A lot of people have been playing with breath control as their ultimate fantasy. The problem is, it’s something incredibly risky to try and do because, at its core, you will always be in danger of dying because you know, humans need oxygen to survive. The thing is, breath control can block two processes inherently made for a human being to breathe properly; oxygen has to be passed to the lungs and carbon dioxide has to be released. If insufficient, you can suffer a heart attack and health risks arise. That is why people with respiratory conditions are strongly advised to never try breath play; the risks are a million times higher. And at the end of the day, thing is you are not able to know when you have reached that point of no return when it comes to restricting oxygen from the lings, therein lies the problem with breath play.
Some people argue you the body can be fine if some hypoxia (insufficient oxygen) occurs. The people who make this argument put as an example athletes and swimmers; their oxygen supply is cut short for periods of time and they are fine. And that is a compelling argument, but not everyone who tries breath play is an endurance athlete so I think that should probably be taken into account wink*.
While most people of enjoy breath play don’t let it get so far, for others the pleasure happens when hypoxia is reached at the body losses consciousness or faints. And you don’t even have to restrict the airways; you can also get to that point if you restrict the carotid artery. Needless to say, losing consciousness is one of the most dangerous things that can happen. Some warning signs the body is about to reach that point are ringing of the ears and tunnel vision, but these symptoms usually occur a few seconds before the person loses consciousness.
As breath play is one of the most dangerous things in bondage, it is advised to never try it on your own because it can be deathly. And I’m not being dramatic; there are thousands of deaths occurring each year due to solo breath play. The usual tip is, if you have to do it on your own, restrict the air with your hand. That way, if you faint and fall, the hand will fall away and the airways will be unblocked. But I repeat, don’t be a part of that statistic and don’t do it on your own.
Usually, a faint is just a faint and you should recover quickly, but you can hit your head on your way down. That is something to take into account for your scene; you don’t want anything around that you can hit you head into.
Another of the dangers of losing consciousness is brain damage. Some argue that doing it for a short period of time is all right, but the reality is accumulative damage from repeatedly losing consciousness is a real health risk. Hypoxia destroys brain cells that unfortunately don’t “grow” back, so you definitely don’t want to lose them.
To reduce those risks, experts recommend never trying it twice in one session and leaving longer gaps when trying breath play. Another way to reduce the risks is simply by not trying it…bear with me while I explain. Like I mentioned, this tends to be an ultimate fantasy for some, so playing around that idea, like a mind game, can sometimes be enough. If you do decide to play with it, be extremely and incredibly careful and make sure the person inflicting the breath play knows CPR and first aid measures. If they don’t, make them take a course! You can never be too careful when it comes to breath control.
