The Man Who Doesn’t Breathe (Extraordinary Person Documentary) | Real Stories

I think it's something interesting, this piece will make 52 layers viewable on mobile devices or the big screen, all free, no subscription required to download,

real

ly now this man is about to risk his life in the most extreme underwater conditions of the planet chasing a world. diving record under a million tons of ice unable to

breathe

unable to surface swimming in a frozen death test if my mind gets scared you panic and panic is what kills you will get rid of the wetsuit and at the risk of please the cold to death No matter, I'm way beyond that point, his goal is to erase a second world record, let's see 29.6, wow, and while scientists evaluate how his

extraordinary

body works, it has to be seen to be believed, plans another first-

person

death-defying feat. diving under an iceberg without air his name is Steve Severinsen the man who

doesn

't

breathe

Steve Severinsen is a free diver from Denmark and four-time world champion who can hold his breath underwater for more than 20 minutes, baffling any scientist who has ever done it. observed closely.

Without a doubt, he is an incredible individual from a physiological perspective; It's actually his lung capacity that is absolutely incredible and then you add psychology to his ability to control fear. Steve looks fear in the face every time he dives. The most extreme free divers push. They dive deeper and deeper with only the air they can hold in their lungs, some of them never come back alive, fundamentally they will die for a reason and that is that they run out of breath, the swimmer faints and when you faint underwater, you you stop. breathing you drown you die we are the most cautious people we actually prepare so carefully that we think about the worst case scenarios because in

real

ity it is our life that is at stake, not even turning 40 has stopped steve's quest for world records.

I break world records because I love to push myself to the extreme to see what I'm really made of, but there is a greater purpose at STEEZ. Dangerous world record attempts are opening up a whole world of scientific research as a scientist. I guess what fascinates me is the physiology associated with this, what it tells us about how the human body works, we translate its challenge to everyone and actually reduce the risk factors for future diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, so everyone benefits and, if the medical benefits continue, Steamers continue to push their body further. its physical limits, so while freediving is typically done in warm water, steel is about to introduce a lethal new element, freezing water in cold water is much more difficult because what is happening now is That the body and particularly the brain are fighting this cold, making it much more difficult to hold your breath for prolonged periods of time.

He is in the death zone. The mission will take you to Greenland, the most extreme place on Earth to dive. Adventure, a land dominated by ice and icebergs. I don't just see icebergs. I see challenges and wild adventures awaiting Steve Severinsen and his eight-man support team who have made their base at Tasselac in southeast Greenland, about 100 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the most magnificent places I have ever seen. in my life. The energy of the mountains is. The tranquility and majestic powers of this arid place are incredible. It's just the right place for his first record attempt.

Steam wants to swim more than 150 meters under the ice of a frozen glacial lake. These local Inuit guides have suggested a possible link. About an hour's drive from Tasselac with receding glaciers, lakes form and disappear quickly in this evolving landscape, so not all have been named, but ultimately this is Lake 40, which appeals to Steve's superstitious nature . I just turned 40 years old. So I think it's uh, it's a destination just calling me here and the lake and we're going to meet me and it's going to be exciting, it's a beautiful lake, wow, and how deep it is in the middle, sort of, it's very deep in the middle, you can't. look at the bottom they told us 100 meters or something like that I think it's 100 meters that's a challenge the ice is very thick here very thick I think it's like a meter I don't even know if we can cut a meter of ice no, a meter of ice is so strong that it could support the weight of a Boeing 757.

Lars Kirkegaard is in charge of security and he is worried. I am concerned about the light and the depth of the ice and how close we are to the ice. shore, yeah, yeah, the rocks are right here, yeah, I mean, we don't want to get too shallow, so you hit a rock or something, no, so we should go down and make a little hole and maybe make a diver between so excited that the leg is. I'm just waiting. I want to go under the ice because it's the biggest challenge once you start. There's no escape, so what's the plan?

How can we get through the ice? I heard someone trip over me, so you've got ice picks and stuff, yeah, and I've also got a Here Switch, but when Inuit Helper Hendrick gets stuck, it quickly becomes clear that just getting to the water will require a Herculean effort. The final hole will be 4 meters by 4 meters by 4 meters. It will be triangular for security reasons. You know we should be. able to get out Dan Burton is the expedition's underwater cameraman, he will be one of the first to go through the hole in the ice, but he has also been working on the mats for me to buy a meter, that's a ton of ice, even if you lift a piece.

You leave a piece, this part is going to weigh a few hundred kilos, very, very heavy, it's a lot of ice, there's a lot of ice to remove and Steve wants seven holes, which means removing at least 50 tons of ice by hand, so we're digging for water, yeah, like digging for gold, yeah, if we're lucky, a lot of the ice is transparent like that because then the lights shine and we have a lot more light under our eyes than we expected. I see sandy butter and rocks, no it's Crystal Clear like an aquarium that needs to go to the Red Sea no no no it's not Crystal Clear Crystal has taken them more than half a day of digging and chipping but they finally make their way through and Steve finds himself face to face With the icy water in which the werebear will soon risk his life Steve sends a three-man dive team, security chief Lars Dan, underwater cameraman and chief diver Teddy Vesta to observe the conditions.

Wow, looks good, they're checking for hidden dangers. steam could cope but even with oxygen tanks and dry suits it is dangerous in water that is only one degree their breathing equipment could easily freeze leaving them trapped under a million tons of ice without air conditions can change in a matter of minutes no we know what to expect we don't know what's going to happen we have to be prepared for the worst they've been down for 11 minutes now one by one they come back to everyone's relief Teddy Vesta is the first to get up good fantastic one of you one of you can see here 50 50 let us at least amazing yeah, so Lars has a lot of room, it's the biggest cathedral I've ever seen, which only leaves Dan Burton well.

