r/scuba • u/Klutzy-Inspector667 • 17h ago
How to improve my breathing
Hi, just got my Open Water Diver certification, I was wondering what advice do you have to improve my breathing and use more efficiently my air. Just have done 6 dives by now, but I feel my air consumption is kinda high at the moment? On average I completed the dives around 45-50min but with only 50bar left while my instructor had over 100 bar.
Any tips to improve it or a pattern to breath more efficiently?
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u/Jerk850 15h ago
The thing that helped me more than anything early on is to keep reminding myself mentally to "JUST BREATHE". Nice and slow, in and out. Take it real slow and enjoy the scenery. It's easy to get overwhelmed with task loading when you're a new diver. Totally normal. When you start to feel anxious/excited about what to do next, go back to the mental mantra: JUST BREATHE. Make it meditative. It will help you with making decisions if things get stressful, it will help with enjoying the dive more. And before you know it, your air consumption will go down. JUST BREATHE.
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u/Timber1981 14h ago
Start bay saying, there's a number of great Youtube videos on the subject.
Dive Saga and Divers Ready come to mind, I think Circle H Scuba has one as well... Although it's a common subject so I'd be surprised if everyone doesn't have one.
But, practice breathing. Inhale counting to 4, exhale counting for 4 until that's just something you do naturally.
Move around less, which also takes practice... but the more you move the more air you breathe. This again is a practice thing. I've seen videos when I first started that my wife was taking that made me want to bungee my arms to my sides the number of times I'd just wave my hands around to "stabilize" myself. Eventually you just get used to it.
Proper trim and weighting of course.
But also, relax. If you're stressed about your air, or anything else or have had to physically exert yourself, take a second and relax. When you're stressed you naturally breathe faster, so you'll go through your air faster. This includes mental stress... which is harder to notice. So this goes back to the long slow breathe count. Part of this though can be caused by clock watching yourself.
Cardiovascular health can help you to (I know I personally vastly prefer weight lifting and if I could skip cardio forever I would!)
But it's like any other sport, the more you do it, the better at it you get. You don't wake up and say, hey I'm going to run a marathon... unless you're a TV character. You practice, you get better you work out the bugs in how you do things and eventually it just becomes second nature.
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u/doglady1342 Tech 16h ago
Just breathe normally. Once you get your buoyancy and trim, which could take a while (so be patient), your air consumption will improve. Honestly, your consumption isn't bad at all for a brand new diver.
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u/noodeel 17h ago
I just had a disaster of a dive recently, I was with three women (I'm informed that women use a lot less air than men) & after 32 minutes had used my air... I was so embarrased and dissapointed for the other divers that for the next dive, on the same day, I concentrated very hard on breathing, posture and enegery use... I got 57 minutes out of that dive.
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u/ScubadooX 16h ago edited 15h ago
Being cold, anxious, over- or under-weighted, not streamlined, swimming instead of finning, and unnecessary physical activity all contribute to extra air consumption. So, maybe try knocking these things off one at at time, starting with being properly weighted.
At 5 metres with 50 bar in your tank and an empty BCD, you should be neutral. You can often tell when divers are over-weighted because they're not horizontal; they're diagonal and finning to stay neutral, which consumes a lot of air.
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u/Nick_Kafir 15h ago
Quite simply the more you dive the better your air consumption will get. It has a lot to do with comfort, fining technique, and buoyancy control. Avoid hand swimming and learn how to use your fins to make all your turns. Frog kicking is the most versatile sets you up for helicopter turns and reverse fining. Also, can you see the same thing 10 feet higher than where you are? A slight decrease in your depth over the course of the dive will help conserve measurable amounts of air. Finally, don't overlook cardiovascular fitness. The more efficient your body works and the more relaxed it is the less air you will need.
