Show HN: Can You Hold Your Breath for 40 Seconds? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Can You Hold Your Breath for 40 Seconds?

holdbreathfor40seconds.com

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Is 40 seconds... challenging for people? Sorry, I don't know, maybe this comes off as entitled.

I'm 33, a SWE that sits at a computer 8hrs/day for work and then another 4hrs/day for play. I absolutely could not run five miles, but I do go for walks. I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade.

This website was absolutely trivial for me to accomplish with zero prep. I wasn't even concerned about my ability when I started - I knew the answer to be "yes." implicitly.

Surely 40s is not an indicator of strong, healthy lungs for all ages?

When you do physical training, such as lung capacity training, you do not start at maximum. You go up.

If you scroll down the page you can see that they are trying to start an app with 5-minute health activities.

If their intent is to work me up to five minutes - great. As written, the app congratulates me after 40s and says, "Congratulations. You have good lung capacity." If I were only able to hold my breath for 40s I would be deeply concerned and not congratulating myself.

My take on their message, "Hey, we're making an app that helps boost your health with quick 5-minute activities." is that I'd receive something like a meditation + breathwork + gratitude journaling app which, in sum, accounts for five minutes of activity, not that their intent was to increase my lung capacity to five minutes.

The average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training. So that's why we took a 40 seconds test (as an average) and congratulate you.

> I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade

No one cares.

?? Surely my smoking habits are relevant to an app focused on lung health and lung capacity.

You don't think smoking impacts lung capacity?

Frequency is the determinant variable, on and off over a decade is too open ended to be relevant.

I agree I could've been more clear.

Less than an ounce of weed per month for five years. Then an ounce of weed per month, every month, for another 5 years. Two six month breaks. One three month break. Coughing up black stuff from my lungs wasn't unheard of.

I had genuine concern about the damage I was doing to my lungs and brain, so I started trying to quit more seriously about two years ago. Two of the six month breaks occurred in the last two years.

I've smoked maybe a gram in the past month.

I strongly feel that I should not be a shining bastion of good lung capacity.

>Coughing up black stuff from my lungs

At least switch to a vaporiser if you dont quit completely.

Same here. Non-smoker, but I'm in my mid-50s and [I like to think] fairly healthy. I too found that trivial, with no prep. It might be a bit more interesting if it carried on timing after the 40 seconds were up and you hit another button, when you finally had to breathe... or there was some kind of "grading" or league table. As it stands, it superficially appeals to our competitive streak. But is so easy, it's a bit of a disappointment.

Thanks for checking out. We took 40 seconds because, the average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training. So by taking 40 seconds, its something most people can do(if they have not much issues with health)

The purpose of 40 seconds is for most people to feel accomplished so they are incentivised to sign up. This is a landing page for an upcoming app.

Thank you for checking it out. You are right, we are working on something to make us healthy in the most easy way.

I just wish you’d made the challenge more difficult. I signed up and look forward to hearing from you. Getting notifications that are purely life-improving have a lot of potential. Too much advertising gets mixed in.

"Only geniuses can solve ..." wow I'm a genius. Always knew it.

Thank you for checking out our simple web page. We took '40 seconds test' after testing it with few people of different ages. Initially thought of doing 60 seconds, but it was hard for older people and for those with a sedentary lifestyle. So chose 40 seconds, which shows a good lung capacity than most people. Still it's hard for some people to meet that time, as you can see from some of the comments here.

Reading these comments has me a bit concerned... since I (a 37 year old relatively healthy person) could barely do the 40 seconds. I did it but it was rough at the end.

Thats quite a good marketing trick actually. Something that most people can do and probably would do. Getting them to buy in do the small excercise and then going to the sign up. Well done to whoever thought of this.

Thank you for checking out our small website.

Blacked out, woke up only to find myself subscribed to numerous activities

I can do 3:30 and I even submitted a short film about it to a local film festival. People still thought I cheated somehow.

Everybody should be able to do 1:30 with some minor training. With extensive training 6m should be doable

No it's not, unless hyperventilating on pure oxygen (it's ridiculous that this is allowed in competition). I used to be a medical instructor for AIDA (now retired). Anything above 5 minutes is not simply a matter of training.

One can put years into apnea walks and breath tables and never approach six minutes. Genetics (lung volume) and the body's ability to cope with increased CO2 levels are the critical factors.

You are right. I've looked up the apnoe training tables again, and the limit is 5 min indeed.

from our research, 6 minutes is actually hard, but not impossible. We took 40 seconds, because its an average a normal person can do. If it's something below, you need to be aware of doing some exercise or changing your smoking habits(if any) or consult a doctor.

Does holding your breath mean “don’t exhale” or “don’t inhale”?

Both.

unless you've inflated a balloon

Thank you for not choosing 50 seconds because 40 about killed me, and I am very stubborn.

Thanks for checking out the website :)

I thought it was easier when I closed my eyes and didn’t think about the time (just treated it like meditation). If I had my eyes open and saw the countdown, I kept just trying to want to breathe.

I can do about 2:36 when I tried it recently sitting at kitchen table, zero preparation besides few deep inhales/exhales.

I remember without any preparation in past I could do 50-70 seconds, so I was blown away by 2.5 minutes after many years, do those few deep inhales/exhales prior holding breath make that much difference?

I am not doing any sport or exercise, at best like <5mins per day, just walk everywhere and sit at computer most of the day.

Yes, it’s crucial in fact.

I remember reading about it, but care to explain simply why it helps?

Not an expert but my basic understanding is that the hyperventilating before holding your breath basically oxygenates your blood so that you can hold for longer.

No, that's because hyperventilation washes out CO2 so the CO2 alarm going off later than usual

I have ~always been able to hold my breath for multiple minutes. I am very un-fit and have been for most of my adult life.

Am I secretly the paragon of health?

For a CO2 tolerance test, you continuously exhale (a tiny trickle) to ensure no accidental inhale. See if that makes it harder for you.

When I was singing, I could hiss for 90 seconds without specific practice. For definitional purposes, a hiss was an unbroken, continuous, audible, 'sss' sound. This was an exercise our chorus director sometimes did with us.

I get bored more than anything else. Just did 70 seconds with one deep breath of prep. I have not sung in years.

Same. When I was a kid I would regularly go for over two minutes... I could get to three every now and then but barely. Haven't tried timing how long I can hold my breath in probably a decade. Unfortunately the site doesn't keep going so I tried with my phone, started squirming at 2:45 and made it to 3 minutes.

Nice! I was literally struggling just to hold it for 40 seconds. Of course, long ago I could easily hold my breath for 3 or 4 minutes. (A cousin of mine was able to do it for over six minutes or so. He could also dive to much greater depths than anyone else.)

I only see blank page; however, this seems similar to BOLT score. However, there is something called the bolt score. Here is how to measure and where I learned about it (oxygen advantage book):

https://oxygenadvantage.com/measure-bolt/

Who is liable if I have a medical issue while taking your test? Nice sales tactic though!

You! If you have a medical issue from just holding your breath, it means you had medical problems for a long time that had gotten worse and you never went to a doctor for. You would have all sorts of problems just doing regular things already, yet you did not pay attention to the warning signs.

pleased that yes I can but only just, what is the significance of 40seconds?

Lung capacity.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7995705/

Thanks, and interesting I had a feeling this was the reason, but a quick search didn't return much.

Clickbait to make you sign up for the app?

Oh if there's adverts and such on the page, Next DNS did it's job.

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