How to Hold Your Breath for Long Periods of Time

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

The key to holding your breath is to increase the efficiency with which your body uses oxygen. You can accomplish that in a variety of ways, many of which are outlined below.

  Steps

1. Do exercises to increase your lung capacity. While there is no way to increase the size of your lungs, there are many ways to increase the amount of air taken in by your lungs, and the efficiency with which they capture oxygen.
   
2. Lose weight. Any excess baggage reduces your body's efficiency in using oxygen.[1]
   
3. Quit smoking This will considerably increase your lungs' ability to release carbon dioxide and absorb oxygen.
   
4. Before holding your breath, inhale and exhale slowly from deep within your diaphragm. By doing this, you're ridding your lungs of low-quality air.[2] Spend 5 seconds breathing in and 5 seconds breathing out; do this for two minutes, and be sure that when you exhale, you push out every last "drop" of air.[3]
   
5. Take a massive gulp of air and hold it. Don't breathe in so much that you're about to pop; fill your lung capacity to 80-85% so that you still have room to relax.[4]
   
   
   • Always do this with a partner watching, since you can lose consciousness without warning.
     
   • Don't hold air in your cheeks. This method is meant for an air reserve, but you have to "let go" of the air in your lungs if you want to use the air in your cheeks, and exhaling air in your lungs usually gets rid of the reserve in your cheeks. In other words, it's not easy to switch out the air in your lungs and the air in your cheeks without letting both escape. But it can be done - see link on "Circular Breathing" below.