Insights

The bends

The bends. A medical condition caused by nitrogen trapped and expanded in body tissue, usually due to an ascent that happened too fast, without giving your body enough time to process the nitrogen out. Besides extremely painful, life-threatening.

Here’s Diver’s Alert Network (DAN)’s definition:

DCS, also known as the bends, describes a variety of injuries that result from inadequate decompression following exposure to increased pressure. This can occur following uneventful dives within accepted no-decompression limits but is more likely after dives that involve a rapid underwater ascent. DCS can also be prompted by ascending in an airplane too soon after diving. When there is a rapid decrease in surrounding pressure, nitrogen absorbed by the body at depth comes out of solution, creating bubbles in the bloodstream and/or body tissues.

In the diving world, you don’t usually wait for things to happen (that means you’re dead). You think ahead and prepare. The best way to avoid the bends is by preventing them. There are series of measures to do so.

The most important one?

Decompression time.

On your ascent, you go slow, controlling your speed and making stops. You pause, time it, assess and then go to the next one.

Here’s the thing

In business, there will be many ways to get “business bends” —especially in fast paced environments. You get too busy, immersed and hectic on the day-to-day that you keep going with the speed of things, just like ascending too quickly. You can prevent them.

Take a pause, time it, assess what’s going on. Move to the next one. You can control the speed of your movement.

Let me know how you’re doing.

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