The divers can dive at great depth under water (the current record is 214 meters) without breathing apparatus. Champions can hold his breath for a very long time, a record among women — nine minutes, among men — eleven. Scholars and practicing freediving, as a rule, do not intersect. But upon closer inspection, this sport is almost impossible that people can dive so deep. And they can.
Without any support, if only to breathe the air, you can even conquer Everest. Except that the protective clothing needed. It is about nine kilometers above the sea level. But when you dive into the ocean, everything changes much faster due to the rapid pressure change.
Lost only 10 meters to the ocean, you will feel two times more pressure than if you stood on the surface. And for every 10 meters further you will get another atmosphere of pressure. The body, anatomy and physiology change significantly, working in these conditions, so dive deep in the ocean water is uniquely challenging event. In your body not only contains compressed air space, but also the behavior of gases in the bloodstream is changing, however, and the function of the nervous system.
In the early days of freediving physiologists were convinced that the people will not be able to go deeper than 30-40 meters. Science would not allow that to happen. Scientists drew the graphics, put all knowledge about the human body and the influence of pressure on him and said, “Your lungs will be crushed and you’ll be spitting blood at a depth of 40 meters. Located just below he-who-can”.
Of course, it is not persuaded freedivers — and they were able to circumvent these theoretical boundaries. How? To this question tried to answer Martina Amati, freediver:
“The physical side is definitely there, but mostly it’s all in the head. It is the state of mind in freediving is incredible. It is not about your physical abilities and the mental and mental preparation. Forget everything you know and everything that makes you good or bad. It is a liberating process. Equally it should also be fully aware of where your body is and where you are, at the same time”.
At a depth of 10 meters we need more oxygen than at a depth of 100 meters, because the water pressure makes the oxygen more powerful. It turns out, the most important thing in deep dive is the last stage of growth, when there is a risk that the pressure drops and the oxygen in the tissues will suddenly fall.
Also hard at the start. On the surface and in the first few meters of submersion, the water pushes the body. When you start to dive, the water pressure pushes you back to the surface, and only at the depth of 13-20 meters dynamics of change.
“The body begins to sink like a stone. We call this part of the free fall, when the freediver completely stops moving. It is the most beautiful part of the dive. When you come back from dives and make the first breath, each time the breath as the first. For me it’s like being born again. I see water as the womb”.
The diver experiences a change in the chemistry of the blood flow because the increased pressure allows the gases to dissolve easily and effectively to show their effect. Nitrogen, which is dissolved in the blood acts as a drug, and you are slightly drunk already at a depth of 30-40 meters. If located below, excess nitrogen will cause euphoria.
When the freediver plunges deeper and deeper, he squeezes those last remnants of oxygen in the bloodstream and trying to survive on a much lower oxygen level than ordinary people are accustomed to. You enter in such a strange balance when the pressure is giving you to breath and yet does not kill. This is a very delicate balance, which requires a very strange and not very clear physiological feats that the person was still alive. Records dive freedivers absurd: it’s not even tens or hundreds of meters.
We can only roughly imagine how it happens. No, it’s not entirely a mystery — but we understand. The divers would become an interesting object for attention of scientists, because their physiological activity is associated with anoxia and hypoxia, which is not good, but is an integral part of the experience freedivers. Freediving is impossible to imagine without it. This is the gray area between life and death when it can happen anywhere. In medicine, these areas are not studied for fun — but the people who put their lives on the line, doing freediving, present the opportunity to explore.
The divers break the laws of science, and we don’t understand how they do it
Ilya Hel