Spirituality: How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

Most of the discussions on spirituality and religion are mostly theory and talk but not on the practical, i.e. the how-to.

I believe the effectiveness of one’s breath is one of the critical foundation of one’s well being and spirituality.

One measure of effectiveness of one’s breath is ‘How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?’ i.e. the art of breath retention.
There are two measurements of breath retention, i.e.

  1. Normal Retention Period - NRP
  2. Maximum Retention Period - MRP

1. Normal Retention Period - NRP
To measure [time] one’s Normal Retention Period - NRP, do the following;

  1. Get ready a stop watch with seconds
  2. Sit up straight
  3. Do two of your usual breathing - inhale-exhale
  4. Then, inhale on the next breath follow by exhalation - normally.
  5. At the end of the normal exhalation*, used your finger to close the nose and close the mouth, *[not a 100% full exhaustion of all air]
  6. Start your time
  7. At a point where you feel the urge the need to breathe, do not struggle on…
  8. Stop the time.
  9. Note the period of time - NRP

Note:
One need to measure one’s NRP over various period of the day to get an average. Avoid doing it after a full meal or any time after what is not-your-normal activities.

The NRP measure your basic well-being and spirituality.
[list=]If your NRP time is below 30 seconds, your well-being and spirituality is below average.
If 31-60 seconds, that is average,
If >60 seconds, that would be above average and and good.[/list]

It is claimed there is a correlation [no hard proofs] those with NRP below 30 seconds [especially if less than 10 seconds] usually has some kind of impairments, e.g. asthma, heart disease, lungs and other diseases.

The above would be the same for one’s level of spirituality in general.
One can claim to have the highest grade in spirituality [talk only] but one’s NRP measurement can generally [note] indicate one’s real spiritual maturity level.

2. Maximum Retention Period - MRP
The MRP is the time achieved by extending the NRP to the point one cannot hold the breath any longer and thus forced to breath or else one would black-out.
The MRP can extend to >60 seconds, 2 minutes or for the professional deep diver it can be >3, 4,5 minutes. The world record is something like 7+ minutes without assistance, 11+ minutes with additional packing, 22 minutes via breathing air concentrated with oxygen.

Since we are concern with only basic spirituality, the relevant measurement is the Normal Retention Period -NRP.
In normal situation, the NRP is taken to be 50% the MRP.

Note the NRP and MRP are not exclusive measurement of spirituality, but also well being and other physical abilities. E.g. athletes and other non-spiritual performers may have high NRP, e.g. freedivers, singers, and the likes.

Try the above measurements to determine your underlying basic spirituality.
I can provide tips [if interested] on how to increase one’s NRP or MRP.

Views?

I think the OP would be better if there was some kind of argument. It’s fine that it’s speculative, but why do you correlate breath holding with spirituality, spirituality having to do with spirit, that is non-material entities, processes, etc. I could come up with my own reasons, and certainly some religions and spiritualities focus on the breath, but why do you think there should be correlation?

Of course some people think that materialists can have a spirituality, but I think this is a poor word choice. They can have values, a philosophy, an outlook on life…etc. But spirituality is based on things not considered real by the materialist, and other words serve the purpose perfectely.

My well-being is dire, but my spirituality is not…

I have shifted the above [interesting point] argument to another thread.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194659

Since ‘breath’ correlates with ‘Spirit’
therefore the effectiveness of one’s breath correlates to one’s level of spirituality [secular].

How did you know your spirituality is not dire? or is good?
Did you do the above measurements of NRP and MRP?
If so, is your NRP <30 seconds, >30seconds, or >60 seconds.

I have indicated here;
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194659
there is a strong correlation between ‘breath’ and ‘spirituality,’
thus whether your spirituality is good or dire, it will depend on your NRP and MRP.

The measurement of one’s foundation of spirituality [secular or religious] cannot be based on faith and mere beliefs, it must be objective.
Not you, but note in the extreme case, where a Muslim will claim he has a high level of spirituality based on his own personal beliefs, obeyed Allah to the fullest and ended up killing many innocent non-Muslims while he was blown up into pieces as suicide bomber. I bet such a person would have low NRP measurement <30 seconds.