I don't think we can get Dan back here he's just playing the big boy just get him out we'll never get that man out of the water that's enough Dan hey Ricky Steve's security team is happy with the conditions to break the world record. Ste will have to swim 500 feet, which is about 152 meters, which is like up to 13 double-decker London buses placed side by side Lars and Teddy measure the distance I'm not sure I'll keep watching this seems like a long distance they've been walking for a year and a half minutes a few minutes yes it's going to take a long time to swim yes just rub it in now Steve is going to have to do this trip under the ice if he can survive the cold yes I'm starting to get cramps I think I'm a little bit dehydrated , let's hope the legs don't lift up during the swim, everything is freezing.

Danish freediver Steve Severinsen is in Greenland hoping to break two ice diving world records. Just holding your breath in ice water will mean a gigantic struggle to stop your body. and the brain shuts down, if he can do that, he will still have to swim 152 meters, which is a little more than six lengths of a conventional 25 meter swimming pool, before we can escape the solid ice above him, helped by about 30 volunteers inuit, him and his security. The team has spent the last two days hauling ice. Seven triangular holes. Defines the root of the steed. Its entry and exit holes and five smaller emergency exits. 150 meters is a very long distance and if you have a problem you don't want to go 100 meters in that direction so you can get up to see if we can get in and Lars

doesn

't want D to go off course so he and Teddy make a grievance guide to define the route, thanks, okay, yeah, I'm ready, boom, okay, yeah, here we go, the stresses that Steve puts himself under. his body attempting world records allows scientists to learn more about the human cardiovascular system and our ability to survive in icy conditions with a PhD in medicine Steve is using himself as a guinea pig, but there will be nothing to prove unless keep trying Beyond his comfort zone, expedition doctor Hans Christian Florian is watching Steve carefully, another language, yes, regular blood and urine samples will reveal how stressed he is in his arm, we will measure his behavior patterns sleep and energy consumption and this device will monitor your heart.

It's a new design and no one knows how it will hold up to freezing water. Okay, now it's sealed. I think it's okay, we haven't tried it, we'll see what happens. It's always okay, we'll see what happens. Interesting, yes, well. It's very cold here in minus, I don't know how many degrees, but I have to suffer for science. Steve begins preparing for a swim test halfway through. If all goes well, he will make his first record attempt early tomorrow. maybe give me some water for my bald head, that's great to have now, it's so shiny. Freshly shaded this morning, carefully watching these fellow divers, Christopher Hollensburg, the first line of defense in case something goes wrong, perfect, this is a critical moment because this is the first time she goes in and if something happens , we really have to be there now, my role is to help you move forward despite the blue sky, as the storm approaches, the temperature over the ice is now -15 degrees and falls under the watch.

In the eyes of a growing crowd of locals, Stee allows nothing to speed up his physical and mental preparations. He seems oblivious to any effect the extreme cold may be having on his body, but with a constant temperature of just one degree below the ice, divers are already encountering it. problems, I just have to go up, my feet are frozen so that means my buoyancy device just didn't explode but it just inflated so I had to go up under the ice like that and I couldn't get down. I had to remove the air hose this is a setback for Steve uh time is running out uh we should be ready right now half an hour ago for this test it's early afternoon before the divers are ready to get back in the water in their thick suits drys followed closely by Ste himself in a much thinner wetsuit.

This dive isn't about speed or endurance, so Ste can familiarize himself with the conditions for her first major overseas record attempt, but when he emerges halfway there he's not entirely happy. I have to be careful with the exit, it's hard to get into the eyes, they're so thick it's hard to take the fin, but that's a learning lesson. The original plan was to rest tonight and make the first record attempt early in the morning. Surprises. everyone with a radical change of plan, let's do a demon dive before the sun sets, you have time, I'm ready, so that's the right decision, and thank you all for coming, this is just a test dive, but We will be ready in about an hour and a half for the world record attempt, so feel free to stay close.

Welcome everybody. He has already completed a cold water dive and now aims to swim further under the ice than anyone in history. He is a big risk and his dive buddy Christopher. He is concerned about the effects on Ste of falling temperatures. I thought maybe it would be better to do it tomorrow morning, but I mean everyone's here and we still have an hour left and I feel good, it's just that everything is changing. You know, the delay is free. the lines flow the two everything is just you know I haven't eaten it's the usual but you have to deal with it that's life how long 250 feet with less than an hour of daylight left the world record tellers start cordoning off and measuring the site to make sure any record is official, okay, this is it, now I'm on my way to the final exit hole getting up and uh, the steak has already gotten into a state of mind, uh, doing some yoga.

I just start shutting down all my internal organs. the activity I wantsave as much oxygen as possible I don't hear any sounds from the people around me I just go into a different state of mind it's not really me like I'm talking now and talking I become a different foreign

person

despite having almost complete control about his mind and his body, Ste is superstitious and has a fluffy toy cat called Nativity that accompanies him on every dive, don't jump, although the poof kitty doesn't, Frozen not only has his glasses frozen, so if his boots and a from the video cameras the other died with a cold everything is freezing expert viewers there is no way to start a world record attempt the energy data that was collected obviously shows that he has actually taken more than 11,000 steps walking to the place of challenge. and you consume somewhere in the region of 4,000 calories, so we can see that you've actually used a lot of energy, you're dehydrated, you're low on energy, travel fatigue, all three of those things are ultimately associated.

For instance with cramps, if you get cramps halfway through this challenge, suddenly you won't be able to move anymore and that really puts you in significant danger when you're under the ice because you can't get up, you have to wait until you get to that hole. fully aware that cramps can be lethal, but he's made it this far and is determined to continue the world record attempt no matter the risk. 500 feet between us and many smiling faces abroad the capacity is five to six liters STEEZ is a phenomenal 14. he's filled his lungs up there now, what he can then do with just these very short breaths is just suck in small amounts Earth, it's actually going from a lung capacity of two lungs and actually adding another lung and that's really amazing once you do it.

