How Long Can Humans Hold Their Breath?
4/21/202612 min
In today's episode, we explore why humans can only hold their breath for a limited amount of time ans what actually makes your body feel desperate to breathe again. We also look at why trained athletes can hold their breath much longer than most people, and what the world record is for holding your breath!
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJosh· Host0:00
How long can humans hold their breath? [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to Curious Kids Everyday. I'm Josh. How are you doing today? It's so good to hear from you. Hey, have you ever held your breath before? [playful music] Do you know what it means to hold your breath? It's when you take a breath [inhales] and then hold it in [exhales] and then let it out. You can't do it for very long, can you? That's because your body always needs fresh oxygen. Have you ever noticed that you can control your breathing, but if you stop thinking about breathing, your body just does it for you? Isn't that cool? That's because breathing is controlled in two ways. Part of your brain called the brain stem keeps track of things like oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood and makes sure you keep breathing without having to think about it at all. But you can still take control using other parts of your brain so that you can do things like take a really deep breath or hold your breath underwater. [water splashing] Now, it's really not a good idea to try and hold your breath for a