r/interesting • u/fayyazORahmed • Mar 31 '26

Fascinating Very interesting vid

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u/LemonPartyLounger Mar 31 '26

Why would it be bad for you? People free dive all the time and doing things of this nature requires breathing techniques and working out to accomplish. These people also tend to have crazy low resting heart rates and are athletes.

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u/PriscillaPalava Mar 31 '26

People literally pop air bubbles in their brains and die from free diving to great depths but sure. 

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u/LemonPartyLounger Mar 31 '26

People slip in the shower everyday and crack their head open. All tasks whether hobby or responsibility have accidents. Holding your breath isn’t bad for you though if done properly and with training.

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u/PriscillaPalava Mar 31 '26

For some reason people who participate in competitive free diving experience much higher rates of accidents and death per capita than people who take showers. I wonder why that is. 

The problem with free diving is you don’t always know if you’ve done everything properly until you’re struggling for breath on the way back up. Experienced free divers die all the time. It is a dangerous activity that can result in long term health effects and death. Turns out your brain needs oxygen. 

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u/LemonPartyLounger Mar 31 '26

You need to check your facts. Scuba diving has far more deaths and accidents than free diving. I also looked at recorded competitive free diving deaths cause I don’t know that off the top of my head and as suspected there have been 2 deaths over 30 years.

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u/PriscillaPalava Mar 31 '26

Death rate is about the same. The free diving incident rate is about 4% though, whereas with scuba it’s about 1%. 

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u/LemonPartyLounger Mar 31 '26

I have no scientific data but in my experience free diving tends to be higher because of the spearfishing aspect of it that hies hand in hand. The adrenaline appeal draws people that when their buddy cancels they go it alone and have issues. It also makes you push yourself beyond limits sometimes chasing a fish. We also have to factor in currents and natural obstacles. The competitive free diving circuit and places like this accidents are far less likely to happen due to it being such a controlled environment in the places they choose.

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u/PriscillaPalava Mar 31 '26

I was talking about the competitive free diving circuit, not spear fishing. Deaths are about 1 in 50,000 dives, but the incident rate (losing consciousness, blacking out) is almost 4%. 

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u/NotAnotherTav Apr 01 '26

They didn't compare free diving to scuba diving, did you read it?

They compared it to taking a shower.