Normative and appropriate amount of breath-holding exercise is usually not harmful, but irregular and excessive breath-holding exercise may exceed the body’s tolerance capacity, causing damage to the respiratory, circulatory, central nervous system and other systems.
1. Respiratory system: prolonged breath-holding exercise may cause respiratory alkalosis and carbonic acidemia due to lack of oxygen, and in serious cases, respiration will be inhibited and respiratory failure will occur. When the body lacks oxygen, the partial pressure of arterial blood oxygen will fall, reflexively stimulate the respiratory center so that the respiratory deepening accelerate, hyperventilation occurs, resulting in respiratory alkalosis, hypercapnia and so on.
2. Circulatory system: prolonged breath-holding exercise, early on, there may be accelerated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, etc. If severe hypoxia, can make the myocardial energy metabolic disorders, increase the cardiac load, resulting in the emergence of sinus bradycardia, ventricular fibrillation, cardiac failure and so on.
3. Central Nervous System: When prolonged breath-holding exercise results in hypoxia, brain cells can become deformed and necrotic, resulting in headaches and memory loss.
Breath-holding exercise should be done according to one’s ability, and if there is any discomfort, it should be stopped immediately and seek medical treatment in time.