When I was a teenager I used to enjoy testing my ability to hold me breath. My eventual record was 2 minutes and 8 seconds. I was pretty happy with that but I was aware that pros like Houdini and pearl divers could do that same for 4 or 5 minutes.

Then I read this report about what seems to be a bogus claim to have set the record at 15:58! It might be true, but there are some definite doubts cast in the comments attached to the article.

A more accepted record is 13:42 set by a guy named Robert Foster in 1959. That one was included in the Guinness Book of Records until they stopped reporting records that may tempt dangerous attempts.

This is the text from the 1978 edition of the book:

The world record for voluntarily staying underwater is 13 min 42.5 sec by Robert Foster, aged 32, an electronics technician of Richmond, California, who stayed under 10 ft 3.05m of water in the swimming pool of the Bermuda Palms Motel at San Rafeal, California, USA, on 15 March 1959. He hyperventilated with oxygen for 30 min before his descent. The longest unprepared record is 6 min 29.8 sec by Georges Pouliquin in Paris on 3 Nov. 1912. It must be stressed that record-breaking of this kind is extremely dangerous.

These are incredible records – even 5 minutes is a very, very long time to imagine not breathing. 2:08 is more than enough for me!

When I read Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth my imagination was caught by a part of the story where the heroes are lost without water for days and almost die of thirst. The superb Adrift and Survive the Savage Sea both tell stories about people struggling for survival while lost at sea. It seems that people can survive quite long without food, but lack of water kills pretty quickly.

How Stuff Works has a pretty detailed article on the subject at the moment. What are the answers?

• How long you can go without food depends a lot on the circumstances. Some people last longer than others. Temperature makes a big difference. Pretty much the same thing for water – circumstances make a huge difference.
• “Most doctors agree that healthy humans can go up to eight weeks without food as long as they have water”
• In ideal conditions “a human can probably live for about 3 to 5 days without any water“

At the end of the article they have included a little story about a hunger strike by some IRA prisoners in 1981. Nine of these guys starved themselves to death with one guy lasting 73 days without any food!