Throughout the dive you just go through different phases, you feel the oxygen getting lower and lower and you especially feel the increase in carbon dioxide and that is a very unpleasant feeling, that's where most people think: " "Oh my God, I need to breathe." just focus on the pace and I want to have as little water resistance as possible. I make my whole body heavy but use the earth's gravity to float in space and then obviously it becomes more and more difficult to dive and maintain the muscles. working because there is almost no oxygen left and I enter deeper and deeper stages of relaxation and I think that is one of the keys to being a good freediver, that you can enter these different layers of relaxation and really become one with the water. and one with your strange breath it's like a lullaby once you get over the pain and it's warm and relaxing and you don't want to leave and that's why some people pass out unfortunately they even drown you know when they go in the pool , when I get to the last phase of the dive, that's what people call the fight phase, which is obviously the dangerous part, you can easily pass out because you know you've used up all your oxygen reserves and the sounds can change a lot. metallic or sometimes my eyes turn black and white Vision.

I lose color vision, so there are a lot of changes in your nervous system because you have very little oxygen. Two minutes and 11 seconds after he entered the first ice hole, he reaches the exit. period, thank you, the first person to swim 500 feet under the ice on a single breath of air. What a beautiful day! Thank you ah, thank you all for coming, thank you, congratulations, thank you foreigner, it's incredible, incredible hands, the doctor takes more blood samples. The results are The same as before the dive, what the doctors consider

extraordinary

, what the blood tests tell us really very well is the level of the so-called stress hormones, which is why we all know adrenaline, so, for Steve, what we should do when he's under the ice.

He needs them to be as low as possible and the blood tests tell us beautifully that what he can do is his stress levels are incredibly low. You have to see it to believe it, at least with a regular medical school education, you would say no, it's not possible, apparently it is, but this was just the warm up. He will soon do it again without the wetsuit and to prepare his body to be super cool, he will try to dive under an iceberg in water that is two degrees below zero. The potential for death is very high in Greenland Danish freediver Steve Severinsen has just set a new world record for swimming under ice.

He largely attributes his abilities to regular breathing exercises, yoga and a very strict diet rich in beetroot and coconut oil. Monastery physiologist Francis Ashcroft has been monitoring Steve's progress under the ice and believes that, training aside, Stee's genetic makeup may also have a role to play. She has a very large lung capacity, so obviously she can take in more oxygen with each breath. You probably have a smaller dead space which means you can fill more lungs with air, your heart rate decreases, you possibly need less oxygen because your metabolic rate decreases and all of these things are genetically determined so you probably have some variants Rarely, he's actually pretty good, like Steve Waits.

Outside the storm in Tasselac, he learns that tests conducted a few days ago suggest that seven of his genes vary significantly from the norm, such as a gene believed to control the body's energy conversion. He'll need every ounce of that energy for his next challenge which aims to swim beneath a blue iceberg in temperatures as low as -2. eight hours to find and swim under an iceberg while traveling to the coast the skidoos break up and get stuck in the mountains when they reach the coast they encounter their first icebergs beautiful monoliths but locked in sea ice there is no chance of anyone can dive here instead, they're headed for a couple of free-floating icebergs off the coast and whatever unknown dangers might be lurking below we have no idea what's down there I mean, I don't know, I don't know if there are cracks or channels I want to see what you know under those icebergs I think we should definitely start with that one out there and then cross the fjord.

Thank you. This is the coldest water on the planet. Its high salt content prevents it from freezing. In the right place. Safety divers squeeze out as many layers as they can. They can fit under their dry suits while Steve and his dive buddy Christopher only have their thin wetsuits to find their way. I'm ready, yes, wait, wait, don't expand your chest now, yes, yes, it's always nice for a kiss, yes, yes, of course, wet kiss, wait. I'll get your hair out of the way oh great, now I'm getting ready thank you great, great, nice YouTube, it's my turn, are you ready?

I've been diving all over the world. I have been very fortunate over the last 40 years. but this is something else. I'm not sure what to expect when we get there because there will be light and clarity. Is it going to be dark and scary? Okay guys, we gotta move. They came to a pair of icebergs floating off to the side. side by side under the snow, the hard ice is blue and most of the ice is below the surface about 30 meters deep, look at those colors Dan, amazing, amazing, the reflection in the water, everything, Look at that shape, it's like a diamond diving under an iceberg. potentially very dangerous because they are drifting in the current, they can break off big chunks and they can also collapse and capsize at any moment, okay guys, right, I'm ready, okay, ready, spectacular, perfect like a coral reef, little ones cliffs that come out perfect for playing, you know, explore the fun by diving, the sediments like sediments on the surface, the top surface of the The ice comes out before trying to dive.

Christopher tests Steve's blood oxygen levels and his pulse I just knew, I knew the second, please, yes, you can say it. Yo, you can probably hear the heartbeat too, here we go, you have a signal, now we have a signal, yes, so, yes, put these oxygen levels, the oxygen levels uh 98. Perfect, that's perfect, the pulse is uh 81. Steve's pulse. It's higher than you'd like for a long dive, but it's got a trick up its sleeve, okay, so just take a deep breath and when you're ready, we'll be ready and you'll listen, now you hear its heartbeat, it's still a 88 and 86 now 83 76. in seconds it begins to fall dramatically 52 50 48 remains taking advantage of a survival instinct that we all have, it is called the immersion response of mammals when they place their face in the water, what this does is tell the brain to relax is that beautiful example of when you take a baby and you push it underwater, what it does instantly relaxes while it's underwater and that's the mammalian dive response, so it helps reduce the heart rate, It feels great, probably in the lower Fortress or something, but once I get down. and the compression and everything in there will drop to 30 or less from 25 or something like that, that nice peaceful boom boom and then simultaneously your meditative ability actually causes your heart rate to drop incredibly fast and it's the speed of that reduction what is truly unique abroad.

