How long can YOU hold your breath? Take this video challenge

A video that tests how long a person can hold their breath is making waves across the internet. 

Made by Zydus Hospital, in India, the test gives a person a score based on seven-second intervals.

If a person reaches a score of two, meaning they can hold it for 14 seconds, they have ‘normal lungs’. 

Reaching five, or 35 seconds, means someone has ‘strong lungs’. Those who can hit the 70-second mark, scoring a perfect 10, have ‘super lungs’.

It is unclear how Zydus came up with these measures. There are many different estimates on how long a person should be able to hold their breath, with some suggesting the average person’s time falls between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. 

Whether this actually gauges a person’s overall pulmonary health is uncertain, too. But, past research has found smokers can not hold their breath as long as their peers. 

It is unclear what part of lung health affects how long a person can hold their breath, if any.

Someone can train themselves to hold their breath longer. By repeatedly testing themselves, they can raise their lungs’ tolerance to hold in carbon dioxide.

Navy Seals famously undergo this type of training, as they are to reach the point where they can stay underwater for two to three minutes at a time.

There may also be a link between smoking and reducing the amount of time someone can hold their breath.

An Indian study published in 2017 found that non-smoker could hold their breath for 46.61 seconds on average, compared to 34.85 seconds for those who used cigarettes. This is a difference of 33 percent.

While smoking is universally considered to be poor for lung health, the researchers could only speculate that breath-holding time had any bearing on someone’s lung health. 

Doctors will typically use a spirometry test to gauge a person’s lung health.

In these exams, a person has a clip attached to their nose and a tube placed in front of their mouth.

Then, breathing only through the mouth, the amount of air that the inhale and exhale is recorded by a machine. 

This is used to see whether a person is gathering enough oxygen with each breath and whether the air sacs in the lung responsible for collecting the particles are doing their job.

Collecting enough oxygen with each breath is important, as it fuels the function of every organ in the body.