Posted on 09/17/2025 8:14:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
Guinness World Records announced on September 10 that Croatian man Vitomir Maričić just beat the world record for holding your breath.
Maričić held his breath for 29 minutes and 3 seconds.
How is that even possible? Even as a kid, the best I could ever do was a little over a minute.
Maričić is a member of the Adriatic free divers.
Freedivers train their bodies to cope with reduced oxygen levels.
They prepare by taking deep, oxygen-rich breaths and relaxing the mind to trigger the mammalian dive reflex, which slows down the heart rate, redirects blood to vital organs and makes the spleen release oxygen-storing red blood cells.
The skilled divers also work hard to increase their lung capacity and tolerance for carbon dioxide.
It's the CO₂ building up in our system that creates the urge to breath. Too much CO₂ can cause hypoxia and cause someone to pass out and cause damage to internal organs.
And Maričić is no exception.
Around the 20-minute mark, he said,
[Everything] got worse and worse physically, especially for my diaphragm, because of the contractions. But mentally I knew I wasn't going to give up.
It's really crazy what the human body is capable of with enough discipline and training.
Watch Maričić pull the feat off here:
VIDEO AT LINK...................
The pressure at depth contributes to the capability.
In the Muff Diving event?
😁😂🤣😂😁.......................
I considered myself as a reasonably good free diver in my younger days. I could almost make 3 minutes. I did try oxygen (on land) and I think I got an extra couple minutes. Can’t imagine almost half an hour.
Even more of a feat overcoming all the extra buoyancy.
When I was 25 and in great shape, I could hold my breath for 5 to 6 minutes, underwater, when I was diving. I know other divers can get 8 or 9 minutes when they need to...
The guy just barely beat my reord.
By 28 minutes and 45 seconds. Just scraped by.
This contributes to better the world how?
This cannot possibly be good for you. 😄
Here is an interview with the real guy from the movie The Last Breath:
The Diver Who Survived 30 Minutes Without Oxygen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRuKHeEvWM&t=355s
Okay, he’s extremely hot, like off the charts hot. He’s going to be viral on the internet. Women swooning everywhere.
He needs to go to Hollywood and get a major studio contract!...............
Pure O2 is toxic below 66 ft and very dangerous below 33ft.
It might be Nitrox which is 36% O2 which is safe to 120ft.
I bet they all vote a straight Democratic ticket.
The reason you can hold your breath longer with oxygen in the lungs is that despite the fact that most of our air hunger is due to the increase in carbon dioxide in the blood, reduction of the oxygen levels - as in a normal breath hold - potentiates the carbon dioxide effect. When the lungs are filled with oxygen the air hunger from the high carbon dioxide levels will not be so strong.
The first WR breath hold using oxygen was set by a US college student who held his breath for ca 19 1/2 minutes. Calculations showed that he had been very close to his absolute theoretical maximum.
What is it that sets the limit?
When you hold your breath with air in the lungs it is the amount of oxygen you have onboard, and it must be enough to keep you from losing consciousness. So, the lower metabolic demands (complete rest) and the larger lungs you have the longer you can hold your breath.
However, when holding ones breath with lungs filled with oxygen it is the lung volume (not the oxygen stores) that sets the limit. A steady amount of oxygen is removed from the lungs to the body, but due to our blood chemistry the same amount of carbon dioxide is not put back into the lungs to replace the lost volume. So, the lungs will continually shrink until their volume cannot be reduced more. (In worst case the volume will be replaced by fluid - lung oedema! Not good!)
I'm sure this man has exceptionally large lungs, but this record is a fantastic feat of endurance. By the time he finished the carbon dioxide levels would have been more than double normal and the oxygen levels would also have been low, but probably not as low as after avWR airbBH. (Pity they did not measure the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in his first exhalation. However, that not easy because despite the fact that he started with full lungs, by the time he finished his breath hold there would not have been much gas to exhale!!) The shrinking lung volume also causes pain and activates breathing movements he must withstand to break the record.
So a magnificent medical, physiological, and athletic feat - but nothing to try at home without supervision! Even world class breath hold athletes have drowned when they have trained alone in swimming pools.
Sorry for the long post, but it is a subject close to my ❤️! 😀😀😀
Do not try this at home!.....................
That ain’t a man, that’s a whale!
I watched a cormorant at lunchtime once. It dove, stayed under for about a minute and reappeared somewhere else. Stayed on the surface for about ten seconds and dove again. This cycle repeated about ten times, until I had to leave.
The bird didn’t have oxygen and it was swimming rather than remaining motionless. It is designed for swimming and probably has a smaller brain/lung ratio, so it would use less oxygen.
Must be related to Aquaman.
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