If Steve thought the cathedral under the frozen lake was impressive, then this is like a magical Crystal Palace and it's not two separate icebergs but one Iceberg with two peaks above the water. He has to be very careful with sharp ice, dangerous and almost invisible traps. that could cause serious injuries and of course it's very cold Celsius, I'll get the scooters we can play with. Using the scooter means you can explore more quickly, but that doesn't make your dive any less dangerous. The dive is about testing his body, he knows it. While you are underwater in these sub-zero temperatures, your body will have a difficult time keeping you alive, it will respond instantly by closing what is called vessel restriction and will reduce blood flow to the skin on your legs and in the arms because what it does is drive that blood towards the center trying to conserve heat because once the temperature of the brain drops too low, being unconscious underwater means death, death for most of us, but not for Steam, we have to go home soon because we have to get back before the snow or the storm comes tomorrow, but oh, incredible, incredible, I feel a little cold, a little shivering now, cold hands, cold feet, but in my core temperature I think that I am quite hot, maybe it is just something in my mind because I want to stay like a little child, the cold is a real danger, it is a life-threatening danger and most importantly it is around the temperature core of the body, normal core temperature of 37 degrees Celsius once we get to 35, so it's only two degrees lower. hypothermia, okay, that's it, that's it, it sounds like 33.8 and I've even been in the boat for about six eight minutes, so yeah, I lost a few degrees there, your temperature drops to 33 degrees Celsius and you find that your mental capacity goes down. is affected. your decision Do is not rational and eventually you are not able to move your limbs properly and you just said you want to stay inside, you could stay inside for a long time, yes, I could stay inside all day like when I was a child.

You know, oh no, mommy, I don't want to go out, I'm not cold, you know, it's great, yeah, if that happened to me or probably to you, that would result in hypothermia. I find it quite remarkable that this is not the case for Steve, diving has given him more confidence to attempt an even more ambitious world record under the ice on the lake, this time without a wetsuit, just him and his swimsuit. How can an individual push himself so far beyond what a normal individual can do? Freediver Steve Severinsen is in Greenland to break world records in frozen water.

He has already broken the world record here by diving under the ice in a wetsuit and he is the first freediver to have swum under an iceberg. He now aims to break another ice diving world record, this time dressed. Just a swimsuit, he is willing to risk drowning and freezing in the name of science. I think the nice thing about what he's doing stig is that there's actually an altruistic element because what he's doing is resetting our boundaries of what's possible. This record is the most important record for me in the sense that it is the purest and what I like most about freediving and breathing and all these things is that it is about nature, there are no technical aspects, we have seen too many things with things that break down, scooters, cameras. you can't trust technology you can trust your body your heart your soul your mind in front of him the rest of the team is already at the lake where they have been reopening the holes that froze while chasing icebergs while Steve joins them Lars I can tell that something is bothering you while you are worried about being in a state where you don't see where the clue endsand this is the same track we used before, so it's actually twice as long as you need.

I don't know what stage he will be in, not even himself, we don't know, so in case you continue swimming, I will have to stop him. Yes, yes, success 37.1 37 degrees is completely normal, so we are doing a lot of testing. Here, so it's not so normal, it's Steve's patented medicine to keep his energy up. Ah, good things, good things, yes, natural doping, yes, definitely, a little bit of beet, a little bit of chili, ginger, Viking stuff, maybe I'll have my dry suit, I don't have to drink that. To break the world record on a steamboat he swam 250 feet under the ice (about 76 meters), that is, half the distance he swam wearing his wetsuit with a monofin, but it is a feat that no one had achieved before.

One minute for the Dinos. One minute so he can stay underwater longer. You are wearing the wetsuit and this is because your body loses less heat, but you must be a very cold tolerant individual, the cold is really the fundamental danger because our ability to function will begin to decrease, in other words, we will not be capable of producing so much. too much strength we won't be able to swim as fast and that will get progressively worse until finally we can't swim at all. There are many dangers and I am not blind to that. I know I can have it. muscle fatigue I can get hypothermia my muscles just might not work these temperatures are so low that when the water hits your face some people can go into cardiac arrest there are many things that are really very dangerous since the ice is very thick up here I have to make sure it really gets under my eyes before I start swimming because this ice cuts like a knife and then I start swimming and I find the perfect balance between my arms and breaststroke leg, it's like a frog kick and I have to optimize. my technique to not waste oxygen and then I slide further and further at this point I'm so numb I'm paralyzed throughout my body the cold doesn't matter I'm way past that point and I just have to keep working keep working keep working I just have to concentrate in working pushing my body to the maximum limit if your mind becomes rigid like your body then everything can be a disaster because if my mind gets scared you will panic and panic is what kills just sleeping almost in that emptiness and that freedom .

I do everything in slow motion maybe I'll take a little look at where the line is okay I'm on the right path and then I know when I get to the end I have to look for the hole so this is a dangerous moment. I have to find the right way out and hopefully I have timed my dive and my training so that the hole is there and I come out with joy oh you did it oh wow congratulations what a beautiful place to do this Steve has achieved his second world record here in Greenland also of becoming the first person to dive under an iceberg with only one lung full of air the water was so cold it shattered the heart monitor let's see 29.6 whoa that's why I feel a little whoo hands I can't believe Steve can seem so normal when true, he should be suffering from hypothermia as we clearly saw that Steve was performing quite naturally and it is surprising and definitely outside of normal biological variation.

It's something very special, like swimming again. It's like woo. I would definitely call him a superhuman. It seems, but in reality it is not as easy as he makes it seem. It is very cold. I'm sure he really is cold down there. Several of the volunteer helpers see this for themselves. Look how you're shaking. Yes, this is the world record. he just said two records and uh that's superhuman I can't do it you can do it no one no one can do it he can do it and he has done it Steve has struggled in an environment where the vast majority of the population would not be able to survive in matter of seconds his ability to fill his lungs his ability to reduce this metabolic rate to slow down his ability to control fear is the complete package that really makes Steve a true superhuman next time, Steve will try the most dangerous The challenge of His career is to hold his breath underwater longer than anyone in history.

This superhuman record attempt is too far away. Steve Severinsen is a legend in the world of freediving. A supreme athlete in play is unique. He is Elite. He broke world records for airless diving. under the ice, he comes here and sets a world record, he is incredibly amazing and, by holding his breath underwater longer than anyone else on the planet, it is a good fight as scientists try to discover the secret of his extraordinary ability to cheat death, and is embarking on his most dangerous journey. challenge, but you can't run and you can't hide, you're simply trapped inside your body to break your own world record by trying to stay underwater without breathing for over 22 minutes.

