Is Scuba Diving Hard on Lungs?

Scuba diving is hard on the lungs. The changes in pressure and environment force the body to perform differently while breathing, and some of the most dangerous medical issues from diving relate to lungs.

In this article, we look at what happens to your lungs while diving and how this affects your ability to breathe. We also identify two of the most common injuries relating to lungs and diving, and point out how diving affects lung strength.

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Contents hide

1 What Happens to Lungs in Scuba Diving?

2 Is it Hard to Breathe While Diving?

3 Potential Lung Issues from Diving

4 Do Scuba Divers Have Stronger Lungs?

5 References

What Happens to Lungs in Scuba Diving?

One of the most recognizable physiological effects of scuba diving relates to blood distribution.

When you put on a wetsuit and get going with your dive your body redistributes blood from your limbs to your central space, primarily your heart and lungs. This causes your lungs to become stiffer, also reducing their elastic recoil and making it more difficult to breathe.

Your lungs also behave differently when descending and ascending.

Water pressure increases as you descend, thus decreasing the volume of air in your body. When you ascend, the water pressure decreases and causes the air in your lungs. Each of these changes pose a different threat to health and well-being during and after your dive.

Is it Hard to Breathe While Diving?

It’s more difficult and uncomfortable to breathe while diving.

This difficulty relates to the need to adjust to breathing while diving. Divers not only need to deal with the physiological effects on their body, but they need to train to control their breathing and pay attention to what is normally an automatic response.

When you’re breathing unnaturally, especially when using equipment, you need to become more aware of the function. Not only do your buoyancy and steadiness depend on this, but proper breathing reduces the chance of diving-related injuries.

Potential Lung Issues from Diving

The changes in pressure from diving can lead to some of the most harmful injuries from the activity. These range from mild to severe, but they are always uncomfortable.

Barotrauma refers to damage in the tissues near air-filled spaces in your body. If they cannot equalize the pressure with the surrounding water you may experience pain. More severe issues include ruptured air sacs in your lungs and air bubbles in your arteries. The latter can cause blockages that affect your organs and potentially lead to heart attack or stroke.

Decompression sickness, also known as “the bends”, occurs when you ascend too quickly. Compressed air contains nitrogen which goes into your body’s tissues when under higher pressure underwater. If you ascend at the right rate your body can safely deal with the release of nitrogen, but moving too quickly causes nitrogen to form bubbles that may cause tissues and nerve damage. These can lead to paralysis and even death.

Do Scuba Divers Have Stronger Lungs?

While you may believe that the extra pressure increases the strength of a diver’s lungs, multiple studies show the opposite is true. This 2002 study concluded that diving contributes to a reduction in lung function, primarily affecting small airway conductance.

The idea of stronger lungs comes from the diver’s need to have stronger lungs. This requires a more proactive approach to breathing while diving.

Diving classes will teach how to clear ears to prevent pain and injury during descent, as well as how you can use dive tables and computers to calculate speed of ascent.

Tools such as meditation and breathing techniques help to improve lung function and control in varying pressure. They also help with keeping calm in intense situations and using breathing to prevent panic that often leads to injury.