The other is Air Consumption. At the end of the dive, you see divers sneakily checking other diver's gauges to see who came back with the most air because it seems to be readily believed that if you breathe less, you must be a better diver!
Common sense will tell you that this is simply not true and, if you are basing your ability as a diver on the amount of gas you come back with at the end of a dive, you probably want to have a look at yourself and re-assess. Comfort and ability are factors that contribute to breathing rates but, let's face it... if you are a 6 foot lump of muscle you are going to use more air than the 5 foot nothing waif you are buddied with.
1. Improve your Fitness
When we do anything that raises our heart rate, we increase our Basal Metabolic Rate (the amount of energy used at complete rest). Whether we are walking, swimming, in the gym or Scuba Diving, more energy is required by our bodies to complete these tasks.
To produce this energy, your body has to metabolise Oxygen, which is harvested in the lungs from every breath we take. So, when we are doing anything physical, we breathe more in order to provide the body with more oxygen to keep up with the demand.
A person who is unfit may find that the exercise required for Scuba Diving can leave them breathing quite heavily as the body works to pump enough Oxygen-rich blood to the muscles that need it.
Breathing Rate = higher than it needs to be!
A higher level of fitness in a diver, allows the whole process to be more efficient by allowing more Oxygen Rich blood to be pumped with each heartbeat. This efficiency means the diver can achieve the same level of Oxygen reaching the muscles needing it, with a much lower breathing rate.
Improve your general fitness to reduce your breathing rate.
To produce this energy, your body has to metabolise Oxygen, which is harvested in the lungs from every breath we take. So, when we are doing anything physical, we breathe more in order to provide the body with more oxygen to keep up with the demand. 2. Weighting and Trim
Both come under the same heading because, much of the time, one will affect the other.
The biggest cause of high gas consumption we see is Over Weighting. Let's look at how this works...
Consider your local swimming pool. What uses more energy is said pool... swimming through the water or trying to run through the water?
Of course, trying to run through waist deep water will be more energy consuming because you are trying to move a larger surface area against all that resistance in water. This is why we want to be as streamlined as possible when we scuba dive. We are reducing the surface area moving against the water resistance so we are hydro-dynamic.
When we are overweighted, it affects our streamlining in 2 ways. Firstly, it tends to pull down the lower half of our bodies, meaning we are in more of a running position than swimming. This increases resistance and makes it more difficult to move, requiring more energy and heavier breathing.
Secondly, with too much weight, we need to compensate by adding more air to the buoyancy control device. This makes us bigger in the water than we need to be, increasing resistance and requiring more energy and heavier breathing.
See our blog all about Weighting for more information
3. Use the Correct Dive Equipment for the Dive
Prior to going diving, asses the kind of dive you will be making and select the appropriate dive gear for that dive.
For example, if you are diving a wreck known to have strong currents, don't think your pool fins are going to be much use. You want proper open water fins with a good rigid blade that will give you the most efficient fin stroke. More efficiency makes the finning easier and will help to maintain a lower breathing rate.
Another example comes down to temperature. If you get cold easily, there is no point diving in 18 degrees in a 3mm wetsuit. Invest in the exposure suit you need to stay warm underwater. Feeling cold will leave your body trying to generate heat from other sources such as shivering, which requires more energy and will affect your gas consumption.
The final dive kit tip doesn't really affect breathing rate but can alter the amount of gas you use from your cylinder. I am talking about the condition of your diving equipment. Make sure your equipment is in good working order and any leaks have been fixed, o-rings changed and regulators (especially alternates) are not wasting your gas by slowly leaking it out into the water.
4. Improve your Diving Skills
When we first learn to dive, we do tend to use more air and this is because we are busy concentrating on things like our buoyancy and holding a stop or not bouncing along the bottom.
Buoyancy is one of the most important skills you will have as a diver and it is important to make sure it is perfected to the point where you don't have to think about it anymore. You are neutral and in control at all times and you can even multi-task without losing it.
Once you don't have to spend so much energy concentrating on basics, you will find your breathing rate does decrease.
This leads me on to number 5...
5. Relax and Chill Out
There is nothing more likely to help start your dive the wrong way than stress and anxiety. When we Scuba dive, we need to be relaxed and prepared and this comes from all the previous 4 points but you can start the preparations before you even get in the water.
Get to the Dive Centre early. Make sure you have plenty of time to get all your diving equipment
together so you can make sure everything is there and nothing is forgotten. If anything is broken or not where it should be, you will have time to remedy the fact without stress.
Plan your dive yourself or at least take an active part in it! Knowing what is going to happen on your dives will help you to relax and is a lot less stressful than relying blindly on someone else. It is comforting to know exactly where you are on a dive and thereby, where you are in relation to gas remaining, safety stops etc. Don't be afraid to ask questions about the dive if someone else is guiding. You will get much more out of your dives this way.
On the dive itself, swim slowly and pace yourself so you can conserve energy and breathing gas.
It is what it is!
These are tips to help reduce your breathing rate underwater but, at the end of the day, you breathe
what you breathe and the gas is there to be used. If your guide says s/he needs to turn the dive when someone gets to 100 bar and that someone is you then you must let the guide know. It is much worse to be the one running out of air underwater than to tell the truth and turn the dive. Your guide will appreciate it and so will the other divers in the group.
Never lie about how much air you have left underwater, you are putting both yourself and your buddy at risk.
Finally, never Skip Breathe. This is one of the worst things you can do for your health and actually makes you breathe more heavily in the long run... at worst you can end up with a Pneumothorax (popped lung) or dead!
So relax, improve your competence and confidence in the water by practicing your dive skills and being correctly weighted with decent, working equipment and try to stay reasonably fit for diving and you will see an improvement.
