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

You know the process of breathing and how its a very repetitive process that we do nonstop every day?

Well here’s the thing: if we repeatedly expand the lung over and over to the max capacity nonstop it will cause damage, and unlike muscle that is designed to be damaged and repaired within days, lung damage are slower to repair.

And here’s the thing: on average we consume 5% of the air we breathe in because inspiration and expiration happen at a fixed rate. Increasing total air in the lung will not have a significant increase in efficiency, but will result in higher energy expended.

There’s just no beneficial reason to actually take full breathe when not doing anything..