Note as I had stated, the NRP and MRP are not absolute measurements of spirituality but they are the most effective in the general sense with the necessary qualifications and some exceptions.

Any volunteers?

If your average NRP is <10, <20 or <30 and you are interested in increasing it, I can give tips/instructions [free] on how to improve it. Just PM me.

Breath is the most fundamental element of life which is more fundamental than dasein, conflicting goods and political/economic power, and everything else.

Let say your Maximum Retention Period [MRP] is 30 seconds.

If I were to hold your nose and close your mouth shut, before 30 seconds you would have felt terrible and desperate thus try to push my hands off, and if I persist and will not let go, you will likely kill me so that you can breathe, agree?

Generally, a normal average person can survive without breathing for up to 4 minutes or more.

If you are a moral person why would you kill me at the 30 seconds mark and not at the 4 minute mark?

The answer is, the respond is involuntary and you have no choice but to kill so that you can breathe. But note, you have the option to increase your tolerance level thus also the moral competence.

My point is;
If you can train yourself to increase your MRP and tolerance to 4 minutes, then you would only likely to push me off or kill me if you have to at the 3:30 minutes mark.
As you can see there is an improvement in your tolerance level from 30 seconds to 4 minutes.

At present there is a tolerance level [subconscious] to what you deemed as grotesque human pains and sufferings embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political/economic power.
I believe when you increase your MRP to 4 minutes, you will have a different tolerance level for the effects of grotesque human pain and suffering embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political/economic power, and you will respond to them in a different light, i.e. less sensitive to be affected by them.
From this you will have a greater positive outlook to life than being stuck in a deep shit hole because your tolerance is too low.
You can measure this tolerance level via the tests in the OP as linked above.

The expected changes are the following;

  1. Your CO2 tolerance to panic- will increase.
    2.The oxygen level in your blood will increase
  2. Your immunity levels will increase
  3. Your cognitive level will be heightened
  4. There are other positive changes

Note the above is not bullshit, they can be objectively tested and verified.

“Prismatic567”

The English word “spirit” comes from the Latin spiritus,but also “spirit, soul, courage, vigor”, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin anima, “soul” (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root meaning “to breathe”, earliest form *h2enh1-).

That makes no sense to me. I see no correlation there.
A rapist may be a runner, in great physical health and his breathing may be perfect. Is that rapist a spiritual man?

What about the truly spiritual person? What about the late Mother Teresa? Perhaps her breath was not always so effective, so vigorous. Was she less the spiritual person for that?

What is spirituality to you? What is secular spiritual to you?

I can certainly agree with the first part of this. Proper breathing is important to our physical and emotional well-being and to maintain mental balance.

The below quotes will give you an idea of what true spirituality is to me. One need not have a belief in God nor God in one’s life but one may.

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Henry Miller

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Albert Einstein

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

Those things make up or create the spiritual life for us. One may even be able to see that experiencing those things just might lead one to perfect breath - not the other way around.

So, is this more or less your meaning of spirituality (secular)?

Note ‘to breathe’ in your above reference.
I have presented how breath is correlated with ‘spirit’ thus spirituality, here;
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194659

Note I wrote this in the OP

Note the NRP and MRP are not exclusive measurement of spirituality, but also well being and other physical abilities. E.g. athletes and other non-spiritual performers may have high NRP, e.g. freedivers, singers, and the likes.

Therefore proper breathing is also fundamental to spirituality, i.e. an imperative basic requirement.

Note I have defined Modern [Secular] Spirituality here;
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194659

Your above quotes are fine and can be representative of the states of spirituality which is likely to be accompanied with low breathing rate and calmness but it not an objective measurement of secular, religious nor theistic spirituality. We need some sort of objective assessment, at least the basic or fundamental element of it.

