How long can YOU hold your breath? Take this video challenge and see what it means for your health
A video that tests how long someone can hold their breath is making waves on the internet.
Created by Zydus Hospital, in India, the test gives a person a score based on seven-second intervals.
If a person reaches a score of two, meaning they can hold out for 14 seconds, they have “normal lungs.”
Reaching five, or 35 seconds, means someone has “strong lungs.” Those who hit the 70-second mark and score a perfect 10 have “super lungs.”
A video testing how long a person can hold their breath has recently caused a stir on social media. It is unclear whether holding your breath for long periods of time is actually a signal of a person’s overall lung health (file photo)
It is unclear how Zydus arrived at these measures. There are many different estimates of how long a person should be able to hold their breath, and some suggest that a person’s average time falls between 30 seconds and 2 minutes.
Whether this actually measures a person’s overall lung health is also uncertain. But previous research has shown that smokers cannot hold their breath for as long as their peers.
It’s unclear what part of lung health affects how long a person can hold their breath, if any.
Someone can train themselves to hold their breath longer. By repeatedly testing themselves, they can increase their lungs’ tolerance to retain carbon dioxide.
Navy Seals undergo this type of training, as they must reach the point where they can stay underwater for two to three minutes at a time.
There may also be a link between smoking and shortening the time a person can hold their breath.
An Indian study published in 2017 found that nonsmokers could hold their breath for an average of 46.61 seconds, compared to 34.85 seconds for those who used cigarettes. This is a difference of 33 percent.
While smoking is widely regarded as bad for lung health, the researchers could only speculate that breath-hold time had some impact on a person’s lung health.
Doctors usually use a spirometry test to measure a person’s lung health.
In these studies, a person has a clip attached to their nose and a tube placed in front of their mouth.
Then, breathing only through the mouth, the amount of air inhaled and exhaled is recorded by a machine.
This is used to see if a person is collecting enough oxygen with each breath and if the air sacs in the lungs responsible for collecting the particles are doing their job.
Gathering enough oxygen with each breath is important, as it fuels the function of every organ in the body.