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Show HN: Can You Hold Your Breath for 40 Seconds?
- maxbaines 4y agopleased that yes I can but only just, what is the significance of 40seconds?
- toomuchtodo 4y agoLung capacity. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7995705/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7995705/
- maxbaines 4y agoThanks, and interesting I had a feeling this was the reason, but a quick search didn't return much.
- RazvanS 4y agoClickbait to make you sign up for the app?
- maxbaines 4y agoOh if there's adverts and such on the page, Next DNS did it's job.
- TamDenholm 4y agoThats quite a good marketing trick actually. Something that most people can do and probably would do. Getting them to buy in do the small excercise and then going to the sign up. Well done to whoever thought of this.
- mbappe123 4y agoThank you for checking out our small website.
- brookst 4y agoThank you for not choosing 50 seconds because 40 about killed me, and I am very stubborn.
- mbappe123 4y agoThanks for checking out the website :)
- cmyr 4y agoDoes holding your breath mean “don’t exhale” or “don’t inhale”?
- andyexeter 4y agoBoth.
- downboots 4y agounless you've inflated a balloon
- greggyb 4y agoI have ~always been able to hold my breath for multiple minutes. I am very un-fit and have been for most of my adult life. Am I secretly the paragon of health?
- 762236 4y agoFor a CO2 tolerance test, you continuously exhale (a tiny trickle) to ensure no accidental inhale. See if that makes it harder for you.
- greggyb 4y agoWhen I was singing, I could hiss for 90 seconds without specific practice. For definitional purposes, a hiss was an unbroken, continuous, audible, 'sss' sound. This was an exercise our chorus director sometimes did with us. I get bored more than anything else. Just did 70 seconds with one deep breath of prep. I have not sung in years.
- jcims 4y agoSame. When I was a kid I would regularly go for over two minutes... I could get to three every now and then but barely. Haven't tried timing how long I can hold my breath in probably a decade. Unfortunately the site doesn't keep going so I tried with my phone, started squirming at 2:45 and made it to 3 minutes.
- af3d 4y agoNice! I was literally struggling just to hold it for 40 seconds. Of course, long ago I could easily hold my breath for 3 or 4 minutes. (A cousin of mine was able to do it for over six minutes or so. He could also dive to much greater depths than anyone else.)
- postsantum 4y agoBlacked out, woke up only to find myself subscribed to numerous activities
- petodo 4y agoI can do about 2:36 when I tried it recently sitting at kitchen table, zero preparation besides few deep inhales/exhales. I remember without any preparation in past I could do 50-70 seconds, so I was blown away by 2.5 minutes after many years, do those few deep inhales/exhales prior holding breath make that much difference? I am not doing any sport or exercise, at best like <5mins per day, just walk everywhere and sit at computer most of the day.
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoYes, it’s crucial in fact.
- petodo 4y agoI remember reading about it, but care to explain simply why it helps?
- TamDenholm 4y agoNot an expert but my basic understanding is that the hyperventilating before holding your breath basically oxygenates your blood so that you can hold for longer.
- postsantum 4y agoNo, that's because hyperventilation washes out CO2 so the CO2 alarm going off later than usual
- SeanAnderson 4y agoIs 40 seconds... challenging for people? Sorry, I don't know, maybe this comes off as entitled. I'm 33, a SWE that sits at a computer 8hrs/day for work and then another 4hrs/day for play. I absolutely could not run five miles, but I do go for walks. I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade. This website was absolutely trivial for me to accomplish with zero prep. I wasn't even concerned about my ability when I started - I knew the answer to be "yes." implicitly. Surely 40s is not an indicator of strong, healthy lungs for all ages?
- galleywest200 4y agoWhen you do physical training, such as lung capacity training, you do not start at maximum. You go up. If you scroll down the page you can see that they are trying to start an app with 5-minute health activities.
- SeanAnderson 4y agoIf their intent is to work me up to five minutes - great. As written, the app congratulates me after 40s and says, "Congratulations. You have good lung capacity." If I were only able to hold my breath for 40s I would be deeply concerned and not congratulating myself. My take on their message, "Hey, we're making an app that helps boost your health with quick 5-minute activities." is that I'd receive something like a meditation + breathwork + gratitude journaling app which, in sum, accounts for five minutes of activity, not that their intent was to increase my lung capacity to five minutes.
- mbappe123 4y agoThe average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training. So that's why we took a 40 seconds test (as an average) and congratulate you.
- 2h 4y ago> I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade No one cares.
- clarle 4y agoI thought it was easier when I closed my eyes and didn’t think about the time (just treated it like meditation). If I had my eyes open and saw the countdown, I kept just trying to want to breathe.
- rurban 4y agoI can do 3:30 and I even submitted a short film about it to a local film festival. People still thought I cheated somehow. Everybody should be able to do 1:30 with some minor training. With extensive training 6m should be doable
- armitron 4y agoNo it's not, unless hyperventilating on pure oxygen (it's ridiculous that this is allowed in competition). I used to be a medical instructor for AIDA (now retired). Anything above 5 minutes is not simply a matter of training. One can put years into apnea walks and breath tables and never approach six minutes. Genetics (lung volume) and the body's ability to cope with increased CO2 levels are the critical factors.
- rurban 4y agoYou are right. I've looked up the apnoe training tables again, and the limit is 5 min indeed.
- mbappe123 4y agofrom our research, 6 minutes is actually hard, but not impossible. We took 40 seconds, because its an average a normal person can do. If it's something below, you need to be aware of doing some exercise or changing your smoking habits(if any) or consult a doctor.
- roamerz 4y agoWho is liable if I have a medical issue while taking your test? Nice sales tactic though!
- ecpottinger 4y agoYou! If you have a medical issue from just holding your breath, it means you had medical problems for a long time that had gotten worse and you never went to a doctor for. You would have all sorts of problems just doing regular things already, yet you did not pay attention to the warning signs.
- anonymousnotme 4y agoI only see blank page; however, this seems similar to BOLT score. However, there is something called the bolt score. Here is how to measure and where I learned about it (oxygen advantage book): https://oxygenadvantage.com/measure-bolt/ https://oxygenadvantage.com/measure-bolt/