Point is if someone make claims of spiritual experiences but do not have the basic competence in breathing techniques in terms of NRP or MRP, then the person’s spirituality will correlate with his NRP or MRP.
Therefore if someone cannot hold their breath normally i.e. NRP for more than 30 seconds, I can confidently rate the person’s maximum spiritual level is likely to be 75% as a general assessments i.e. not conclusively.

Thus for example, if the Pope whom many regarded as highly spiritual, but if his NRP is less than 30 seconds, then the Pope spirituality can only go up to a maximum of 75% and not 99%.

On the other hand if we refer the Dalai Lama, I can confidently state his max is likely [subject to verification] to be 95% because Tibetan Buddhism put a high emphasis on breathing techniques ranging to the very sophisticated techniques.

It would appear you are unaware of how extensive, complicated, refined and sophisticated breathing techniques can be within the full range of the spiritual community.

I have not explained fully yet of how one’s breath retention period [NRP or MRP] within the spiritual perspective correlates to one’s propensity to believe in a God, Absolute or an ultimate entity.

No takers??
I am surprised no one here is interested in his/her own well-being and general spirituality.

Appreciate the following feedbacks in the following exercises;

Normal Retention Period:
Take two normal breaths,
Then the third breath,
at the end of the normal exhalation, press your nose, close your mouth and upon a normal urge to breath again, note the time you can hold your breath.
Is this <10 seconds >30 seconds >30 seconds >60 seconds?

Maximum Retention Period:

  1. Take two normal breaths,
  2. Then the third breath,
  3. at the end of the normal exhalation, press your nose, close your mouth,
  4. upon a normal urge to breath again, try and hold as long as possible till you cannot resist, then take breathe.
    Is this <10 seconds >30 seconds >30 seconds >60 seconds >90 seconds or more?

Be Mindful of the following;
Did you notice the desperation you need to breath is an involuntary impulse.
Actually the average human being can survive without breathing for up to 4 minutes.
The auto trigger to breath desperately earlier than 4 minutes, i.e. <30 seconds is an involuntary act to ensure safety to avoid facing an emergency.

Impulse Control Ability
It is possible for the average person to control, modulate and extent the time of involuntary trigger to breath.
Therefore if one’s NRP is <30 seconds this NRP can be extended beyond 30 seconds to 2 minutes and the MRP can be extended beyond 2 minutes and up to 22 minutes [a world record] with exercises and assistance.

NRP and MRP Correlation with Basic Spirituality
There is a correlation [btw not absolutely] between the NRP/MRP and one’s level of Spirituality.
Anyone keen to increase his/her current NRP and MRP thus level of Spirituality and well being?

No.

I have never been able to hold my breath for more than under a minute… due to planetary allergies causing a lack of sufficient oxygen production, so not my fault, so not a statistic of your findings.

Oxygen production? You mean oxygen absorption, i.e. oxygen is not produced by the body but taken in via the breath. Thus if you improve your breathing technique you could increase your oxygen absorption efficiency.

If you can hold your breath less a minute like 45 seconds or >30 seconds that would be reasonably good other than to improve to the very good time of >60 seconds.

Note I stated above, the ability to hold one’s breath for a period of time up to 60 seconds or more is primary due to carbon dioxide than the need for oxygen.
It is the carbon dioxide build up that is detected which triggers the desperation and strong impulse to breathe so that one do not end up with an emergency due to lack of oxygen 4 minutes or more later.

Within the respiratory system there is a carbon dioxide level detector [CDLD] which has a range of degrees of sensitivity due to various reasons and causes which could allergy, diseases, basic well being, mental states, etc.
The sensitivity of this carbon dioxide level detector which has an effect on one’s level of spirituality in various ways.
This CDLD detector if very sensitive can trigger very convulsive impulses from the gut, the flight and fight response, the adrenal gland, various serious anxieties, fears, which are all anti-thetic to one’s spiritual and well being level.

Thus the training of the sensitivity of the CDLD will enable one to increase the time one can hold one’s breath and in this case, the level of spirituality.
One positive of this is the longer time also allow more oxygen to be processed by the aveola of the lungs into the blood system.