This is one of the most dangerous world records anyone could attempt. the planet this is the underwater world of Steve Severinsen the man who does not breathe Steve Severinsen is a four-time world champion in freediving a legend in the sport freediving is ultra competitive with swimmers who literally take their bodies to the brink of death his goal to swim deeper or farther or hold your breath longer than anyone else, all without the aid of scuba tanks. D is famous for being the first person in history to hold his breath underwater for more than 20 minutes in 2012, he took the record to 22 minutes, but he thinks he can do better, so he's about to risk his life in what some scientists say is the most dangerous record attempt of any kind.

When you look at Stieg in his attempt to break these world records, he is pushing human physiology and psychology. To the absolute limit, facing such a difficult dive means training hard, which is why Steve has come to Cuba with two other leaders in freediving, Ion Neri, who has broken the world record for diving without constant weight four times and Maca Benítez from Chile , which is a rising star in this sport only a few people each year receive permission to dive in the De La Reina giardines, this pristine national marine reserve is also known as the Galapagos of the Caribbean due to its rich marine life, as Tea He is also a marine biologist, it is an opportunity for him.

To combine his two passions, freediving and encounters with deadly sea creatures, there should be silky sharks here. I've never seen them in my life. It is one of the sharks that I have wanted to see more than any other shark because it is so beautiful. They have such a beautiful shape and a long nose and they are very fast and they are known to be potentially dangerous and there should be some really big ones around here so it's exciting, a little bit intimidating, but also exciting for my lucky number. . I'm going for the sharks. It's a good start, freediving is about developing your skills in nature, so it's about learning how you can go deeper into yourself, but also in the deepest part of the ocean, you watch the sharks how they move and when you start to understand how you should behave in the ocean. so you know how you can freedive, the inner journey and the journey that you take in your mind is very interesting and that is also a big part of freediving, but basically freediving is about what you can do with just one Air mouthful.

An incredible place. amazing place I love freediving came out of obscurity and became the competitive and popular sport it is now thanks to the film The Big Blue, a fictional account of the friendship and rivalry between the legendary Sicilian freediver Enzo Majorca and the Frenchman Jacques, the greatest foreign scientist in proving that human lungs could survive extreme water pressures found at 50 or 60 meters, that is, 200 feet or more below the surface, everyone in science agreed that if You couldn't dive deeper than 200 feet, you would be compressed like a submarine and it would implode, it wouldn't explode, but...

After Mallorca broke that limit, it was a historic moment. Oh, it's very difficult to be the one who opened the door completely, but once someone goes there, I think a lot of people can go there and being the first person is very difficult. great challenge, but it is a beautiful challenge, it is beautiful and you know that you have been the first and if you have gone there, it will stay with you all your life. Jacques Mill, the other influential freediver who inspired the big blue, was the first person to Dive 100 meters in a single breath.

I have a lot of respect for Jack Maier and Enzo Mayorka because at that time imagine that scientists said no, it's impossible, you're going to die, it is thanks to them that we are all here now, yes, but it is the big blue. It involves trying to stretch what is thought possible can have a tragic end. Freediving is incredibly dangerous and I think the best proof of this is actually the number of freedivers who die each year. That number is very high. Particularly dangerous is unlimited diving, whose rules practically allow it. Any method of diving deep into the water and returning to the surface, typically No Limits free divers use a weighted sled to go down and a balloon to go up.

No Limits is very, very dangerous because as always you will have a glitch, the machine will break the rope will break the balloon will have no air to bring you back something will go wrong and we have lost friends and too many lives and beautiful people have not returned of a technical error not a human error 2002 celebrated No Limits free diver Audrey Mastery nicknamed The Original Mermaid lost her life while attempting to set a new world record. She was only 28 years old. We know that we reach the edge of our own possibilities or our own extreme comfort zone and, of course, you can push yourself so hard that you end up dying.

You are dancing with death, but not because you want to die, it is because you want to live abroad in such extreme underwater conditions, it is largely down to psychology, using the mind to control the body and if control is lost, the Fear soon follows my biggest fear in freediving. I think it will go down and I need the need to breathe and suddenly I can't control my mind, so my mind climbs into my body and when the Mind started talking to yourself, it is very difficult to let it go. and just trust what you've been training and I think that would be the most seen.

My biggest fear is being caught by a fishing net deep in the water, the water is paradise and in a second it becomes hell, yes, but it stings. In reality I lived the worst fear of her. She was in Hawaii. I was diving to a depth of almost 250 feet and to conserve oxygen I was pulling on the rope, slowly going up and then I realized that because this rope had been in the water for so long, it was full. of algae and every time I pulled I just didn't move oh my gosh so I lost control and you know you have all these flashes and what's going to happen and if I'm going to die and I kept going up and then on the surface I had a The blackout was very scary, but I left to tell the story.

It's okay, training in Cuba is not just physical, it's mental. Coming face to face with crocodiles and all the other potential killers out there is one way to learn to conquer fear by facing it. Thank you. Another way freedivers control fear is through meditation or yoga. Shagmayor originally brought yoga from Asia because his father was an engineer and worked in Asia after World War II. It's about absorbing what's around you and forgetting about it. Basically, when you forget about yourself, your ego, your goals, you are free, so the goal of freediving becomes that there is no gold, when we have this feeling, this state of body and mind, then we can be free and make it amazing. things The more I have come up with freediving and yoga, I see yoga and freediving as a brother and sister, the same family, there is no difference, this relationship between the brain and the body is particularly important when the Freedivers hold their breath for long periods to find the perfect mental balance. be essential if you try to break your world record of 22 minutes, it is actually the combination between physiology and psychology because the brain constantly tells the body to breathe, but at the same time it is the same brain that tells you not to breathe, that is what it will do. be happening in Steve's head as he attempts to break his own world record for holding his breath underwater, possibly the most dangerous world record in any sport.

