#141: The Science of Freediving and Holding Your Breath With James Nestor

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2015

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

When I was a kid, one of my heroes was Harry Houdini. Among his many feats, he could hold his breath for an incredibly long time. I was intrigued by the topic, so I started researching and found the book Deep by James Nestor. It's about the sport and science of freediving, which involves taking one deep breath and diving hundreds of feet under water. From how human bodies react to being under water, to tips about holding your breath longer, this is a fascinating podcast that you don't want to miss.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're at McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
0:18.6	So when I was a kid, one of my heroes was Harry Houdini.
0:21.4	And he was known for a lot of his feats of escape and getting out of the handcuffs and
0:25.0	straight jackets and things like that.
0:26.9	But he could also hold his breath for an incredibly long time because sometimes his tricks
0:32.1	required him to be underwater for a long time.
0:34.5	So I think his record was a little over three minutes is how long you could hold his
0:37.2	breath.
0:38.2	Anyways, a few weeks ago I did some research and published an article about how to hold
0:41.6	your breath for a really long time inspired by Harry Houdini.
0:44.5	And in my research I came across a book that was written by my guest today.
0:48.5	It's called Deep, Free Diving, Renegade Science and what the ocean tells us about ourselves
0:53.0	and it was by James Nester.
0:54.8	And in this book, James follows a group of Renegade athletes and scientists who use free
1:01.1	diving as both a competition sport as well as a tool to do scientific research.
1:07.3	And so what free diving is is you basically just take one big breath and go down underwater
1:13.2	at great depths all in one breath and get back up.
1:16.4	The competitive sport, some of these people are going down 300 feet on one breath and then
1:20.3	in the research aspect they're using free diving to get up close and personal with whales
1:25.2	and dolphins just with their breath.
1:27.3	They're not using submarines because that spooks out the animals.
1:30.2	Anyways, in his research James discovered that in a lot of ways our body is designed to
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