If your problem is asthma or other allergies, then this is very likely to be resolved with effective breathing techniques to control the CDLD sensitivity which normally caused hyperventilation, panic and anxieties. There are many research to support this.

The length of time one can hold one’s breath is strongly correlated with carbon dioxide sensitivity whilst oxygen requirement is a secondary issue in this issue.

Here is an experiment to experience the very desperate subconscious impulse of terror and the urge to do anything to save oneself.

The Experiment

  1. Take a normal breath, pinch your nose & close your mouth and hold it till you feel the need to breathe, then let go and breath naturally.

  2. Take a normal breath as above but upon the urge to breathe, hold your breath as long as you can and keep fighting the urge to breathe, say for another 5 seconds.

  3. Perform 2 above, but this time try to fight the urge to breathe for longer than 5 seconds to say 10 seconds or longer. [Caution, should not be too long since one can passed out].

  4. What is relevant to take note is, when one try to hold one breathe beyond the norm, there is a feeling of a very strong desperation to breathe and the body generate pains in various parts of the body, especially the abdominal areas.

[list]5. This is a good exercise for one to find out which areas of one’s body is suffering from tensions or which parts of one organ may have some sort of problem.

  1. The critical knowledge to be highlighted is the terrible desperation and pains that forces one to breathe at all costs.
    This is beyond one’s conscious control [exception rare] and eventually one will be FORCED to breathe to ensure survival.
    [/list:u]

Try the above experiment till you feel that inherent terrible urges to breathe, the pains of resisting and the eventual subconscious force to give in to breathe.

This is fact from one’s self experiment as real experience is very informative because such an experience is common to all humans DNA wise.

Try it and provide your experience and feedback here.

Sorry, yes… I meant oxygen synthesis, but some issues cannot be cured by simply adopting better breathing techniques.

Is 10 good? :confusion-shrug:

I did attend an 8 session course on pain and fatigue management, which included adopting breathing techniques to breath through certain situations, and they certainly do help but not cure… that will happen over time.

Breathing through a bout of flight or fight is frickin awesome. :smiley:

I will try your breathing test tomorrow, and post my experience/findings here…

If it is a respiratory [breathing] related problem, then it can be improved by breathing techniques, asthma for example.
If there are physical problems then it has to be dealt via surgery or other medical procedures.

10 seconds [if consistently] is not good.
Thus you need specific breathing exercises to increase the Control Pause to at least 30 seconds. Therefrom one can try to improve to more than 30 seconds to 45 sec then to 60 seconds.

There are many types of breathing methods to deal with various situations, but some of these may not address the Control Pause interval.
Try your exercise and check whether those exercise can increase your control pause to higher than 10 seconds, 30 seconds or more.

Btw, my main point of the above exercise is for one to personally feel the terrible and desperation when one is forced [by others or oneself] into not being able to breathe.
My thesis is, the very fundamental of this desperation is an “existential crisis” that drives theism and other psychological behaviors.

The side benefit from the above, is one will be able to understand one’s own self for self-development.

In any case, if one find out one has a low Control Pause of say 10 seconds, increasing the Control Pause longer will bring only positive increments to one’s well being.

Caution is: Avoid extreme efforts or limits when one is doing any of the breathing exercises.

One interesting point;

Normally in a flight or fight situation, especially ‘fight’ [anger] one is often advised to take a big breath and count up to 10. In most cases, this breathing pause does make a lot of difference.

However in the experiment I introduced above, there is no flight or fight,
the scenario is such that there is a only a ‘fight’ option.
Thus it is critical that one understands and experience that fight mode and from there take steps to manage it.

This is why the ‘fight’ trigger in some extremists are so sensitive to the extent they will fight and kill even upon drawings of cartoons and the slightest sensed perceived provocations.

