Breathing Techniques for Skin Diving

Most people think that they won't be able to hold their breath for very long while they are underwater. Actually, you'll probably find that you can hold it for much longer than you might think, with just a bit of practice.

The first thing you must learn about extending your breath-hold time is to give your body time to adapt to the water. It takes your body about 20 minutes to adapt to being in the water and during this period your dives will be much shorter.

To effectively hold your breath you need to get your body into a rhythm. If you try to make each dive last until you feel an urgent need to breathe, you'll spend a long time on the surface recovering between each underwater excursion. It's far better to gradually extend each dive a little longer. Never push yourself to the point where you feel as though your lungs are "bursting" to breathe.

Ideally, your goal should be to try and spend an equal, or nearly equal, time underwater as you do on the surface. If you can spend a minute on the surface and a minute underwater you would be doing very well.

Another key to maximizing each dive is to learn to relax underwater and exert yourself as little as possible. If you are tense and worked up your body will be burning oxygen at a very fast rate. By relaxing and economizing your movements you will get the most time out of each dive.

Hyperventilation is a very dangerous technique that some divers use to extend their bottom time underwater. The consequences of hyperventilation are that it has killed many divers who have unexpectedly blacked out underwater.

Hyperventilation is defined as extremely rapid, forced, deep breathing. What this does to your body is it reduces your need to breathe to the point where you may actually pass out underwater due to a lack of oxygen, without ever feeling the need to breathe. This usually happens when a diver is returning to the surface, and since it occurs in shallow water it's known as "shallow water blackout."

Avoiding shallow water blackout is simple; don't hyperventilate. Breathe slowly without forcing your breathing in between surface dives. The extra few seconds you may gain by hyperventilating are not worth the risk it creates.

Whenever you are resting on the surface for more than a few minutes, or if you must swim on the surface for any distance, put just enough air in your snorkeling vest to make it easy for you to float. This will make it comfortable for you to rest and swim.

It shouldn't be necessary to inflate the vest completely to make yourself float easily. If you need to add more than a few puffs of air to the vest, then you're wearing too much weight. Inflating the vest completely will "drag" and make it more difficult to swim on the surface. Add just enough air so that it is effortless for you to float.

To add air to the vest, you will need to either push down on the mouthpiece or pull up on it, depending on the design. Seal your lips around the stem and put a small amount of air into the vest at a time.