
in terms that make people think it's just an atmospheric phenomenon rather
than notably changing what they're breathing. It looks like we've nearly
doubled the CO2 we're breathing in the past couple centuries, not including
our more sealed up lifestyle.

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hueving
>only talks about the global rise in CO2 in terms that make people think

Because the levels in the global rise are negligible in comparison to what is
dangerous for breathing. Here's a hint, if you think you've spotted something
blindingly obvious in a field scrutinized by hundreds of thousands of
scientists, you're probably making a mistake.

~~~
Steel_Phoenix
Thanks for the hint. The thought that the health effects of a waste product
from the most profitable of industries may have gone under-reported is indeed
preposterous.

Here's a study showing reduced cognitive performance at various CO2 levels in
the ranges we're talking about.

[https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/)

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ericfrederich
I call BS. His entire head was not submerged. He simply found a way to breathe
through his ears.

