

How To Hold Your Breath Like David Blaine - rjshade
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/30/how-to-hold-your-breath/

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heed
Something to note:

"The world record for holding your breath after inhaling pure oxygen is now
Blaine's 17 minutes and 4 seconds. The record without the pure oxygen, which
Blaine failed to break during an attempt last year in Manhattan's Lincoln
Center, is 8 minutes and 58 seconds."

[http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1736834,00.ht...](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1736834,00.html)

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misuba
The primary thing you need to know about holding your breath a long time is if
you only work four hours a week, it will start to seem like a good idea.

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pcestrada
Why would I want to intentionally deprive my brain of oxygen for more than a
few seconds? Programming's already hard enough.

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curtis
The primary thing you need to know about holding your breath is that there's
more oxygen capacity in your blood than there is in your lungs.

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alexfarran
That may or may not be true, but it's not why this trick works. The need to
take a breath is triggered by the level of CO2 in your blood. Hyperventilation
exercises like Blaine's flush out the CO2 so it takes longer to build up to
the threshold level.

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curtis
Wikipedia agrees with you. According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apnea>:
"Blood leaving the lungs is normally fully saturated with oxygen, so
hyperventilation of normal air cannot increase the amount of oxygen
available."

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sketerpot
To elaborate a little: you don't sense the oxygen level in your blood. You
sense the CO2 level, using acidity sensors in your aorta. CO2 dissolved in
your blood reaches an equilibrium with carbonic acid, which means that the
acidity of your blood is proportional to the amount of CO2. It's stuff like
this that makes physiology fun to study.

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dylanz
The primary thing you need to know about holding your breath is that it
becomes painful, and in an emergency, you won't have had any time to warm up.

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tjr
So perhaps a companion article, _Why To Hold Your Breath Like David Blaine_ ,
would be in order?

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jonsen
I would rather go for beating the world record of breathing. Somewhere beyond
120 years, I think.

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diN0bot
i've been playing salamander wrestling and underwater hockey the past few
months. they're great!!! it's like zen meditation breathing exercises. it's
also super fun. and yeah, my breathing is improving tons. (water is the
awesome)

edit: i just wanted to convey that breathing better, especially in underwater
sports, is rewarding and fun. trying hold one's breath a single time for a
long time is goofy as other commenters have pointed out.

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mechanical_fish
Are you playing underwater hockey at MIT or is it a much more widespread sport
than I ever realized before?

(I have a friend who's a big fan of the game. I've held out so far, but one of
these days...)

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prabodh
ok...Am i the only one ? How is this HN stuff...For me it should be in digg...

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prabodh
Great...Comment Got Down Voted...But Still i am struggling to find how this
can be posted HN community....Everyone would wanna own a world record if
possbile..but i dont expect a Hacker to be interested in beating this Breath
Record..

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pmichaud
It's a body hack. HN is about being clever, and this is sort of clever, that's
my guess.

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gojomo
To go the longest without breathing, I'd be most interested in the nanotech
robotic blood 'vasculoid':

<http://jetpress.org/volume11/vasculoid.html>

Will it be available anytime soon? I'm not holding my breath.

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hyperbovine
David Blaine and Tim Ferriss, united. The BS in that room must have been so
thick you could cut it with a knife.

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jberryman
The primary thing you need to know about holding your breath is... there is no
breath.

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dylanz
If that was a Wet Hot American Summer, Janeane Garofalo reference, then +1 to
you fine sir!

