Heard a dive supervisor say 'breathe slow' and it finally clicked after 8 years

I was on a job last month in Galveston, working a bridge repair. The vis was maybe 2 feet and I was fighting current, burning through air like crazy. My supervisor came on the comms and just said 'breathe slow, you're scaring the fish.' I laughed at first, but then I actually paid attention to my breathing. I realized I was taking these shallow fast breaths because I was stressed about the current. Once I forced myself to take long, slow breaths, I used way less gas and felt calmer. The whole job went smoother after that. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice that took years to actually make sense in the water?

3 comments

3 Comments

uma_martinez1mo ago

You're saying 'scaring the fish' was funny but that slow breathing helped you calm down. I'll take the other side of this. Eight years in and you never figured out that gulping air like a freight train is inefficient? I've seen plenty of divers who talk about 'breathing slow' but then they go right back to sucking down their tank in twenty minutes when the current picks up. For me, that advice never clicked because I already knew I was wasting gas from nerves. The real trick isn't breathing slower, it's learning to drop your heart rate before you even hit the water. If you wait until you're already panicking, it's too late to fix it with a few deep breaths. You're just delaying the inevitable panic attack.

victor_jones991mo ago

Man, that hit close to home. I've been there too.

felix_williams711mo agoTop Commenter

So what do you actually do to drop your heart rate before you hit the water? Like, is there a specific warmup or routine that works for you?