Latest news with #breathholding
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Now THAT'S what you call breath-taking! Diver holds his breath underwater for over 29 MINUTES to set new world record
A diver has set a truly breathtaking world record for the longest time spent holding his breath underwater. Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić spent 29 minutes and three seconds submerged in water on a single breath. That set the Guinness World Record for the 'longest time breath held voluntarily underwater', smashing the previous record by almost five minutes. During his half-hour feat, Mr Maričić held his breath for twice the length of a bottlenose dolphin's longest recorded dive. In fact, that incredible achievement puts Mr Maričić on par with a harbour seal. Harbour seals can exchange 90 per cent of the air in their lungs with one breath, compared to only 20 per cent in humans. So, to compete with nature's freedivers, Mr Maričić used pure oxygen to purge his blood of excess nitrogen. He breathed pure oxygen for 10 minutes before holding his breath, bringing his blood oxygen levels to five times the normal limit. Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić broke the world record for the longest time spent underwater on a single breath, smashing the previous record by more than four minutes On June 14, Mr Maričić lay down in a three-metre pool inside the Bristol Hotel in Opatija, Croatia, in front of five official judges and some 100 spectators. Before trying to hold his breath, he used a tank of pure oxygen to undergo a process called denitrogenation. Typically, the lungs of a healthy adult hold about 450ml of usable oxygen because oxygen only makes up about 21 per cent of the air we breathe. Breathing pure oxygen means that the lungs can take in around three litres of oxygen with every breath, washing nitrogen out of the blood and supercharging it with oxygen. That not only filled his red blood cells with as much oxygen as possible, but also dissolved oxygen into his blood plasma - something that cannot happen under normal circumstances. In a medical setting, doctors might use this technique to expand an unconscious patient's 'safe apnea time' - the amount of time someone can safely go without breathing. Here, Mr Maričić used the same principle to massively enhance his ability to hold his breath. However, even with the assistance of pure oxygen, holding your breath for half an hour is still a superhuman achievement. In most people, the safe apnea time with pure oxygen is still only eight minutes - less than a third of the time Mr Maričić went without a breath. The previous record for an oxygen-assisted breath hold was set by fellow-Croatian Budimir Šobat, who held his breath for 24 minutes and 37 seconds. Before that, the record had been set by the magician David Blaine, who held his breath for 17 minutes and four seconds during a live broadcast on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Going further requires intense levels of mental control and the use of techniques that slow down the body's oxygen consumption. Harbour seals, for example, are able to slow their heartbeats from 100 beats per minute to just 10 while underwater. In a post on Instagram, Mr Maričić says: 'It's not about how much you inhale, it's about how little you need. No panic, no thoughts, just silence. That's how you make it to 29.' Mr Maričić also warns that this record is not something most people should attempt to repeat. 'This is a very advanced stunt done after years of professional training and should not be attempted without proper guidance and safety. O2 and CO2 toxicity can be lethal,' he wrote on Instagram. The first record for an oxygen-assisted breath hold was set by the magician David Blaine, who held his breath for 17 minutes during a live recording of The Oprah Winfrey Show Breathing pure oxygen can lead to a condition called oxygen toxicity, which can lead to dizziness, confusion, and convulsions. Taking supplemental oxygen before diving also increases the risk of blacking out while underwater, since it allows more time for CO2 to build up in the bloodstream. This can lead to carbon dioxide toxicity, which causes difficulty breathing, vomiting, and blackouts. Mr Maričić said: 'Do have in mind, diving with pure O2 can be dangerous and even fatal.' South Korea's real-life mermaids: The female divers swimming to 65ft until they are 90 Known as Haenyeo, or 'women of the sea', are a group of female freedivers from the island of Jeju, South Korea. This talented group of women have been in charge of providing for their families since the 17th century when many of the men were either conscripted to the army or had lost their lives at sea. Despite their age, these women spent more than half of their time underwater across the two to 10 hours of diving per day – the greatest proportion of any humans previously studied. According to a recent study, the women spend more of their time out at sea than polar bears. They use short, quick dives to gather seafood from the ocean floor, including conches, abalone and various other sea creatures. They are able to reach depths of 65 ft using no equipment other than their wetsuits, flippers, and goggles. Following a dive they would 'recover' for an average of just nine seconds above water before plunging down again. That allowed them to spend more time underwater than marine mammals like beevers, spending an astonishing 56 per cent of their time submerged. Surprisingly, the women did not display the classic mammalian 'dive response' – a slowing of the heart and reduced blood flow to muscles during dives. Instead, they showed increased heart rates and only mild oxygen reductions in the brain and muscles.
