How do you slow down your breathing while scuba diving?
I find I use up my air supply quickly.
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Try breathing more lightly, like not as hard and quick, take calm breaths.
I find that by practicing slow deep breathing prior to diving helps to slow down my breathing. I’ll also pause while diving to concentrate on taking slow deep breaths.
First you need to be comfortable with diving. Also take long slow breaths. I actually practice what they call skip breathing. Most instructors will tell you not to do it, but most experienced divers practice it. What you do is exhale fully, then inhale long and slow, then pause slightly before exhaling again. It takes some practice, but it really conserves your air.
The main argument against skip breathing is they say you should never hold your breath because if you ascend too quickly the air will expand too fast and you will not be able to exhale. However under normal diving circumstances, there is little or no change in depth during the slight pause. I have been doing this for 15 years and never had a problem.
Another big user of air is kicking too rapidly and using you arms too much. You will find that you see more stuff if you move around slowly and look in all the nooks and crannies. Moving too fast will tire you out, use your air, and increase your potential to get the bendz.
you have to concentrate when you get to a point where can just relax just take deep breaths and what i was taught when i got my license was to exhale 5 seconds and inhale 5 seconds but very slowly you to relax and enjoy whats going on around you
Breathing slowly is simply a matter of taking control of each and every breath. With experience, it becomes more and more automatic. The real problem you might encounter, as do many air-conserving divers, is headaches afterward.
If you find this happens, you are breathing too slowly, and are getting a bit of Co2 retention.
My personal recommendation to you, and just about everyone else who intends to stay in scuba, is go rebreather (NOT SCR) that way, no matter how much or fast you breathe, you only use as much oxygen as your metabolism requires.
Here is what I always tell my students on how to improve their air supply:
1. Dive more. There are two reasons for this: (1) You body has a reflex reaction whenever you are submerged in water. The more you dive, the less impact this reflex reaction will be. (2) As you become more comfortable in the water, you will relax more and breathe less.
2. How is your physical shape? Increasing both your cardio and strength will help your air consumption.
3. Dive more.
4. Slow down while diving. It is not a race. Moving fast will scare the fish away. Slow down.
5. Dive more.
6. Eat right and sleep well before diving.
7. Dive more.
8. Are you resting before diving? Are you walking 100 yards carrying all of your gear then immediately starting your dive? Rest before you descend.
9. Dive more.
10. Are you nervous? Address your fears or apprehension.
11. Dive more.
12. Breathe long and slow. What Major Tom describes is not “skip-breathing”. He actaully describes a long slow inhale-exhale cycle which is good for scuba diving. The pause he describes is good as long as you don’t hold your breathe. What I mean here is you can feel whether or not you are clamping you throat shut. Leave your throat open.
13. Dive more.
You can practice out of water first. It gets easy after some time.
You have to consciously make an effort to slow down. Chances are you’re still a fresh-out-of-lessons diver who only has a couple dives under their weight-belt (hehe laugh at the pun). Anyways, you’re bouyancy has a lot to do with breath, because if you cannot find nuetral bouyancy you have to work harder to stay up, or swim down. Also you want to make sure that you are streamlined when you swim, so that the drag doesn’t require any extra effort. In addition to those, you want to make sure that you take slow deep breaths, think Darth Vador (gosh i hope i spelled that right) anyways, good luck and dive dive dive!!!!
-Hi.
At first,you have to con troll properly your buoyancy : too much or too less weights can give you big problems about air consumption.(The most you use your muscles,the most air you need…).
- Have a good breafing before your dives in order to know if you will have problems with current or particular dangers in the area.With this,you could be ready to find the best position respect to the bottom and the current(usually,the current is lighter close to the bottom),and,how to avoid dangers.In consequence,you’ll feel more relaxed,breathing less air.
-Don’t dive deep. The deeper you dive,less air you’ll have.
-Making dives and experience,your air consumption will be reduced at normal levels.
-Knowing more about the environments in which you will dive will reduce your anxiety,and in consequence,air consumption.
Other good suggestions,that I read here are,of course : have a good diet,rest well before diving,go diving with more experienced buddies ,don’t go dive if sick.
About the breathing technic : just breathe long and deep,don’t go in iperventilation(that can be dangerous while diving).
All this can reduce your “problem”.