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DR RICHARDRUSSELL is consultant respiratory physician at Lymington Hospital, Hampshire, and honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College, London
We do it without thinking, around 12-15 12-15times a minute, and it’s undoubtedly the most important of all bodily functions. Our bodies can go without food for several weeks and water for several days, but it would take only three minutes without drawing breath before the average human suffered brain damage, and around 10 minutes before they died. Notable exceptions are free divers, who train themselves to hold their breath for extended periods – the record is 22 minutes.