I'm Going to Ask You to Hold Your Breath

The oldest extreme sport in the world is freediving.

Freedivers fill their lungs with air, hold their breath, and submerge themselves in the ocean. With no breathing apparatus, they sink to incredible depths, before returning to the surface.

Professional freedivers grab a heavy metal sledge and plummet as much as 200 meters into the blackness. The pressure on their body is immense; 20 times the atmospheric pressure of the surface. It’s astounding.

The ocean is their proving ground.

The only other people to experience that crushing weight are the guys' given concrete shoes by Al Capone.

In the first few minutes, freedivers experience extreme relaxation. As the seconds tick and become minutes, they have to train themselves to overcome their fundamental desire to breathe.

It takes calm determination to master the body’s primitive instinct to take on air. It is a remarkable thing. Preparation, training and strength of resolve can override our survival mechanisms.

The Analogy

Our brains, like our lungs, are fragile, toxins damage them. They won’t work without glucose energy. They are susceptible to inflammation and they die without oxygen.

The emotional limits of the brain — our thoughts — are equally fragile.

Toxic experiences corrode our minds, we falter without nourishment; we are sensitive to potent emotions: anger, depression, anxiety, animosity, and overpowering desires.

Stress impacts our daily lives: Going to school for the first time, being bullied, failing exams, rejections, being lied to, earning enough money, marriage, children, moving house, illness, retirement and our inevitable death.

Life is our proving ground.

Free Thinking

Free Thinking can help you through life.

Freedivers overcome their environment through preparation, training and strength of resolve. You can do the same with your mind.

When a freediver erupts from the water, the first thing she does is exhale.

The lungs are incredible organs. Not only do they provide the body with oxygen, but they rid it of contaminants. Exhaling acidic toxins — carbon dioxide — balances the body before the lungs take the air it needs.

Free thinking follows the same process.

Preparation

Breathe — learn to breathe.

Soldiers in battle can face the most punishing situations. The British Special Air Service (SAS) and American Navy Seals teach their soldiers how to breathe. When these soldiers find themselves in critical situations, their bodies can go into fight-flight-or-freeze mode.

They teach them to master their breathing.

Concentrate on breathing in through the nose while counting to six.

Hold that breath while counting seven.

Exhale through the mouth while counting to eight.

Repeat until the mind returns to calm.

The aim is to settle your natural instincts, compose your thoughts and remain in control.

Take a deep breath, then another, in through the nose. Expand your stomach and feel your lungs fill and hold. Ease that air out slower than you take it in. Within one or two breaths, you stop reacting to your emotions and clarity of thought returns.

Practice

Freedivers practice holding their breath, they train their bodies to shut down. It takes years of habituation for them to develop the capacity to withstand the pressures they put on their body.

We come into conflict daily. We get annoyed by corrupt politicians, rude people, misdirected sneezes or even inanimate objects.

“Why won’t this damn thing work?”

The trick is not to let these emotions smother you. You need to distance your logical thinking from their effects.

Your personal feelings are often automatic knee-jerk reactions. You should not allow these to influence your mood. The breathing exercise helps you take a step back. It allows you time to clear your head of toxic influences and think.

When someone disagrees with you and vents a strong opposing opinion, your natural reaction is to go on the defensive or the attack. What does it serve?

A free thinker would do this:

• Breathe, expel the negative thoughts, and stay calm.
• Assess the opinion, not the person.
• Realise it does not affect their position or mood.

Only then would a free thinker decide:

• I need more information.
• Accept some of that is true.
• Conclude none of it helps you.

Having control of your thoughts means others cannot affect how you feel. Seeking more information invariably weakens the other person’s position.

Accepting some of what has been said might be true shrinks the negative energy until it vanishes. Responding, “Thank you, some of that is true,” dissolves the person’s force without letting it affect you. You might think only 1% is true.

Concluding none of what has been said helps you allows you to ask, “How does that help me?” This is another statement that dissolves a person’s hostility. You don’t have to ask, you can walk away.

Strength of resolve

It takes courage, willpower, and purpose to dive into the depths of the ocean.

On 14 June 2007 in Spetses, Greece, Herbert Nitsch had all three when he set the record for deepest no-limit free dive — 214m.

The longest any human has held their breath was 24 minutes and 3 seconds by Aleix Segura Vendrell of Spain. He did it in a pool after breathing pure oxygen and then lying completely still.

Nitsch and Vendrell showed incredible reserves of single-minded determination to achieve these feats of endurance.

Freethinkers have to develop the same control over their minds. It takes discipline and self-control to overcome your natural reactions. Expel toxic thoughts. These have no place in a freethinker’s mind.

This allows you time to assess. Only then can you gulp the pure oxygen of clarity. Let your brain absorb clean thoughts in the same way your lungs send oxygen to your blood. It replenishes you.

Final Thoughts

We often ignore Free Thinking, we go with our gut instinct. We accept information without evidence. We let our prejudices and biased thinking rule our heads. Staying calm feels like too much hard work.

Stop. Breathe. Examine what people are telling you. Ask, ‘is it true,’ ‘do they have evidence,’ ‘what are their motivations?’

Free Thinking allows you to make up your own mind and avoid the influence of preconceptions, prejudice or misinformation.

Don’t let others poison your mood. Expel those thoughts and feelings. These external influences are like the atmospheric pressures a freediver experiences.

Take a breath. Clear your mind. Resolve to dive deeper.

Free Thinking will help you keep calm and get to the truth.

...and breathe.