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Asphyxiation makes you feel good because it lowers oxygen in the brain and releases happy chemicals. But asphyxiation is very dangerous and can be deadly. There's no proof that it's an evolutionary adaptation, so it's not a good idea to try it. It's better to avoid practices that cause asphyxiation.

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Why does it release "happy chemicals", evolutionary shouldn't it be the opposite? if you're not getting enough air your body should logically panic and attempt to get more oxygen instead of inducing a state of happiness.

Evolution works at the population level to ensure genes get passed down to the next generation. The deadly genetic causes of asphyxiations as children have already been selected out.

As a general note, evolution has no goals and doesn't guarantee "better" over time.

Surely people that get pleasure out of asphyxiation would not have the same ability so survive as those who do not, some migth even intentionally asphyxiate themselves. Or is this a scenario when enough time hasn't passed for the gene to evolve away?

Slow down everyone. It may be true that there is some pleasure associated with asphyxiation, but there are far, far, too many dead people that thought they could play with this and live. There are much better ways to improve feelings - one is going for a walk. Anyone care to make a list under this comment? A list of safe and healthy things that boost emotions.

Yogis have been intentionally asphyxiating themselves for thousands of years. It brings a lot of health benefits, namely carbon dioxide tolerance, when done mindfully.

The vast majority of people who might potentially get enjoyment out of the practice will never know it because they will never try. Evolutionary speaking, 99.9% of people over 99.9% of human history have been too busy surviving to experiment with how they can *almost* kill themselves for fun.

All the cases I heard from where people died after doing this, the person was very bored, without purpose in life, and mentally ill.

Maybe when it comes to choking yourself, the cons outweigh the pros. You aren't so fixated on happy chemicals that you're sitting there asphyxiating for pleasure, right? So why would any other humans do it?

The gene would only evolve away with certainty if it affected survival, which would require a large part of the population to have choked themselves for fun and died from it until there were a few people who didn't enjoy it and therefore didn't die.

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No, you slow down.

If you're doing breath play right, there's minimal risk involved. Yes, some people have died when doing autoerotic asphyxiation, but it's not some wild threat to society. The actual number is .5 deaths per 1,000,000 people per year in your average western country (per wikipedia).

For perspective, you have approximately 334 million folks in the US. That makes about 167 people who die yearly. Driving a car is 1.33 deaths per million. So, choking yourself to get off is less than half as risky as driving a car all year. In 1970, it was 4.74 deaths per million per year from cars.

Start choking yourself, stop driving, and you'll make society safer, better, and kinkier.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges there. "Deaths per year" is a pretty bad comparative statistic, because the participating populations are significantly different. Citation needed, obviously, but I'd be willing to bet the average US resident goes on a car ride more often than they choke themselves out.

I appreciate the response but it doesn't answer the question, just reiterates the premise. I'm interested in the biological pathways that cause "happy chemicals" to be released when in an oxygen-starved state.

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I would think it may have been an evolutionary response that developed to try and balance or overcome the CO2 “panic” that occurs when CO2 thresholds in the blood are too high thereby allowing just a bit more time for the brain to figure a way out of the situation and get rid of the CO2 and restore O2.

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Youre REALLY kink shaming BDSM people arent you?

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that kung-fu fighter dude (tzhe old one) carradine

wikipedia says it in different words (hmm, it changed again) but i remember

"carradine dead. in the cupboard, wank-related accident"

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