Can Underwater Swimming Increase Your Intelligence?

[Noesis]

Well the author claims you can vastly increase your intelligence by simply swimming underwater for a couple of weeks.

I want to know what you guys think, and if it would even be safe to try:

http://www.geniusbydesign.com/other/windocs/guarante/guaran3.shtml

My own opinion right now is a bit muddled...still trying to research.

 

[Moonbear]

Looks like complete crackpottery. The whole bit about breathing distracting from your attention is nonsense. Breathing is an autonomic function...you don't have to think about it or give it any attention at all to do it. You don't suddenly stop breathing if you don't think about it. Even on an intuitive level, that should be obvious.

Further, the part about increasing CO2 levels to the brain makes no sense either. Increasing CO2 reaching the brain would be deleterious, not helpful.

As for the question of safety, it's not recommending you exceed whatever amount of time you can comfortably hold your breath, so there shouldn't be any problem with safety, if you just want to prove to yourself it doesn't work. I'd say that my sister and I spent way more time than that underwater as kids (we used to have contests of who could stay underwater longest, or swim the deepest on the deep end of the pool all summer long). The biggest danger is getting swimmer's ear (a very painful ear infection) from all the water in your ears. Spending an hour a day getting any type of exercise is good for overall health, so take that how you want.

 

[Rach3]

Agreed, it's obvious crackpottery. But swimming is very good for your health regardless.

 

[Evo]

Where DO these people come from?

 

[JamesU]

Where DO these people come from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crackpot,_North_Yorkshire

 

[wolram]

Looks like complete crackpottery. The whole bit about breathing distracting from your attention is nonsense. Breathing is an autonomic function...you don't have to think about it or give it any attention at all to do it. You don't suddenly stop breathing if you don't think about it. Even on an intuitive level, that should be obvious.

Further, the part about increasing CO2 levels to the brain makes no sense either. Increasing CO2 reaching the brain would be deleterious, not helpful.

As for the question of safety, it's not recommending you exceed whatever amount of time you can comfortably hold your breath, so there shouldn't be any problem with safety, if you just want to prove to yourself it doesn't work. I'd say that my sister and I spent way more time than that underwater as kids (we used to have contests of who could stay underwater longest, or swim the deepest on the deep end of the pool all summer long). The biggest danger is getting swimmer's ear (a very painful ear infection) from all the water in your ears. Spending an hour a day getting any type of exercise is good for overall health, so take that how you want.

Errr, MoonB, have you just proved this guy right

 

[desA]

I would imagine that if one tried to swim underwater for a few weeks, that you'd drown...

 

[Rach3]

You're right - I misread that! If one were to try swimming underwater for weeks at a time, then of course one would become more intelligent. One would have learned a very valuable lesson.

 

[darkar]

Umm, i am totally agree with that.

 

[rcgldr]

You're all missing the point. It's Darwin in action. Since only the dumb ones will try this and some of them will drown, the average IQ of the remaining population will increase.

It's like the guy promising to make you smarter for a dollar. You give him the dollar, and then realize, hey, I don't feel any smarter, and the guy replies, "see, it's working already...".

 

[DM]

The "gotcha" assertions are ludicrous. What a complete moron.

 

[Astronuc]

Further, the part about increasing CO2 levels to the brain makes no sense either. Increasing CO2 reaching the brain would be deleterious, not helpful.

It's more a case of oxygen deprivation to the brain.

The challenge is not breathing (especially when underwater) up to the brink of unconsciousness. Such skill does come in handy when someone is trying to drown one, or torture one with the water immersion, or when infiltrating a guarded border, such as a river, or trying to escape hostile forces and the only way out is underwater. Certain naval personnel receive such training, but in most cases, underwater rebreathers are employed - which is the case when an operation is conducted with advanced planning.


I can't imagine how holding one's breath would have any effect on intelligence. Intillegence seems to be a function of the structure of the cerebral cortex, e.g. neural density, thickness, interconnections, folds in the cortex. Then there is the matter of 'training' the mind.


Herein intelligence means - "the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations", or "the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)".

 

[Evo]

The "gotcha" assertions are ludicrous. What a complete moron.

He lost my interest after his first "gotcha". I think he's been holding his breath too much and the lack of oxygen to his brain has left him mentally impaired.

 

[Moonbear]

Errr, MoonB, have you just proved this guy right

Nope...what I didn't share is that my sister was also out swimming with me, and she's a complete flake...and she spent more time underwater than I did (mainly because she wasn't very good at swimming along the surface, so just swam a lot underwater.....no, we weren't drowning her).

About the only claim that seems consistent with my experience is that spending a lot of time underwater holding your breath will help you improve your ability to hold your breath in the future. That's how I can talk so much without stopping for breaths.

 

[Lisa!]

Wow! And I always tried to avoid staying underwater for so long since I thought(and still think) that's dangerous for my brain.(I don't know where I got the idea that your brain cells will hurt if they don't get oxygen even for some seconds)

 

[wolram]

Wow! And I always tried to avoid staying underwater for so long since I thought(and still think) that's dangerous for my brain.(I don't know where I got the idea that your brain cells will hurt if they don't get oxygen even for some seconds)

No comment, no comment,

 

[Lisa!]