I didn't know my body was reacting so negatively. Severinsen will face the greatest challenge of his life. He wants to beat the most amazing of the world records of him holding his breath for more than 22 minutes underwater and seeing someone hold his breath for such a long period of time. It is really surprising. I have a real desire to try to understand how. What he does is attempting the record in his hometown of Ahus in Denmark having recently returned from Greenland after breaking two world records for swimming under ice in a wetsuit.and without medical evidence indicates that he is in the best physical shape possible for his final record attempt this will be the last time he sets out to achieve a world record in a career that spanned 10 years it is a career that had very early roots he was only five years when his parents noticed something unusual while playing in his family's pool eventually you're a foreigner As Steve's freediving career grew, so did his family's fears for his health when Steve passed out after a dive, something that has killed many freedivers, his parents decided that enough was enough.

Dearborn babies, a casino. Moana Steve hasn't competed in deep diving since, but in attempting a new breath-hold world record, he's putting himself in even more danger. They are driving their blood oxygen levels to incredibly low levels, much lower levels and perhaps they would do that during deep diving and that is what makes voluntary breath holding very, very dangerous. What's worse, his training isn't going well either, my body just hasn't adapted well, it's like everything hasn't fallen into place. I've had some really bad training dives that really put me in a state of shock in the sense that I didn't know my body was reacting so negatively, yeah I finally had a good training dive and that gave me some positive hope again , once again, superhuman lungs, baby, I know from previous guys that I can beat my own record. may go beyond 22 minutes, but I also feel that it will surely be the most difficult dive of my life, but if he pulls it off, it will be a new highlight in his record-breaking career.

It will shed more light on Steve's unique physiology that Greg White has. He traveled from London to run some tests and is looking for clues as to why Steve can stop breathing for so long, so we're here at Ahus University, which is where Stig actually studied to do a unique study looking at Steve's arterial function. Stig. What we are doing is measuring the volume of blood that enters each of these index fingers of the right and left hand, in a moment we are going to stop the blood flow, we are going to occlude the blood flow in that left hand for five minutes and then release it and as you do so we will see how well the artery in the club hand responds and that will give us an indication of the function of your arteries and if you have super normal function. or not, what we are going to do now is pop this bracelet even though the heart is trying to push the blood through the arteries towards the arm of the club, as you can see beautifully on the right hand where the arm enters and exits. blood flow. course on the left hand full flat line there is no blood flow at all, but in about 20 seconds we are going to allow this huge torrent of blood to enter Steve's left hand and how dramatically it does, that will give us an idea about the arterial function in In other words, blood vessel function is one of the things that supports your ability to dive for a long time so beautifully.

Now just take a look at the screen. Now, a huge flow of blood reaches the arm. What Greg discovered is how efficient Steve's arteries are. The fact that they respond so quickly and so well indicates how efficient Steve's arteries are. Well, his body transports oxygen quickly to where it is needed and the results are absolutely incredible. Steve, one of two things is that endothelial function is perfectly normal; In other words, your cardiovascular health is normal, but it's this rate of increase that's super normal. way above normal and that's probably what really gives us one of the pieces of the puzzle of why you can hold your breath and perform as well as you do: the basic flexibility and responsiveness of the cardiovascular system is exactly right and This test simply reaffirms that for us he has a really large lung capacity and a phenomenal speed in transporting oxygen throughout the body, which makes him physiologically unique, but even with these physical advantages, Steve has to train constantly if he wants to push himself to the limit. extreme of holding your breath for more than 22 minutes. minutes in the last 18 months when he is not in the water he has been training with his brother Martin his lungs in excellent shape he practices packing this is a technique used for the first time by another of the Giants in the history of freediving, the American Bob Croft packing his lungs is mainly about increasing the volume of the lung itself and that is something about Steve that is truly phenomenal, in fact he effectively imagines going from two lungs and adding another lung inside that chest cavity, but that other one. lung is full of oxygen and that's one of the key factors that allows him to hold his breath for such a long period of time, but you know you've had this whole last pep talk from Greg before Steve faces his biggest challenge, but we are here at play. local pool in arkus this is the place where he broke his first world record 10 years ago and tonight he will attempt his world record by holding his breath 22 minutes an incredible challenge there is no one else here for a very good reason this is a secret attempt of what It's an incredibly dangerous challenge as you prepare to dive into the record books once again.

Stee is unusually pessimistic. He's not so sure how he'll turn out this time. He's had some bad dives and we'll see. How is it going, no one else has ever come close to 22 minutes officially, unofficially, a German freediver has beaten that time, but it was still not ratified, for Ste it is important when someone comes and breaks his record, it can be demotivating because if you You push yourself to your maximum limit, the question is: do you have the belief that you can really break that world record again? Increase the pressure even more. Pressure amplified because this is Steve's last chance for a new record according to the official rules by which he is allowed to breathe pure oxygen.

Up to half an hour before a dive, they call it pre-oxygenation. What he tries to do is increase the amount of oxygen he has on board and remove as much carbon dioxide as possible. Once he has completed this, he will come. step aside and do somewhere in the region of five to ten minutes breathing pure oxygen before that record attempt there is no audience just two world record scrutineers and Steve and Greg's brother have been there for the last 40 minutes when Stig begins his final preparation the tension is incredible, it is electrifying here with one last gulp of oxygen Steve slips below the surface the clock is ticking so he has just begun his world record attempt he has to hold his breath for over 22 minutes to break the seriously dangerous world record incredibly challenging attempt at What is probably one of the most incredible world records during a dive in the different phases at the beginning, obviously, it is quite easy, there is a lot of oxygen in your system and the CO2 level, this trigger of the respiratory reflex, it is very low because your cells have not had time to produce carbon dioxide CO2, so the first phase is quite comfortable because you just relax and have a lot of reserves, then you move on to the most difficult part, but I really try to calm my mind and close all the internal organs.

I produce less CO2 than I normally would as D enters the most challenging and painful part of his world record attempt. The fight for survival becomes serious as poisonous gases build up in his body. This challenge is too far away. It seems like he is struggling. He really does. Danish foreign freediver Steve Severinsen is floating face down in a pool trying to break his own phenomenal world record by holding his breath underwater for more than 22 minutes. As you can see, we only have five minutes and Snake describes it as the easy bar so effectively. It's the first quarter of the challenge, there's no problem moving forward, but you're already past this point, but it suddenly starts to get harder and harder.

Greg isn't the only scientist fascinated by Steve's unusual ability to hold his breath at the beginning of the challenge. Last week, Professor Erica Shagatai of the University of Sweden was also looking for scientific clues as to how he can survive without breathing. She performed an ultrasound on her spleen, which she suspects is a vital part of the puzzle, so we measured this plane. is that it is very important to be able to store a reserve amount of red blood cells in the spleen that you can use to carry additional oxygen when you dive, so here the dark image inside the white sheet is a thick spleen and it is unusually large and here in Under resting conditions, the spleen is more than 12 centimeters long and a little more than five centimeters thick, so when I measure the width I can also calculate the volume of the spleen.

When you do a long dive, the spleen contracts and releases red blood cells that are kept in circulation during the dive and help store additional oxygen and that can prolong the dive time. Also, these red blood cells help store carbon dioxide when you want to extend the dive and that will be a major problem for doing an extremely long dive now that you calculated a volume of 500 milliliters, which is unusually large, normal people have 250 to 300 milliliters and most divers are also less than 400 milliliters and the bar spleen is clearly very large, one of the largest I have ever seen, and it is part of it as a very good diver is one of the super splints ten nine eight seven six five four three two one please write Erica simulates the conditions for a dive by holding her breath while Steve holds her face underwater she can see his spleen constantly shrinking as it is emptied of red blood cells The red blood cells travel to take oxygen to other cells in the body.

This process is called splenic emptying. Everyone's spleen does this when it's active, but Steve's spleen is so large that it can release many more red blood cells. An important advantage that Steve demonstrates. For Erica, the mammalian response to submersion, if someone immerses their face in cold water, their heart automatically slows down, usually about 20 percent, reducing oxygen consumption by about a fifth, but the steam takes it to extremes; It can actually reduce your heart rate by more than half, down to 30 beats per minute or less is another tangible clue to how your body survives without breathing. It's always interesting to be a little guinea pig in the lab because not only do I learn something that I could use in my training but also the medical world and people and patients who need care and different forms of treatment could even get help, so that it is interesting to be able to use Sports Performance to help heal sick people, as well as people with strokes or different problems with cardiac hypertension and things like this, it is very interesting to learn about blood and that breathing exercises can be used and breath retention to strengthen the blood, so to speak, to increase the number of red blood cells so they can carry more oxygen.

Of course, again it means you have more energy and become more resistant to stress and also illness in general, so it's always good to know how to boost your natural system. So what is happening now inside Stick's body is that he is actually consuming the oxygen that he needs. He took it right at the beginning of the dive and it's producing carbon dioxide, this waste product. What's so important about carbon dioxide is that it drives ventilation, so it tells all your respiratory centers here at the base of your brain, you have to breathe, you have to breathe. but it is the higher symptoms in the motor cortex of the cerebral cortex that are voluntary and tell you not to breathe and now at this stage you have a battle in your brain telling you to breathe while telling your brain that you don't want to. .

Breathing This is where it starts to get difficult as the fight between mind and body intensifies. The difference between success and failure lies in your ability to control your thoughts. You should not think in the moment that it is the least you want to do. I don't want to be a slave to time if you want to break the chains of time, but you can, with training and the right mindset, go to a very beautiful place and this is where I try to reach this state of inner peace and once you reach it. The state where time dissolves everything becomes very beautiful and you forget yourself completely and it is also a state that is talked about a lot in yoga and meditation where you can dissolve yourself, you can dissolve your ego or your feelings. desires or your goals. so you just become what you are, you become, you don't become something or want to be something, you just are, so once I'm in this, you could call it trans, the colors are as light as a vibrant blue, green , orange, red, all of these. beautiful colors of coral fish.

I see, for example, sharks drifting through the Shadows of the Sun and all the experiences ofbeing one with these animals, you just find peace and tranquility in that environment and this is an absolutely critical moment because what we will start to see now is that this level of carbon dioxide in the body of the sticks will start to reach this point. critical where it will force you to breathe and we will find that the diaphragm, the large respiratory muscle, will begin to contract forcing itself involuntarily. and saying breathe, breathe, breathe, but your brain, your conscious brain, is basically going to stop you from doing that, this is the point where it starts to get really difficult as the pressure increases even more.

Steve's mind is filled with thoughts and images that are more precious. to him more than anything else I think about the people who make me happy my family my grandmother parents Brother people who mean a lot to me for example my grandmother I see the way she smiles I smell her I smell how it feels to walk in her backyard how she grass is soft under my feet I hear his laugh I see the smile too in his eyes as if inside not only the eye but as if it goes through his eye to the soul and I feel this love and energy now in his hundredth year, Steve's grandmother, Stina , she was an athlete in her youth competing and winning medals long before female athletes were commonplace, even now stina works out every day, she is without a doubt Steve's biggest inspiration and he's not sure he's achieved what he has achieved without her despite the 60 years between my grandmother and I am sure that all the virtues that she represents act as a beacon, they are like something I aspire to that you trust people that you are kind that you help people that surround you that you do your homework so to speak that you work hard on your dreams abroad this is the most mental discipline of all freediving disciplines when you dive deep when you dive under the eyes when you die for a long distance you still have physical activity you distract yourself from your mind but statically breathing hole is called static because you are just lying and still it is the biggest mental challenge because you can't run and you can't hide you are just a rope inside your body this is what is very important that I also have my brother, he is a trained doctor.

He knows me very well and it may seem strange or sound strange but I don't hear him I'm in a very different place I'm in my mind or I'm seeing colors or I'm visiting my grandmothers or dissolving my body but I still receive the signals from him 15 minutes he sees Well you look relaxed in your neck now if you go into what I call a brain short circuit once your thoughts start to speed up you lose control it's like a car you're driving and it just starts spinning and you lose track of the road, that's when you lose control and then you give up and raise and often you don't even realize you raised until later because you didn't have control, so what?

