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?
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There are lots of good points in other answers, but a thing to remember is lack of oxygen is not the biggest problem. It is actually getting rid of CO2. Most of the oxygen you breathe in gets exhaled right back out again. So, if you hold your breath, there will be a lot of oxygen left in the lungs for your blood to absorb over time. As another answer said, if you breathe pure oxygen before hand, you will also build up a lot more oxygen in the lungs. And, Your body doesn’t use up all of the oxygen in the blood right away. By the time blood gets back to the lungs, it has about 70% as much oxygen as when it left them. All this means that you have enough oxygen to last for a good amount of time when holding your breath. The bigger problem is getting rid of CO2. It causes a lot of problems when it builds up. It also is the thing that controls your reflex to breathe. A lot of the training for these world record attempts is to build up resistance to that reflex.
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