Hypoxic swimming?

Question

I heard about this, you swim as far as you can under water on a full breath. When you have to come up for air, you exhale your breath, take another, exhale fully and swim as far as you can on empty lungs. Will this kill brain cells due to the lack of oxygen? I know it might sound dumb, but i was just curious

Answer 1

I don't really know,but this is what I've heard. The reason most people cannot hold their breath is at about a minute or two, a searing pain comes into your lungs while holding your breath. With breathing exercises and overcoming this searing pain, you can learn to hold your breath for a good four or five minutes. The record is seventeen minutes, held by David Blaine (on Oprah). He breathed pure oxygen for a while before accomplishing his feat. He lost weight to lessen the need of oxygen and did breathing meditation to slow his heart rate so it'd need less oxygen. So i don't believe that would kill brain cells.