It is/was an energy production problem on a cellular level, which has now markedly improved… I tried to help speed up the cellular process with Korean Ginseng and then with Co Enzyme Q10, but they had an almost instant adverse effect in worsening symptoms, but I might revisit the CoQ10 as it did improve my energy output temporarily.

I can now currently manage roughly 23 seconds, so a marked improvement on my previous long-standing record of 10 lol… thanks for the suggestions, and I think I’m now better-placed to be able to do the breathing exercises… I wasn’t before, hence my revisitation to them and this thread, now.

I’m also revisiting weights, which relies on a specific breathing method, so perhaps it played a part in improving my ability to breathe more better/fully, and so get more oxygen into my system. It’s weird feeling the strength slowly creeping back into your veins, but a welcome weird. :slight_smile:

I don’t know what the Control Pause method is, but will check online… although, getting in too much oxygen will probably have an adverse effect on a still-delicate disposition? a’la tumultuousness…

Noted… I will : )

Well… my anger wasn’t misplaced… never has been, but I’d get stuck in the f or f mode for weeks at a time, due to my depressed system which was unable to get out of it, and which I was informed is a major energy drainer, so it was in my best interest to learn how to get out of it as quickly as possible and to also prevent it from being constantly easily triggered, and in doing so this would reset the response back to its normal reaction times. Fun times…

Avoiding overwhelming people and situations helped, in conjunction with all the health-rehabilitation clinics and programs I was prescribed… still got two more to go, but they are the definitive answer to my dilemma. The future looks much less bleak… the prognosis… back to normality.

Supplements may help but one need to improve the physical mechanisms to take in more oxygen to the blood so one do not pant with the slightest increase in effort.
In addition, the shortness of breath is also linked to weakness of other organs.

It is not getting in more oxygen to the extreme.
It is just getting a bit more than the current normal and gradually improve it further.

Since you are interested,
Try this to increase the time you can hold your breath.

Instead of pinching your nose, use the nails of your index and middle finger to block [softly but efficiently] from outside your the nostrils. This is more comfortable than pinching the nose. Point is to ensure there is no air going in when you hold your breath.

The procedure;

  1. In a normal situation without any exercise, just hold your breath and note the time.
    If you are a beginner, the time is likely to be short, don’t bother about it.

  2. After a while from 1,
    Do 15 deep breathes.
    Use the diaphragmatic breathing technique. [you can google or YouTube for more details]
    In this case, expand your stomach, then chest and then take in air up to your mouth.
    Hold your breath [block with nails of index/middle finger] for a while 1-2-3 or 4 [which ever is comfortable] seconds to allow your lungs to absorb the oxygen.
    Then slowly release the air till your stomach is lowered but do not blow out all the air completely, leave say 5-10%.
    Do this for 15 times.
    At the end of the 15th time, when your stomach is lowered to a comfortable position, block your nose with the nails of your index and middle finger and hold your breath until you feel discomfort and the urge to breathe. (It is critical, one should not try to force oneself to try to get a longer time].
    Stop the time.
    Then immediately take in a deep breath and hold it for 3-5-10 seconds [whichever you can] and then release.

It is likely you will be able to increase from the time you did in 1 above.

  1. Do procedure 2 for 3 Cycles.
    The time you can hold your breath will increase each time, if not, don’t bother especially for a beginner.

Note the above is merely a preliminary exercise.
There are more adjustments to the above.
If you interested to go further, I can give you more procedures and notes.

It is reasonable that when one’s ability to hold one breath longer, and doing the above exercise, the overall constitution will improve thus the functions for all organs in the body to improve.

In any sudden flight or fight mode, that can easily be cooled down with a few breathing methods as above.
The full exercise above will help to modulate the long term f and f responses.

Thanks Prism, I will first get my mind ready for what I intend to put my body through at some point in the very-near future… this is how I currently have to roll… don’t want to shock the ole system with surprise now. 8-[

I may start with one cycle and build up from there, so I can gauge what impact it’s having and how much conscientious breathing and oxygen I can tolerate. It seems very Zen/meditative, so I might go within after, as its been a long time since I last Zazened. :smiley: