Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Longest You Can Hold Your Breath
Individuals can increase their lung capacity by practicing holding their breath for longer periods.
How long can the average person hold their breath?
The average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training.
The length of time a person can hold their breath voluntarily typically ranges from 30 to 90 seconds .
A person can practice breath-holding to increase their lung capacity, and there are training guidelines to help individuals learn to hold their breath for longer periods. Training usually takes several months.
People may use these training techniques for advanced military training, free diving, swimming, or other recreational activities.
This article will look at the physical effects of breath-holding, benefits, risks, and increasing lung capacity.
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A person needs oxygen for their body to perform vital functions, and holding in a breath prevents new oxygen from entering the body.
When people hold their breath, the body is still using oxygen to function and to release carbon dioxide as a waste product.
Because carbon dioxide has nowhere to go, its levels within the body increase, eventually triggering the involuntary reflex to start breathing again.
At first, a person may feel a burning sensation in their lungs. If they hold their breath long enough, the muscles in their diaphragm will begin to contract to try to force breathing, which can cause pain.
If an individual does not resume their usual breathing pattern, they will lose consciousness, and if they are in a safe location, the body should automatically begin to breathe and start to get the oxygen it needs.
Should a person not be in a safe location, such as underwater, it is at this time that drowning may occur.
Holding in a breath may have some benefit for a person’s health. Evidence suggests that increasing lung function and the amount of time a person can hold their breath may:
- positively impact inflammation, which may be important for autoimmune conditions
- help increase a person’s life span and prevent damage to stem cells in the brain
Another study carried out on salamanders found that holding oxygen helped them regenerate brain tissue. Human participants have not taken part in this study, although similar properties may exist in humans or other animals.
A person can hold their breath safely when outside of water and in a safe environment, and in most cases, they will give in to their body’s responses to lack of oxygen before they pass out.
Drowning
When a person is underwater and gives in to their body’s natural responses to breathe, the lungs will fill with water, and the person may need emergency lifesaving treatment to prevent a fatal outcome.
In 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on accidental drownings from dangerous underwater breath-holding behaviors. These included social games, such as breath-holding challenges and training exercises.
The report identified that two men in the training process for advanced military testing had drowned after passing out underwater. They had passed out due to the reduced pressure from the oxygen in their blood.
Other risk factors
Unless a person holding their breath is underwater or in an equally dangerous environment, they are not in any imminent danger.
- increase in blood pressure
- increased risk of brain damage
- loss of coordination
- reduced heart rate
- increase in blood sugar levels
If a person is interested in increasing their lung capacity, they can train their bodies and lungs to go without oxygen for increasingly long periods.
Divers may use apnea training to help them increase their lung capacity. The idea behind the training is to gradually increase a person’s ability to hold their breath by alternating between breathing and breath-holding for a set number of minutes.
Before attempting to increase their lung capacity, a person should seek guidance from their healthcare provider and consider training with professional diving experts and those knowledgeable about lifesaving techniques.
A person can typically hold their breath for a few seconds to a little over a minute before the urge to breathe again becomes too strong.
Individuals can increase their lung capacity by practicing holding their breath for longer periods.
In addition to the recreational or professional benefits of an increased lung capacity, a person may experience additional health benefits from breath-holding.
If practicing in water, an individual should consider their safety. This could include swimming with others and having someone close who can perform lifesaving techniques should they become unconscious.
Last medically reviewed on November 25, 2020
- Pulmonary System
- Respiratory
How we reviewed this article:
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- Andersson, J. P. A., et al. (2009). Increased serum levels of the brain damage marker S100B after apnea in trained breath-hold divers: A study including respiratory and cardiovascular observations.
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.91434.2008 - Bart, R. M., et al. (2020). Shallow water blackout.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554620/ - Boyd, C., et al. (2015). Fatal and nonfatal drowning outcomes related to dangerous underwater breath-holding behaviors — New York State, 1988–2011.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6419a3.htm - Holding your breath underwater. (2020).
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https://www.scq.ubc.ca/waiting-to-inhale-why-it-hurts-to-hold-your-breath/ - Marlinge, M., et al. (2019). Physiological stress markers during breath-hold diving and scuba diving.
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Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Longest You Can Hold Your Breath?
While some studies say most people can hold their breath for 30 seconds to maybe a few minutes at most, Aleix Segura Vendrell of Spain, the most recent Guinness World Record holder, held his for an astonishing 24 minutes and 3 seconds while floating in a pool in Barcelona.
Don’t feel ashamed if you can’t even approach Segura Vendrell’s pulmonary prowess. The ability to hold your breath is hardwired.
Segura Vendrell achieved the record with the help of what is known as an oxygen-assist. He breathed pure oxygen for a certain period of time before he began his extended float—essentially hyperventilating, filling his lungs to capacity with oxygen.
Lung function—and breath holding—varies widely from individual to individual, says Clayton Cowl, chair of preventive occupational and aerospace medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Body types and gender can influence lung function. For instance, studies have shown that people with shorter trunks tend to have lower lung function than those with longer trunks. Women have lung volumes that are 10 to 12 percent less than men, because their rib cages are usually smaller.
During the normal breathing process, oxygen is taken in and carbon dioxide is exhaled. The process is automatic, occurring thousands of times a day. Holding the breath causes carbon dioxide, which is essentially a waste product, to accumulate with nowhere to go. The longer the hold, the more likely the person will experience strong and painful spasms of the diaphragm and in the muscles between the ribs as carbon dioxide builds up in the blood. The breath holder becomes lightheaded. High carbon dioxide levels—not low oxygen—account for the symptoms experienced by breath holding, says Cowl.
“It’s like a carbon dioxide narcosis,”—an almost narcotic-like state, he says.
The parameters of breath holding are primarily dictated by hard-wired processes, according to Cowl. Chemical receptors in the brain’s medulla oblongata (a part of the brain stem) act in a manner similar to the thermostat for a central cooling system. When carbon dioxide reaches a certain level in the blood stream, the receptors “trigger the brain to say ‘I need to breathe,’” Cowl says.
Another innate process is the Hering-Breuer reflex, which helps prevent over inflation of the lungs. A deep breath triggers the reflex, causing certain stretch receptors in the lungs to fire. The receptors send signals to the brain’s respiratory center telling it to suppress breathing—because you’ve already taken a breath.
But psychology plays a crucial role as well. “You can voluntarily say ‘I’m going to hold my breath longer than a usual breath,’ and by doing so, you can train yourself to do longer and longer breath holds,” Cowl says.
That seems to be how people like Segura Vendrell, who is a diver, and other people who engage in free diving, appear to be able to hold their breath for especially long periods of time—four to eight minutes or more, even without breathing oxygen beforehand—while they descend to depths of up to 700 feet.
This is a trained voluntary response, says Cowl, but “on a cellular level, it’s not clear how someone physiologically is able to do this.” He suspects it may mean the divers are “mentally tolerating the symptoms longer.”
Olympic swimmers seem to be able to go great distances without breathing, but that is primarily due to aerobic conditioning, says Cowl. Those athletes are more efficient at getting oxygen into the tissue and extracting carbon dioxide. That allows them to breathe more effectively, and potentially, improve their breath holding.
Just being in the water may confer additional breath-holding ability. All mammals have what is known as a diving reflex. The involuntary reflex is most obvious—and pronounced—in aquatic mammals like whales and seals. But humans have this reflex, also. The purpose seems to be to conserve the oxygen that is naturally stored throughout the body, according to one study.
When a mammal dives into the water, the heart rate slows, and the capillaries of extremities like arms and legs—or flippers—constrict. Blood and oxygen is redirected towards the internal organs. The reflex helps diving animals override the need to breathe, which means they can stay underwater longer.
It is not clear why the reflex developed, but further understanding could extend the boundaries of human performance.
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Alicia Ault is a Washington, DC-based journalist whose work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Wired. When not chasing down a story from our nation’s capital, she takes in the food, music and culture of southwest Louisiana from the peaceful perch of her part-time New Orleans home.
