What happens when you hold your breath?

Oxygen is to our bodies what gas is to our cars. It's a fuel used to help generate the means for everything that we do, all the metabolism, all the cellular function.

Just like your car won’t run if you don’t put gas in it, your body won’t function if you’re not giving it oxygen.

That’s why it’s never a good idea to try to hold your breath without a good reason. While you might not cause any long-term damage, you could still hurt yourself.

How long is it safe for the average person to hold their breath?

One minute is probably the limit. You might be able to hold your breath for 90 seconds and not get into trouble. But most people will likely hit the safety threshold somewhere between 1 minute and 90 seconds.

What happens to the body when we hold our breath for longer?

The two organs that are the most sensitive to oxygen are your brain and your heart. If they're deprived of oxygen, they start to become dysfunctional.

The brain

When the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, it basically goes into backup or hibernation mode, and it shuts down. It diverts to critical operations. Think of a computer that doesn't have enough memory to perform a task. It reduces its functions to the bare minimum just to keep moving.

People will likely pass out or faint. That can become problematic if they're underwater or if they’re in a place where they could hurt themselves if they fall, for example, and hit their head.

The heart

If you’re deprived of oxygen for a period of time, your heart may also be affected. The heart muscle is very sensitive to oxygen, and just a few minutes without oxygen can lead to a heart attack.

Most people will pass out or faint before they experience heart injury.

How does oxygen get to our brain and heart?

When you breathe air into the lungs, your blood picks it up and takes it throughout the body. Think of the red blood cells in your blood as delivery trucks. The oxygen gets loaded onto those trucks, which drive it to its destination and drops it off into the organ.

If you don’t breathe in oxygen, those deliveries don’t happen.

Why can some people safely hold their breath for longer periods?

You can train your body to hold your breath for longer periods, but it’s not something that happens quickly. Swimmers and divers, musicians and illusionists take time to train.

You also may hear about divers, for example, who breathe in 100% oxygen before they go underwater. That's a bit of a trick. When you and I breathe in the regular atmosphere, we’re breathing in 21% oxygen. If you breathe in 100% oxygen, you’re stocking up your body with extra oxygen so you have an excess supply for a short period.

People who live at higher altitudes also can sometimes hold their breath for longer. Their bodies adjust to the high altitude by producing more red blood cells, so they have more of those delivery trucks to take oxygen throughout the body. Again, this is something that happens over time.

Why is it unsafe to hold your breath for long periods?

There's a good chance that if you hold your breath long enough, you could pass out, and the falling or the fainting episode is typically how people get themselves injured, hit their head, or fall and break their arm.

Most people sort of tap out before they get themselves into trouble with vital organs.

This includes toddlers. So, parents of children who hold their breath during temper tantrums can rest easy. They're not going to hurt themselves.

Is there any advantage for the average person to practice holding their breath longer?

There’s no advantage to being able to hold your breath longer. You won’t be able to run a marathon more efficiently or have a better workout. And it doesn’t increase your lung capacity.

There are breathing techniques, like box breathing or rhythmic breathing, that are beneficial for anxiety management, stress management and mindset tuning. But breath-holding does not offer any benefit.