hi everyone he is dr xand and i'm dr xand and today we're going to be looking
at some of the amazing things we've got to do on operation ouch
that might sound ridiculous but zoe is six months old and josephine who's nine months
old are already brilliant in the water in fact humans are born with the ability to
swim it's a commonly known thing that if you put a baby in the water it can swim and yet
you sort of don't believe it until you see it no one has taught these babies to swim underwater
what they're doing is totally instinctive and it's helped out by something going on inside them
called the mammalian dive reflex also in the background that's my friend barbara
and i turned up to film and there she was you have this reflex too
and so does sea mammals like these seals they can stay underwater for an impressive 30 minutes
humans though lose this reflex by the time we're six months old but some extraordinary people train
themselves to use their mammalian dive reflex into adulthood when you say to your friend barbara
i was already watching a bit with the seal and i wondered if the seal was your friend barbara
i'd love to have a friend who was a seal called barbara who is the seal i don't know
the seal's name today's brilliant body belongs to george miller the six-time national freediving
record holder free diving is swimming deep underwater while holding your breath without
any breathing equipment how long can you hold your breath for i can hold my breath
for a little bit over seven minutes that is completely crazy do you think you could get me
close to seven minutes eventually maybe not today this was one of the best things not
only i've done an operation out it was one of the best days i've ever had in my life
it was totally magical we're going to see how long you can hold your breath for okay
this will give george an idea of how well xand uses his lungs to breathe you bid me through your
nose no i'm not cheating i'm not cheating you did one minute 27 which is amazing for the first time
i think one minute 27 is pretty good actually i think we can do better really yes she's sort
of going oh i think it's amazing that you did one minute 27 it's like she can do it
so much she was nice free divers learn how to use something that we call a three-part
breath or diaphragmatic breath so if you put one hand on your tummy and one hand on your chest
the first part of the breath comes from the belly and then the chest
and then just let it all fall out so hold your breath
do you remember this when we had to do singing at school i learned the flute
at school and we had singing lessons who knows what the flute is you don't have to do that
what what if you said i learned the trombone are you going to be going wha wha wha wha anyway
i learned the flute and people always talked about diaphragmatic breathing and you forget that that
there is a way of breathing that's way better for swimming uh and for for for wind instruments
which is i think i did say singing singing and swimming all the all the things with the s's
you did 217. really that's amazing so that's almost a minute more yeah look at that i mean
that's a huge improvement breathing technique down now he needs to do it while free diving underwater
now safety is the most important thing and i can only do this because i'm surrounded
by professionals so never ever practice on your own even in the bath before he goes underwater
xand uses george's deep breathing technique his mammalian dive reflex
is triggered once his face touches the water here he goes here i go here i go
lovely how long was i under for? you were down there for 30 seconds
but for that 30 seconds i was like a seal
xand held his breath longer on land because when swimming
in water his muscles needed oxygen but practice makes perfect okay here we go
hang on so that do you see what do you know what's happening there yeah i can see there's
like a ring of bubbles so why is there a ring of bubbles i dont know where do you think
it comes from i've got no idea it looks like a silver ring what is it guess i don't know
so the cameraman had this trick where he could blow a bubble that was a perfect beautiful
silver hoop and you could swim through it i don't know what he did with his mouth but he
could somehow blow a bubble that became this perfect ring and uh then you stamp to it but
i love that it's just in the show yeah you never know what it was it's just a cool shot
instinctively xand's body knows he's not breathing so it prioritizes sending blood
to his brain and his heart this allows him to swim even deeper amazing work xand
yes i swam through the little canyon it was so magical live
two was a massive improvement seven meters down 41 seconds the most amazing thing about today
is that what george i'm so jealous that xand got to do this because i love
swimming underwater especially in quite cold water and i just it's just like my favorite thing is for
me it's like going to another planet i would rather swim underwater than go to mars seals
weird bubbles cute babies world record holders beautiful bay in cornwall that's got it all