ELi5: how does practicing (and getting better at) holding your breath work if your lungs are the same size?
In: 7
Your lung capacity is just one factor in how long you can hold your breath.
When you run out of breath, it’s not the lack of oxygen that makes you wanna open your mouth and suck in all the oxygen you can find, it’s the buildup of carbon dioxide. In a way your body isn’t desperate to breathe in oxygen, it’s desperate to expel the co2, which is of course a crucial stage in the whole breathing process. You actually have plenty of oxygen left there in your lungs, but you also have a lot of co2 now and it’s messing with your chemistry, and your body is not liking that because it’s not used to it. When you practice holding your breath, you’re mostly training your body to deal with that buildup of co2, not really expanding your lungs.
Lung size is only one part of the picture.
You can train to retain more oxygen, use oxygen slower, and resist CO2 acidity (and the impulse to breathe).
Also, though not an extreme amount, you can train to increase your lung capacity.
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