Your dive begins before the descent

1. What happens when we come to rest?

Our autonomic nervous system regulates heart rate and breathing, among other things. Under stress, physical activation often rises. At rest, heart rate can fall again.

A study of 14 experienced apnea divers showed how closely physical and emotional responses are connected during breath-holding.

What matters here is this: the response to apnea is complex. It cannot simply be explained as “relaxed = a lower pulse.” The diving response and other regulatory mechanisms also play a part.

Relaxation is therefore not a trick for longer breath-holds, but a useful part of preparation.

2. Less effort before the dive?

The kind of preparation can make a difference, too.

A small study of nine apnea athletes examined different warm-up protocols before dynamic apnea.

After preparation on land, lactate levels before the dive were lower, among other findings, and heart rate during the apnea was lower than after the water preparation used for comparison.

This does not mean that one particular warm-up routine is generally better. The results do show, however, that even the phase before the descent can be physiologically relevant.

3. Is freediving a form of meditation?

Freedivers often describe their state underwater as especially calm and focused.

Interestingly, scientists examined the brain activity of one world-class freediver during a long static apnea on land.

They observed patterns of activity that partly resembled meditative states — but also clear differences.

Because only one person was studied, no general conclusions about all freedivers can be drawn from it.

Even so, the study opens an interesting question: what role do attention, body awareness and mental calm play in breath-holding?

A body scan and visualization can help direct attention deliberately to your own body and to the dive ahead. That these methods alone improve apnea performance is not proven by this, however.

4. Breathing calmly does not mean hyperventilating

One especially important distinction is often overlooked: relaxed breathing and hyperventilation are not the same thing.

Anyone who deliberately breathes excessively deeply or quickly before diving can sharply reduce the CO₂ level in the blood. That delays the urge to breathe without making a corresponding amount of extra oxygen available.

That increases the risk of hypoxic loss of consciousness underwater.

The safety organization Divers Alert Network (DAN) therefore explicitly warns against hyperventilation in freediving.

Calm preparation should never aim to suppress the urge to breathe artificially.