Name: How Long Can You Hold Your Breath? - Instant Egghead #6
Uploaded: 2014-07-10T09:02:00.000Z
Duration: 2 min 6 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Science says, without training it's gonna be about a minute.

can hold their breath for a few minutes, with training.

In theory, we should be fine holding our breath,

After all, our lungs can hold about four minutes worth of air.

But at some point our body forces us to inhale.

Maybe a sensor in our arteries tells our brain

Science has rejected both of these theories.

We now think it's actually our diaphragm,

next time you hold your breath until you're about to burst,

try relaxing your diaphragm with a partial exhale.

This little trick should help delay your personal breakpoint.

That's obviously not going to break any records.

What can we do to hold our breaths longer?

Competitive breathholders also get more distance,

possibly because it slows their metabolism,

or because we don't want to breathe in water.

and inhaling high concentrations of oxygen,

but these aren't allowed in most breathholding competitions.

The longest anyone's ever held their breath?

In 2009, French diver Stéphane Mifsud held his breath

He accomplished this feat floating face-down in water,

For Scientific Americans "Instant Egghead", I'm Katherine Hermon.