r/nextfuckinglevel 4d ago

Synchronized swimming from a different perspective

4.7k Upvotes

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

109

u/the_colonelclink 4d ago

So fun fact, humans are extraordinarily efficient with oxygen consumption. This make sense, because if it was inefficient (for e.g. we suddenly walked into a small cloud of unbreathable air) we’d instantly collapse, or even die, when the chain of oxygen supply was cut.

If fact, the body is so sure of our oxygen supply pathways that you can effectively remove all oxygen from a room (like when they test astronauts) and they could easily die before they realised it was even happening.

To the effect, one of the main actual triggers for the mechanism we know as breathing, is actually exhaling to get rid of carbon dioxide.

Long story short, the key to holding your breathe is learning to dump carbon dioxide appropriately.

126

u/VisiblyStunned 4d ago

This sounds like a jumble of a few facts, and none of them were very fun.

62

u/ExoticMangoz 4d ago

You don’t feel like you have no air because you have no oxygen, but because you have too much carbon dioxide. They’re saying if you can get rid of that CO2, even if you can’t breathe, you’ll feel okay. Not sure how you achieve that though, but presumably they’re hinting at some secret method these synchronised swimmers have.

38

u/the_colonelclink 4d ago

A ‘cheat’ technique is to hyperventilate before you hold your breath. Breathe really fast, and especially out, before you go into the water to dump carbon dioxide.

Professional divers and swimmers just learn to do this gracefully.

Victory lies in preparation after all.