Is it possible to hold your breath for 5 minutes

You may do better, you may do worse. Some people respond to training better than others, there are no fixed rules that we can use to precisely gauge your potential but after years of instructing people how to hold their breath these numbers are a pretty good guide. But remember, it will involve training… and lots of it.

Your overall fitness levels will also affect how quickly you improve. If you are quite unfit yo may find you peak early and will struggle to go beyond that point. To read all 6 steps go to FreediveUK. Generic selectors.

Exact matches only. Search in title. Search in content. Search in excerpt. Search in posts. Search in pages. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves directing radiation, very precisely, at the tumour. But if the patient can keep her chest perfectly still for several minutes, it means that the entire dose can be delivered, in the right place, in one go. The problem, of course, is that most people, just like me, struggle to hold their breath for much longer than a minute.

But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have recently performed careful experiments that show that, if patients are ventilated with oxygen-rich air before attempting a breath-hold, they can manage to hold their breath for an impressive five-and-half-minutes.

When you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm in this contracted state. Artificially raising oxygen levels and reducing carbon dioxide levels before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, may work by delaying fatigue in the diaphragm.

Some can manage five minutes, others barely one. But the trick to holding your breath is actually rather surprising. Symptoms include flu-like illness…. Lead in water pipes can cause a number of long lasting health effects, and experts say children are particularly vulnerable to them. Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Medically reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, Ph. What happens Side effects Can holding your breath kill you? Benefits Training Summary Most people can hold their breath for somewhere between 30 seconds and up to 2 minutes.

Why try holding your breath longer? What happens when you hold your breath. Side effects of holding your breath. Can you die from holding your breath? Holding breath benefits. How to hold your breath longer underwater. Read this next. Breathing Exercises to Increase Lung Capacity.