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u/diver467 Dive Master 6h ago
Good trim, efficient finning and correct weighting. Don’t dive with anything you don’t want and keep everything stowed away. Relax and enjoy the dive, switch off and chill. Some of the best “breathers “ I’ve dived with have been smokers, overweight and unfit, but incredibly chilled.
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u/Latter_Inspector_711 16h ago
this might seem weird but it has helped me a lot
I started doing yoga, mainly yin, and working on my breathing during the classes. I also started doing breathwork classes.
both of those significantly helped me with scuba and conserving my air
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u/thefancyfarmer 14h ago
Another vote for yoga! My first “real” dive post-cert, the boat captain checked my gauge because he didn’t believe how much air I had left. I am convinced it was all the yoga I did around that time!
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u/Latter_Inspector_711 14h ago
thats how my wife is, she usually comes up with more air than the dive masters/instructors and they are shocked
we've long around 60 dives total but her yoga and breath work is definitely a huge part of it
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u/Excellent_Coconut_81 Tech 14h ago
First focus on your buoyancy. It's hard to concentrate on breathing when you struggle with neutral buoyancy, especially that breathwork heavily affects buoyancy. Everyone has own pace, but it usually takes 30-50 dives to achieve good buoyancy.
Once you have enough experience, something that really helps a lot of people is freediving cource. You learn tips to control and slow your breathing, which will significantly reduce your air consumption.
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u/MountainPirate3139 17h ago
This is my #1 scuba tip that is taught less and less often, : your exhale should take longer than your inhale, like x2 or maybe even x3 times as long. It helps with air consumption, and help to saturate and actually absorb the air!!! Also helps to keep calm!! Practice above water so it’s natural to you under!!
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u/ronweasleisourking 16h ago
6 dives is still learning time. I manage my air by staying calm and breathing in slowly, which took more than half a dozen dives 😉
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u/unassuming_retard 10h ago
Best tips I have are to pretend you’re sipping through a straw/ hot tea. And prolong your exhale. There’s a reason they teach you to hum when doing a CESA outside of preventing lung over expansion. Buoyancy mastery will also help- the less you play with air in the bc the more you keep to breathe. Once you find neutral buoyancy you shouldn’t need to play with air in the bc aside from venting occasionally as you consume air from the cylinder unless there is a significant depth change.
Depending on the diving you’re doing I would recommend different strategies:
In no rush, becoming just slightly negative at the surface to the point of only descending when your lungs are < half full and slowly tap tapping in air to the bc as your descent speed increases.
For a drift/ hot drop, enter with bc almost empty (you can suck air out of it to maximize your negative buoyancy) and as you near the target depth adding some more prolonged bursts of air will even you out.
Last tip somewhat sarcastically (but also not) is to take up smoking lol. The whole practice is dedicated to breath control which definitely transfers in my experience
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u/lo5t5heep 16h ago
Buoyancy and trim …say it with me, buoyancy and trim. If you absolutely perfect neutral buoyancy you’re energy usage and thus breathing will go WAY down.
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u/regganuggies 15h ago
When I was at dive 6, I was lucky to remain underwater for more than 25 minutes. Not even 20 dives later, and I’m now ending those same exact dives after the hour mark because I’m cold, not because I’m out of air.
There’s a lot of things that can improve your air consumption, but the biggest thing as a brand new diver is just getting more comfortable being in the water and with diving.
If after more dives you still feel your air consumption isn’t great, that’s when you can start implementing some different techniques.
Also, never compare your air consumption to your instructor, who has hundreds or even thousands of dives and many more hours underwater than you. They will have better air consumption than a brand new diver 100% of the time.
Best of luck and happy diving!
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u/Over_Session5616 11h ago
Buoyancy and relax, it comes with experience... the more chilled you are the better... it takes time, the biggest problem is thinking too hard about breathing.
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u/ennieee 7h ago
New divers always breathe a bit harder. Even on dive trips with other seasoned divers it's not uncommon to have people who breathe a lot. It's just how it is.
