As a usual day I wake up to my computer this morning. Everyday of this time I enjoy clicking the stumble button at my toolbar. So I did stumbling and come to my attention is this interesting piece of article – The Secret of The Human Body. Well this is a list of tricks to your brain that you can eliminate certain uneasiness with some simple things to do. I personally like the fifth one which shows the way how to clear your stuffed nose as you guys know that I always have some problems with my sensitive nose.

While the list goes on, the interesting part came in that this statement drew my attention “Breathe underwater” Wow..what kind of tricks is that..and to my surprise, the author claims that we can stay in the water a longer time with hyperventilate. Interesting enough he explains that the reason that we need to come up to the surface to breath is because the density of CO2 in our blood creates a sense of urgency to breath. And with hyperventilate so to say, it can actually increase the density of 02 to lower our blood acidity.Fair enough, the explanation is logical.

However if you notice the first comment that left by a commenter, this hyperventilate is actually nothing new to the world of divers and the worst thing is that this trick has a very big trap behind. Many people has been drowned using this tactic! People who are physically strong and fit, good swimmers who have tons of experiences are normally the victim. Why? Shallow Water Blackout. I am not sure whether you have come across this term or not. As the term says, people blackout in shallow water. Imagine when you swim halfway under the pool and suddenly you blackout quietly. That will be a very slim chance of surviving if you are not been noticed. And to make thing worse, this blackout actually has no sign of happening! Scary~

According to the wikipedia, the act of hyperventilating is only shutting down your nature respiration system but not really increase the saturation of O2. Another myth! To learn more details I suggest you the wikipedia page here. There is a very long article with full theory and technical backing up.

Anyway I have consulted our expert swimmer friend regarding this shallow water blackout thingy and apparently he has not yet come across this term too. Below is his reply on my question. (You bet who is the expert that I am talking about? )

Questions: Do you know about shallow water blackout? What are your thought on this?

The expert:

I never knew anything about this before. Yeah we used to compete underwater even though we know our oxygen level is running low. Never knew that this is a dangerous act.

But I think this explains another thing when people don’t do underwater dive. Why some people cannot swim longer than what they expected and stop frequently. And why some people are good at one swimming style and not good at the other one?

I think it is because they do not aware of their respiration process when they swim. So when they swim, the amount of oxygen they take in become less and less until they cannot cope and stop. Or maybe sometime when you try to learn some other swimming style like freestyle, you feel not smooth and cannot propel properly, or you feel you don’t have strength to continue. I think this is because when they are learning the particular style, they do not practice the respiration part properly. I seem to notice Athlete swimmers come out of water more frequently than us when they swim, and I noticed they force themselves to gulp in a lot of air. So I guess the tips is to force yourself to take in more air when swim and learn to breath smoothly.

But there’s another point. Sprint runners don’t breathe when they run 100m and 200m because their body and muscle can perform better anabolic ( muscle create oxygen when not breathing, and it get compensated by breathing later on ). So I guess with constant stamina exercises and develop more cardiology exercises can avoid shallow water blackout.

A few interesting points have been shared. First, diving under water can be really a dangerous act; second, good sportsman = breath smoothly; third, muscle can create oxygen? Well I’m not sure about the third one but since the expert say so, have to agree with him (Expert corrected:”muscle doesn’t create oxygen but generate energy from ATP while no oxygen in-take” what is ATP? No idea. Any thought from you?) Final thought, it’s definitely not recommended to hyperventilate before getting into water! Breath as normal rate before you get into under water. You don’t want to be found drowned under the pool do you? So beware!

* Hyperventilate is a act of breath rapidly and deeply. It will in fact cause over-breathing which might result in shallow water blackout if you go diving underwater after that.