Why is it that we don’t often breath to our full capacity, we take shallow breathes and rarely take full breath

Question

Why is it that we don’t often breath to our full capacity, we take shallow breathes and rarely take full breath

In: 680

Answer 1

I see a lot of people here missing one of the big points: We breathe primarily to get rid of carbon dioxide, not to get more oxygen. In fact, if we didn’t make any carbon dioxide as a waste product at all, we would only have to take a single breath every 3 minutes to function fine. This is because our bodies make carbon dioxide much faster than we lose oxygen.

Taking a shallow breath means we get rid of carbon dioxide more quickly, because more exchanges happen via diffusion in the lungs. And because carbon dioxide buildup happens quicker than oxygen depletion, shallow breaths are an efficient way of pumping carbon out.

But, deeper breaths take *in* more oxygen. We don’t do this simply because your body doesn’t need that much oxygen in a normal setting, such as when you are lying in bed. So there is no point taking a deeper breath. Taking a deeper breath is useful however, when you are doing something energy intensive (e.g. running!) which is when you’ll start panting.