Stig Åvall Severinsen (born 8 March 1973) is a Danish freediver. He is a four-time world freediving champion and holder of multiple

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

. He also wrote ''Træk Vejret – mere energi, mindre stress'' (2009), published in English in 2010 as ''Breatheology – The Art of Conscious Breathing''.

Background

Severinsen has a degree in biology and a PhD in medicine. He began experimenting with holding his breath as a child at the bottom of his parents' pool. He started swimming at the age of 6 and was awarded National Champion four years in a row at 9, 10, 11 and 12. In 1993–2003 he played Underwater Rugby, and was a member of the Danish national team. During university studies in

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, Spain in 1998–99, he played underwater hockey on the Spanish national team. A fascination with long breath holds under water drew him to the world of free diving. In 2010 he founded Breatheology, an online platform teaching optimal health and performance via breathing, breath holding and mental training techniques.

Career

Combining

yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

and his knowledge of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

in freediving, Severinsen became a record holder of four AIDA freediving world records. He achieved two Guinness World Records in 2010: in March that year he swam under ice wearing only swimming trunks and goggles, exceeding Wim Hof's record of March 2000 by ; and in April, after inhaling pure oxygen, he held his breath for 20 minutes and 10 seconds in a tank full of

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

s at the Kattegat Centre in Grenaa. In May 2012 he was awarded the record of "Longest time breath held voluntarily (male)" by Guinness World Records for holding his breath for 22 minutes; this record was achieved in a tank at the London School of Diving with the water cooled to . He held this record until 28 February 2016, when it was broken by Aleix Segura. In April 2013 in Qorlortoq Lake in east

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

, he set two new world records for "longest swim under ice - breath held": while wearing a wetsuit and monofin, taking 2 minutes, 11 seconds, and the following day, wearing only swimming trunks. He announced that these would be his last record attempts and he would now concentrate on teaching. In 2020, Severinsen came back from retirement to break another record. He swam 202 meters on a single breath at La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico on 26 November 2020. Severinsen was chosen "The Ultimate Superhuman" on the

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programme ''Superhuman Showdown'', and a documentary about him, ''Stig Severinsen: The Man Who Doesn't Breathe'', was produced for broadcast on Discovery and on Quest in the UK in October 2013. In ''Breatheology'' Severinsen proposes that through working with the breath, a link can be created between body and mind that enables a person to control stress, increase energy, perform better physically and mentally, alleviate pain and improve health.

AIDA Freediving World Records

Personal bests

References

External links