Most healthy, untrained adults can usually hold their breath for about 30–90 seconds before needing to breathe.

Typical ranges

• Everyday, untrained people commonly manage around half a minute to about a minute and a half on a single comfortable breath hold.

• In medical testing, many outpatients without serious heart–lung disease can do roughly 40–50 seconds on a single breath hold.

Trained vs untrained

• With specific training (like freediving or certain sports), people can extend this to several minutes, but this takes time and coaching and is not a normal expectation.

• People who smoke heavily or have conditions such as COPD or heart failure often have shorter safe breath‑hold times, sometimes under 30 seconds.

Safety tips

• Health experts generally consider around 1 minute to 90 seconds a reasonable upper limit for the average person to push, and you should stop if you feel dizzy, faint, or uncomfortable.

• Avoid doing long breath holds alone or underwater, and talk with a healthcare professional before training breath holds if you have any heart, lung, or neurological issues.