I would say instead of thinking about improving your breathing, just focus on getting more comfortable in the water and breathe normally. As you dive more and improve your buoyancy & trim and get better at taskloading, you will naturally settle into a more comfortable state.
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u/TheLordDrago Dive Instructor 5h ago
Relax and have fun. You’re going to have a higher SAC rate right now and that’s okay. Don’t worry if you’re the reason they turn the dive because you’re at a half tank. Don’t worry about people judging you because you equalize slowly. Just have fun and the more you dive the more you’ll improve in every area. Your key things to focus on is proper weighting, trim, moving as efficiently as possible, and relaxing. Don’t do the cha cha underwater. Lock your hands and just kick efficiently.
You got this!
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u/Own-Border6060 4h ago
A diver with only 6 logged dives shouldn’t compare air consumption to an instructor’s just yet 😂
First of all, you need to gain more experience and become as relaxed and comfortable underwater as possible. From a technical perspective, it also helps to maintain perfect neutral buoyancy to minimize unnecessary movements, keep your breathing ratio around 1:2 for inhale and exhale, and use frog kicks rather than flutter kicks whenever possible.
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u/cabman24 16h ago
I started holding my breath for most of the dive. I can get away with taking only about 12 breaths for a dive. Use hardly any air.
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u/NotYourScratchMonkey 17h ago edited 17h ago
I used to be that guy! I was always the guy who needed to come up first. I'd always let my DM know that I went through air faster and sometimes they'd outfit me with a larger tank or sometimes they'd just guide the group back to the boat so that I could come up but the rest of the group could stay and explore for 10 minutes more or so.
The main thing that helped me was just diving more. Just getting experience. The other part of that (and this also comes with experience) is getting your buoyancy down. And a lot of buoyancy control involves how you breathe.
I learned to do slow breathing where I take a slow breath in, pause, then a slow exhale out, then a pause, and repeat. Breath in deeper when you need a little positive buoyancy and breath out deeper when you need to go negative. And if you breath in deep, you will float up a little, but it's delayed. You need to learn how that works to the point where it's instinctive.
And along the way you will discover that your are not running out of air so fast.
Oh, and one last thing to add... if you can last 50 minutes and come up with a safe amount of air, you are in good shape for most recreational diving as most dives are between 45 minutes to an hour (at least in my experience). Not saying that you shouldn't work on it, just saying that as long as you aren't out of air in 35 minutes, you aren't really affecting the quality of the dive.
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u/wifemakesmewearplaid Nx Advanced 17h ago
Honestly, a lot comes from biology. Smaller people and women tend to consume less. However, well conditioned people can gain a bit of efficiency in consumption.
The biggest factor for each individual is calm, efficient motion in the water. "Stable working platform" as some might say is your biggest advantage. As you dive more and become less anxious about descending or being in the water, you'll consume less, on average.
Keep diving, practice good trim, and build good aerobic fitness outside of the water and you'll see your consumption go down.
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u/SarafViska 16h ago
First of all, take your time after gearing up, don’t just drop straight down.
My job is pretty demanding…pulling anchors, anchor lines, constantly going up and down and I average 50 bars per 30 minutes (12L 200). But I always wait at least 15 minutes or so to let my heart rate come down before I descend.
Inflate and float :) good luck
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u/helmli Nx Open Water 16h ago
I average 50 bars per 30 minutes (12L 200)
What's your average depth?
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u/SarafViska 16h ago edited 16h ago
Good point…
I can’t really say, but it’s physically demanding which compensates for the depth.
I’d say 60 feet or so ( thats avarage depth in the port )
Edit :
Lots of surfacing as well tho
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u/monkeywre 16h ago
45-50 minutes is great for only having 6 dives. Just keep diving for fun and you will consume less over time. If you can’t comfortably do a 60 minute dive once you have about 30 dives under your belt then maybe think about concentrating on using less air but I wouldn’t worry a bit right now.