No comment, no comment,

What's wrong here?

 

[wolram]

What's wrong here?

Often times brits take the P out of things they like, but brits are very eccentric

 

[Noesis]

Thanks for all of the responses guys.

Now, I'm a bit surprised with them.

Many of you seem to have not even read the article, and if you did you totally missed the point. His entire argument is based on the permanent expansion of the carotid arteries, which will in turn provide a GREATER flow of oxygen to the brain, thus increasing intelligence.

Two main assertions that would need to be verified before moving forward are the expansion of the carotid arteries in the presence of excess CO2, and its permanence.

If both are true, then we would go on to check the validity of it providing a great flow of oxygen. If that were true, then we could finally see if this greater oxygen flow had any impact on intelligence.

To dismiss it as crackpottery just because at first glance it sounds it, is a little anti-scientific, if you will, for lack of a better term.

As I posted earlier I'm not dead set on a decision, but I'm leaning towards the entire concept being fairly far fetched.

Reasons beyond the guy who wrote it sounds like a clown with his 'gotchas!' (which I totally agree with by the way) is more of what I expected.

 

[Rach3]

Two main assertions that would need to be verified before moving forward are the expansion of the carotid arteries in the presence of excess CO2, and its permanence.

I see no reason that anything needs to be "verified" coming from an internet posting by a deluded crackpot with no scientific background.

To dismiss it as crackpottery just because at first glance it sounds it, is a little anti-scientific, if you will, for lack of a better term.

I dismiss it because its author provides neither evidence for it, nor citations, nor even a reasonable argument. That, combined with his argument being a priori unreasonable and bizarre.

When confronted with something like this, it is not useful to say, "well, his argument seems nonsensical, but there must be the slightest chance that it has some truth, so then let's waste our personal time investigating it at every level just in case". Random ravings on the internet to not deserve that scrutiny! Statements which are backed with empirical evidence or citations to someone else's empirical evidence, which are reasonable and coherently argued, do.

 

[Noesis]

from an internet posting by a deluded crackpot with no scientific background.

I see your point, and for the most part agree. However the man has actually published around 45 books and has a PhD himself, the article is actually an excerpt from his book titled "The Einstein Factor."

This does not mean that he is a credible source of information, obviously, but does elevate him from the fun status of being a deluded crackpot.

I see no reason that anything needs to be "verified"

Nothing needs to be "verified," but his article did pique my interest and desire to investigate it. Before being able to aptly dismiss it or not, if one chooses to even care, you should be able to at least refute it based on the terms claimed.

I dismiss it because its author provides neither evidence for it, nor citations, nor even a reasonable argument. That, combined with his argument being a priori unreasonable and bizarre.

When confronted with something like this, it is not useful to say, "well, his argument seems nonsensical, but there must be the slightest chance that it has some truth, so then let's waste our personal time investigating it at every level just in case". Random ravings on the internet to not deserve that scrutiny! Statements which are backed with empirical evidence or citations to someone else's empirical evidence, which are reasonable and coherently argued, do.

Sure..it might be bull****. Hell, the lack of citations makes it even more suspect...I wholeheartedly agree there. Which is precisely the reason I threw it in here for some discussion...and hopefully for someone who is knowledgeable on the subject to throw in their 2 cents.

The argument isn't that nonsensical, just a bit far-fetched. Whether it's total BS or not is something I am not yet sure of.

And no jokes about telling me to go swim underwater for a couple of weeks, as the author recommends, I might be dumb but not stupid.

 

[Moonbear]

I see your point, and for the most part agree. However the man has actually published around 45 books and has a PhD himself, the article is actually an excerpt from his book titled "The Einstein Factor."

Real scientists publish in journals, not books. Claiming one has a PhD does not make it true either...plenty of crackpots write books and claim they have a PhD when they have never gotten one.

Sorry, I didn't bother debunking EVERY claim in it. The carotid artery expansion thing is also nonsense. Blood vessels are elastic, unless you have a serious health problem that interferes with this elasticity.

Several studies have been done to use breath holding as a diagnostic tool for problems with cerebral blood flow, so there's a fair bit of literature on healthy subjects to provide the baseline information about that.

Notably, not only does cerebral blood flow rapidly return to baseline once normal breathing is resumed, it actually decreases below baseline due to the brief period of hyperventillation that normally follows a period of holding one's breath.

Here is one freely available paper. Take particular note of Figure 2. Panels B and D show cerebral blood flow changes during repeated periods of breath holding and normal breathing (B uses a paradigm where the subjects inspired before holding their breath, i.e., take a deep breath then hold it, and alternated 40 seconds of breath holding and 40 seconds of normal breathing; D uses a paradigm where the subjects were asked to exhale before holding their breath, and held their breath for 30 seconds alternated with 30 seconds of normal breathing). The gray or hatched bars show when they held their breath.

http://www.ajnr.org/cgi/content/full/20/7/1233#F2