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Which animals can hold their breath underwater the longest?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Getting enough oxygen in the water can be hard work. While fish and many other aquatic animals take air directly from the water through gills, other animals find ingenious ways to drag air bubbles down from the surface or trap air around their bodies. But others do it the hard way and hold their breath to dive, before coming up to the surface for air — and then repeat this process again and again. Some of these animals can stay submerged for staggering lengths of time. But which animal can hold its breath the longest? And what characteristics enable it to do this? Although diving times can reveal how long species typically stay underwater, the duration can vary depending on why they are staying submerged. "There is a difference between surviving under water (how long before they die) and breath holding (how long do they voluntarily stay submerged)," Wilco Verberk, an associate professor of ecology at Radboud University in the Netherlands, told Live Science in an email. For example, some animals could find themselves trapped below water. Some ants were seen to survive for multiple hours when forcibly submerged, but even specialized diving ants would not voluntarily dive for more than a minute, Philip Matthews, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who studies insect respiration, told Live Science. Secondly, for animals to hold their breath, they need lungs, said John Spicer, a marine zoologist at the University of Plymouth in the U.K. "Holding breath only applies to animals with lungs and even then lunged animals that don't have gills as well (like lungfish) and/or breathe through their skin (like frogs)," Spicer told Live Science in an email. Related: How do marine mammals sleep underwater? The absolute champions for lunged animals staying submerged are certain freshwater turtles, such as the Blanding's turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). These reptiles practice brumation — a form of hibernation for reptiles — at the bottom of rivers and lakes during winter and can stay underwater for months at a time, which helps them survive when they are trapped beneath a layer of ice. Turtles are ectothermic, or cold-blooded, so during cold periods, their metabolism slows down, enabling them to conserve more energy and use less oxygen. "Many freshwater turtle species as the environmental temperature decreases switch everything off, and can stay submerged literally for months," Spicer said. "If brumation counts as holding your breath, then the freshwater turtles wipe the (river/lake) floor with everything else." However, these turtles cheat by taking in small amounts of oxygen in the water through their butts — or technically, their cloacae, which are multipurpose openings that are also used for sexual reproduction and egg-laying, as well as expelling waste. Size plays a crucial part in how long an animal can hold its breath, Verberk said. "Body size is a key trait, with larger animals being able to hold their breath for longer," Verberk said. "This is because oxygen stores tend to be larger in larger animals, also in relation to the rate at which they deplete them (larger animals tend to have lower mass specific demands for oxygen)." This means the competition for breath holding is between large mammals and large ectotherms such as crocodiles and sea turtles, he noted. The record dive by a mammal was completed by a Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris), which stayed submerged for 222 minutes, or 3.7 hours. Other whales have also put in impressive dives: The record Arnoux's beaked whale dive (Berardius arnuxii) lasted 153 minutes, and a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) managed 138 minutes, according to Verberk, Spicer and team's 2020 study. Whales accomplish this feat thanks to a number of key adaptations. These include slowing down their heart rate and or metabolism; redirecting blood flow away from parts of the body, temporarily shutting down organs such as the liver and kidneys; "and good oxygen storage capacity and release, from and in the large amounts of respiratory proteins in the muscles (myoglobin) and the blood (haemoglobin)," Spicer explained. In addition, these animals can switch to anaerobic metabolism and generate energy without using oxygen, Spicer added. "It is very inefficient in its conversion of food stuffs to energy, it is slow in doing so, and it produces a 'poison' lactic acid — so it's an emergency response for us," Spicer explained. "Diving mammals also resort to anaerobic metabolism and generate lactate but seem to be [a] bit better at putting up with it — and buffering the effect of the acid build up." Elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris and Mirounga leonina) have also recorded impressive dives lasting two hours. However, this is not typical; it happens only when they are near predators, Spicer said. While whales triumph as the longest-diving mammals and endotherms, or warm-blooded animals, big ectotherms have registered the longest-lasting dives of any species. The freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus johnstoni) clocked up 402 minutes, or 6.7 hours, underwater when it perceived a threat near the water's surface. But the record holder is the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta), with a winning dive of about 610 minutes, or 10.2 hours, according to a 2007 study, while other studies have recorded maximum dive durations of 480 minutes, or eight hours. RELATED MYSTERIES —Can fish and other marine animals drown? —How do animals breathe underwater? —Do fish get thirsty? These ectotherms have many of the same oxygen-saving adaptations as mammals, but they can also save energy by not needing to warm themselves. "Their running costs can be half of a similar sized marine mammal just because they don't use physiological means to keep themselves warm," Spicer said. "It is the effect of temperature on metabolism that makes the main difference. Leatherback turtles [Dermochelys coriacea] I know can dive deeper than most whale species. And in cold waters they can turn down their metabolism pretty dramatically … enough that they can lie on the sea bottom for hours, or rest in underwater caves," he added.