In reality, fighting is not just about time, it is also about yourself, it is your mind, it is important that the steam moves as little as possible in the pool to conserve oxygen as the 16th minute approaches. Mark seems to be in trouble. Steve has failed and, in epic fashion, 16 minutes is by far his worst competitive jump and to do it in front of the world record officials, his team and Greg, this is shaping up to be a devastating end to his career, it is a result so overwhelming that it is struggling to overcome it in 16 foreign minutes.

Was it like the training dives I had, the bad ones I told you about? Yeah, it's not that I feel like giving up, everything just speeds up and becomes unstable and, uh, it's not a pleasant death. Greg actually believes that Steve's failure has to do with breaking down. ice diving records in Greenland just 12 weeks before today's attempt, the type of training required for those two environments is completely different, so you can't expect to perform in both when you're so close to each other, never They have done 20 minutes intermission. Then it is inexplicable to you and it is a noise.

I've actually had dives where I know I can go beyond 22. Yes, and I know I can go even further. I'm serious, at least it doesn't count. Yeah, you know, horrible diet, but the other good dives. I've been curious how far I can go, yeah, yeah, and I don't know, Steve is exhausted physically and mentally, but he refuses to end his competitive career on such a low note, so with only two days to prepare, he goes . risk your life by making one more attempt body and mind are visibly fighting for control the biggest challenge of your life is about to become the biggest risk can we really control breathing to the point where we could commit suicide just weeks after establishing two new world records?

In a tough test under the green and the ice, three D Severinsen jumpers have failed in their dream of breaking the most difficult record of their lives. His hopes of breaking the 22-minute barrier by not breathing underwater appeared to have come to an end after he was forced to come. He came up for air after only 16 minutes, but surprised everyone by announcing that he will try again. Any chance of making it two days after Steve's disastrous first record attempt and he's back in the pool? It's your last chance to make history again. It was 10 years ago today.

I made my first world record right here, so this is the day I'm planning, so we'll take it well this time there won't be any scientific observers. Greg White had to leave Denmark. I was very disappointed not to be in the On the second dive I was curious about what would happen. Steve is incredibly tough mentally, very, very tough and very motivated. You know he wants to do the best he can, so there was an inquisitive side in me that he really wanted to do it. To see how he would perform having dived so badly on the first attempt, I suppose to some extent too, although I thought well of backing out of there.

I probably reduced the pressure on him, there were less people watching, less expectations on him. Wasting no time, Steve generates pure oxygen for 10 minutes to cleanse his body of residual gases and then slides back under the water for his momentous world record attempt. SD has broken more than a dozen world records during her 10-year career, including her first record where she swam 166 meters underwater without fins in this very pool at our home, most notably when she became the first person to hold his breath for more than 20 minutes underwater, years later he broke that record with a 22-minute breath-hold dive in today's world. record and earlier this year he scored two more world records in Greenland by swimming 500 feet under the ice wearing a wetsuit and 250 feet wearing nothing but a swimsuit.

Today's dive will be his last chance for a new record. The next 15 minutes will become a marathon fight between Steve's conscious mind and his body's subconscious defense mechanisms. What's really interesting about this is that this juxtaposition of this reflex response occurring at the base of the brain in the medulla and pons is what fundamentally drives breathing in everyone. We while we sit relaxing we breathe, we don't think about it, but then in the higher centers of the brain and particularly in areas like the motor cortex we can control that breathing now it's a fight between those two about whether we breathe or not. or not breathing holding your breath, the key issue is that if we ever get to a point where our conscious control replaces our subconscious control, that's when it becomes dangerous because it's at that point that critical oxygen levels drop into the blood and the brain stops working. and that's when we can die.

Steve has now passed his first 16 minute dive. He has entered what is called the fighting phase. This is where the hardest part begins that you would serve for immersion because when you get to the end of the fight phase, then you enter, you could say, like Tierra Incognito into the unknown territory and this is where people normally pass out. This is where many divers, even very skilled ones, lose consciousness and it's called a blackout in freediving and everything goes black and you don't understand. a warning sign 17 minutes in sight of the record now, but it is clear that the struggle is becoming intense, your body is convulsing, this is the diaphragm that the brain is now telling to contract to breathe, so the impulse to breathe is absolutely incredible and you I can see that here now what we will begin to see, also, was that diaphragm that we begin to swallow and we see this physical action, so basically to every respiratory muscle, to every muscle associated with breathing for the steak, now you are told that you should breathe now and yet your brain is able to hold that in and prevent you from breathing, so here we are getting to about the 19 minute mark, at this point we can see these violent contractions of the diaphragm and, Effectively, what is happening is that the brain is saying. the diaphragm that you should breathe in now and it's causing you to contract now, then it becomes basically every muscle involved with breathing in your body is now being targeted and we see this violent contraction through the chest into the mouth around the back around Many of them are being driven by the brain telling you to breathe while at the same time your conscious control of breathing tells you not to breathe and what we are seeing here is that struggle between breathing versus not breathing to Make things worse. intense pain imagine running as fast as you can and continuing to run what you start to feel is that you start to accumulate lactate, you start to have a lot of byproducts building up in the muscle and that is exactly what Steve has, although he is not moving , that same environment exists and your whole body is fundamentally screaming at you, it's screaming at your brain, this huge amount of feedback is coming to your brain saying, You gotta breathe now, you gotta breathe now, it lasts longer than 20 minutes, 20 minutes and 11 seconds. , 20 minutes 11 seconds, he did not manage to beat his world record of 22 minutes, but it was his third best official time and he is the first person to have broken the 20-minute barrier in four official jumps.

Today has been a hard jump. I gave everything he had and today. I couldn't do it better. I have seen the path to go beyond 22 minutes, but it is not now and it will probably be up to someone else to have fun to beat that time, so I am very pleased and very humbled. and happy, but if Ste can't break his own record, is it really possible that there is always a limit to human performance? It's not linear, we can't keep getting better and better, but what we can be sure of is that the world record will be broken, the question is when and if it will be broken, so I think the only thing I will remember is that he was a leader.

Stieg was the first man to hold his breath for 20 minutes and I think he was the first at something is what marks you as truly unique and therefore Stig is unique, with superhuman lungs, baby.