Scuba Dive for Longer by Practising Yoga
Scuba diving for longer periods of time requires good breathing techniques to avoid chewing up your oxygen quickly. If you’re a beginner, then yoga will come in very useful as novice divers tend to be a lot more panicky in the water, chewing through their oxygen supply in a matter of minutes. For advanced divers, practicing yoga will make your dives reach new depths and therefore provide you with an overall better scuba diving experience.
Increasing your overall fitness level is certainly one way of gaining more time below sea level, however, due to the nerve racking nature of scuba diving, even the most advanced divers can find themselves breathing a little too fast at times. Yoga counter acts this by teaching you the right way to inhale and exhale, focusing on the connection between body and mind. If practiced regularly, yoga increases deep, slower breathing that helps calm the mind. Yoga also helps to strengthen and stretch your muscles and lungs which is important when scuba diving.
Controlled & Deep Breathing
When you inhale you draw fresh oxygen into your lungs, and when you exhale your lungs create carbon dioxide. This exchange happens on a microscopic level, deep within our lungs. While on land we typically use a fraction of our overall lung capacity and therefore our lungs capabilities are not fully utilized. Diving below water can mimic this shallower above water breathing, especially with more inexperienced divers as they are still getting used to feeling the pressure of being underwater, leading to faster ‘mouth only’ breaths.
The answer is to inhale deeper and to fully exhale. Your body has a natural impulse to breathe when there is a build-up of carbon dioxide, so when you learn to fully exhale you push more carbon dioxide which automatically encourages your body to breathe more slowly. Slower breathing also increases your focus, so when you are faced with sudden changes below the surface that may trigger panic, you can remain calm, enabling you to overcome any obstacles with a clearer mindset.
Ujjayi is a technique in yoga that promotes controlled and measured breathing. When translated, Ujjayi means ‘expand successfully’. It encourages the control of deep breathing as they work best in conjunction with each other. This deep, slow and controlled method puts your body in a state of mental alertness and allows you to effectively use your oxygen when scuba diving as you are not desperate for air.
Conclusion
Although yoga can benefit your overall scuba diving experience, these techniques can also prove to be beneficial when faced with everyday challenges above water too. See you in the water!
