How is it possible for someone to hold their breath for a very long time?

Question

The world record is 24 min 37.36 sec

How can they stay conscious for so long on a single breath? Doesn’t the body need a constant supply of oxygen?

In: 284

Answer 1

You can train your body to be comfortable with a low oxygen saturation, this goes hand in hand with training your „lungs“ (you train the many muscles required for breathing, not really your actual lungs). Yogic breathing techniques (pranayama) have been around for literally thousands of years, but also free divers do this. It is relatively easy to get from 30 sec to about 2min of breath holding via training, afterwards it gets difficult because you have to consciously alter your brain state into a kind of trance, so your brain activity becomes less and your heart rate goes down.