I learned how to hold my breath for a long time in case of a sub-mergency.
A couple of months back I was listening to a creative talk by a colleague (and general legend), Matt Dixon and he mentioned this crazy dutchman called Wim Hof (also known as the Iceman) who, among other things, teaches a sort of breathing exercise/meditation aimed at learning to hold your breath for a long time.
This is Wim Hof. See, crazy!
Now, I can’t really remember how this was relevant to his talk (sorry Matt, I’m sure it was amazing), but for some reason I got quite interested in this. I think it’s because, every now and again I will try holding my breath, just to sort of see how I’d go on the off-chance I got caught in some kind of underwater emergency (or as I like to call it, a sub-mergency). It’s not like I own a boat, plan to take up deep-sea diving, regularly cross bridges over large bodies of water or make a habit of going out into deep water. For some reason I just want to find out how long I would survive if I somehow ended up in this scenario. Surely there are others who do this?
Okay, so the jury is out on whether this is a shared practice or just something weird I do. Regardless, I get a pretty clear answer every time I do it; in the event of a random, water sub-mergency, I’d be pretty screwed. After about thirty seconds my lungs are screaming for a breath, hit forty and I’d be making a desperate and ultimately fatal effort to evolve back into a fish.
And that’s sitting still; god forbid I was having to (heroically, like in the movies), free myself from a set of heavy chained restraints, swim over to the attractive stranger (also caught in this sub-mergency of course) who is about to drown, generously kiss her to share air with her before taking her hand and swimming together down three corridors, skirt around a large antechamber where an epic battle between a killer shark and a giant squid is taking place, wriggle through a hatch to open water, grab the fin of a friendly dolphin swimming by and let it pull us to the surface where a super yacht is conveniently waiting at anchor. Phew! At which point I’d have to really prepare for some breathlessness...
Being a Bond-esque sub-mergency, it is only natural any women caught in it will be wearing an outfit more appropriate at a nightclub or perhaps a down-town street corner…
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels
Okay, so clearly I’ve seen a few too many Bond clips in the lead up to the release of No Time to Die. Regardless, knowing that on the off-chance this scenario did unfold, I would be hopelessly under-prepared and it would in fact be My Time to Die, I decided I should probably give this breathing meditation a go!
Feeling reasonably confident I would struggle to achieve anything resembling a good time, I sat down and gave it a go. In short, it involves hyper-breathing for about a minute (circular breathing; deep, fast breathes in and out with no break in between), then breathing out fully at which point you try to wait as long as possible before breathing in again (this is the point where the timer starts). When you need to breath in again, you take a deep breath, hold that for 15 seconds, and then start the process again, going through this cycle 3-5 times.
The part that seemed the strangest to me was that the last thing to do before holding your breath was to breath out. It seems counter-intuitive and I guess it is – we call it “holding our breath” after all. But I put my trust in the process and gave it a go.
On my first attempt I did the hyper-breathing part which is actually a little uncomfortable, breathed the final breath out and then held. I closed my eyes so at to not fixate on the timer. When I had to breathe I cracked my eyes open secretly hoping for a good time and saw I had managed a bit over 60 seconds. Could have been worse, but certainly not amazing. But I pushed on into the second cycle and was surprised to open my eyes and find I had extended that to about a minute and twenty-five seconds. On the third cycle I got up to about a minute and fifty.
The main surprise was that it wasn’t a huge struggle; only the last 3-5 seconds I felt like I really needed to breath; the rest I felt pretty comfortable in not breathing. I also found the whole thing reasonably relaxing. The hyper-breathing for me was the least comfortable part, but the not breathing was quite effortless and at the end my body felt pretty calm and relaxed. Impressed, I’ve practiced it a number of times since and my longest breath-hold is currently up to about two minutes and forty-five seconds, which I would have thought was impossible a few weeks ago.
Quote from Diamonds are Forever. How times have changed!
Now, how this might serve me, I’m still not sure (I’m not holding my breath on that Bond-esque sub-mergency scenario happening anytime soon!). But it has shown, or perhaps reinforced, a few of things;
1. The body and mind are capable of some pretty amazing things, and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself of that from time to time.
2. We can always improve at something through education, trial and practice
3. It’s worthwhile stepping outside your comfort zone, or just your day-to-day routine, and trying something different every once in a while.
Please don’t go and try this one based on my poor description of the process above; if you are thinking of giving it a try, search Wim Hot Method online, read about it and do it properly. I should also probably give a disclaimer; Wim Hof’s other teachings include the practice of taking ice baths and freezing water submersion, which I have not cared to give a go yet. I’ve clearly always assumed that any sub-mergency that might take place is in a tropical climate, so it is only the breathing (and ensuring I’ve had a mint or some gum recently!) I’d need to worry about. Sigh, better get onto some cold training…