How much air do you breathe in a lifetime?

Chances are that for the majority of the day, you don’t consciously think about your breathing. But every minute, multiple liters of air are cycled through your lungs. The term tidal volume refers to the amount of air that moves in or out of the lungs each respiratory cycle. Tidal volume differs from person to person because of several factors, including sex. On average, males have a slightly higher tidal volume of 500 milliliters at rest compared with a resting level of 400 milliliters for females. Those amounts are equivalent to about 2 cups of air in a single breath. Since the average person at rest breathes about 12 times per minute, with a tidal volume of a half liter per breath, that equates to a rate of about 6 liters of air per minute. However, this rate can change drastically due to activity and stress levels. Moderate exercise requires 40 liters of air per minute, and stress tests have recorded air intake of more than 100 liters per minute! But even at complete rest, a person will breathe thousands of liters of air per day. The average person will breathe in roughly 3 to 4 million liters per year at minimum—more than the capacity of an Olympic sized pool!
That means at complete rest, the average person will breathe at least 200 million liters of air in their lifetime—equal to 24 Goodyear blimps combined! An exact estimate is hard to pin down due to high variability in one’s daily activities, stress level, and life span. And when it comes to counting your own air intake—why waste your breath?