Read through the information below, and use what you learn to help you answer the next few questions!
As you've recently learned, our bodies monitor the pH of our blood to determine when to increase or decrease our breathing rate. Remember, the higher the concentration of CO2 in our blood, the lower the pH level of our blood (in other words, the more acidic it becomes).
This refers to rapid, deep breathing. When you hyperventilate, you exhale more CO2 than your body produces during that time. Because the hemoglobin throughout your blood is usually almost fully saturated (all holding as much oxygen as they can) at any given time point, the overall effect of hyperventilating means you sharply decrease the amount of CO2 in your blood without significantly changing the levels of O2 in your blood.
This refers to breathing less. The way we simulated this was to breath at a normal rate, but breath into a bag. By breathing in a bag, you are rebreathing air that has a much high concentration of CO2 and much lower concentration of O2 than the typical air you breathe. The result is a significant increase in the concentration of CO2 in your bloodstream.