Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić broke the world record for longest human breath hold with a stunning 29 minutes and 3 seconds—almost five minutes longer than the previous record, set in 2021. Maričić’s record was oxygen-assisted, meaning that he was able to breathe pure oxygen for several minutes before making his attempt. That’s why the world record for unaided breath holding is a much shorter (but still very impressive) 11 minutes and 35 seconds . As ScienceAlert notes, Maričić’s world-record fully doubles the maximum breath hold for bottlenose dolphins, and nearly matches the abilities of the harbor seal. However, humans have zero hope of ever snatching any world record from marine mammals entirely—the Cuvier’s beaked whale can stay submerged underwater for more than three hours .