On being drunk underwater – nitrogen narcosis
You know that feeling when you’re blissfuly happy, and you feel super-confident? Maybe you’re in love, or high on something? Well, you can get that feeling easily when scuba-diving underwater. It’s called nitrogen narcosis – the narcs – and it can get you killed…
First the basics. When you’re diving with air in your tank, you don’t normally get it above 30 metres (100 feet). Below that depth, the partial pressure of nitrogen starts to affect our brains, and it’s very much like getting drunk.
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