SCUBA Tips: Control Breathing

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SCUBA Tips: Control Breathing - By: Travis Tresp, Posted on: 2008-03-27

Taking a breath is simple as pie , isn't it? We do it involuntarily. Good air in, bad air out . Simple, and easy, isn't it? Wrong! In SCUBA , to learn to breathe adequately serves three main purposes, and not learning how to breathe properly can lead to a hazardous dive.

Why should your learn to correctly breathe for scuba diving? Well, the mode that will be given here is not just for scuba diving, it's meant to escalate the ability at which your body processes oxygen naturally , and will favor anything and everything of your being requiring physical activity.

In the beginning , adequate breathing helps you with safe buoyancy . If your SCUBA teacher tells you to hold your breath while adjusting your regulator to control your dive depth, you will rapidly wind up blue in the face. Definitely not a thilling experience. Instead of holding your breath and relying on the regulator and weights to adjust buoyancy, breathing properly can cause slight shifts in your buoyancy.

Also, proper breathing on a dive extends your air time. The breathing technique explained here enables the body to convert a greater amount of oxygen, sending it to the body with greater efficiency and extending the amount of oxygen that gets entered into the blood stream. You won't use your additional air up as quickly, and can extend your time scuba diving .

Ultimately, proper breathing in addition to proper control over your ascent and descent rate helps to minimize decompression sickness , which is a exasperation that affects divers when the sudden changes in external pressure on the body generate accumulations of bubbles within the blood stream , the heart, and the sinuses. Those little air bubbles cause an affliction that divers refer to as The Bends, which can be anything from barely painful and annoying , to fatal by producing a stroke and/or braindamage.

And now with that all said and done, let's get into the appropriate breathing method to implement.

Speaking from my personal S.C.U.B.A. experiences , the best breathing technique that should be deployed in diving are similar to that utilized by gymnasts, yoga practitioners, singers and martial artists. This is a method called diaphragm breathing , and goes by a number of fancy names depending on which discipline is using it, like in martial arts where it is referred to as Ki or Chi Breathing.

To make use of diaphragm breathing, either sit up straight or stand (your choice ), and just breathe in and out . Don't slouch. Make note of how you breathe the air in. Be sure your chest will expand when taking a breath . This is normal, regular everyday breathing. In diaphragm breathing, the lower stomach expands not the chest.

To do this accurately , the major key is to relax. The stomach muscles will actually normally tighten up when you take a breath in and try to concentrate on your gut . Don't concentrate on your gut, just relax and breath in, but make a point of actually relaxing your navel area when you take a breath in. A lot of people get diaphragm breathing wrong because they tense up the stomach muscles in an effort to send their breath there. Tensing up these muscles actually causes them to contract, which keeps air from making it all the way to the diaphragm. That's all there is to this form of breathing. It is actually very easy , once you get the hang of it.

It's also important to keep your breathing rhythm slow, deep, and even when utilizing this method, inhaling as far as you can go , while holding the air in your lungs for just a few seconds , then exhaling the air evenly and slowly. Shallow, rapid breathing , as most medical practitioners know, is a very, very bad thing, which produces asphyxiation, a state where not enough oxygen gets run through the body.

By the way, the air, of course , is not really going into your stomach. The stomach just expands because the diaphragm is positioned right above it in the body. Basic anatomy lesson here: the diaphragm is actually membrane which is in control of the expansion of the lungs, which causes the inhaling and exhaling of air. In essence, what this form of breathing achieves is to strengthen your diaphragm, as well as increasing the facility of your lungs. Work on this method until it becomes natural and automatic , and you'll be surprised at the results you get . Not just in your scuba diving , but helping in your overall health condition.

Article Source: http://www.girlarticles.com

Travis Tresp is an avid scuba diver. He has traveled all over the world in search of the perfect dive. From The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, to the Florida Keys he has see it all. www.scubadivingnut.com