Breathing Better For Scuba Diving
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Normally one doesn’t think about how they breathe. You automatically breathe throughout the day without thinking about it. Breathe in air; exhale air. It’s easy.
However, once you go underwater, even with proper scuba equipment and oxygen, breathing takes a bit of thought. Just having equipment isn’t enough. Understanding what happens really helps you breathe better underwater.
When you are underwater, the pressure of the water is all around you. The deeper you go, the more the pressure. The pressure feels like pushing is coming from all sides of you simultaneously from inside your body. Fortunately, the rigidity of your rib cage, muscles and tendons are forces to keep the pressure even in your body making sure you don’t collapse under the pressure.
How Much Pressure Is There Underwater?
As you dive, for each 33 feet (10 m), you descend beneath the surface, the pressure increases by 1 atm (one atmosphere), or approximately 14.7 lbs (6.7 kg) per square inch all over your body.
To balance that inward pressure, your body needs to push outward. Yet, your ribs and muscles are somewhat flexible. They will collapse inward a small amount before having enough rigidity to balance the inward pressure. This, along with other factors, compresses your lungs somewhat.
Breathing is Harder Underwater
When you dive deeper underwater, expanding your lungs becomes harder due to the added pressure.
Remember that air is fairly easy to compress. Compressing water requires more force. Hence, the air in your lungs compresses a bit. So to breathe properly, you must you need to use much more energy to breathe deeper against the additional pressure.
Modern Scuba Tanks and Scuba Diving Regulators are designed to solve these issues. So when you dive deeper, the regulator/tank system gives you air at the ambient pressure of the water. When using them, divers can breathe easily and normally to moderate depths. At greater depths there are other factors to consider.
What to Do During Deeper Dives
Expert divers often do their best to conserve oxygen. You need a slightly higher amount of oxygen underwater because you are swimming in a dense fluid. Therefore, often divers like to swim in a relaxed way underwater… to lessen the oxygen required and conserve their oxygen.
Divers fine that keeping a cool head helps as well. When excited underwater by all the wonderful sights, one can get stressed when movement is hampered, equipment isn’t as readable or when their buddy is moving faster than they would like. Staying calm not only helps you overcome these issues but additionally helps keep your heart rate low and your oxygen need moderate.
Dive safely and breathe right.
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