Learning to control your body in idle circumstances is impressive in a meditative sense, but how people manage comparable durations while physically active is a different thing entirely.
Look for the "sea nomads", there have been articles about them recently, a recent (2016) research ( https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30386-6 ) suggests that their ability could be because they evolved a larger spleen (which helps with red blood cells).
Although that skill didn't evolve. It's just something kids can do with practice, and the ability is lost as we age and our lenses become less flexible.
However, all the news stories neglected to mention that the sea nomads still had smaller spleens than average humans overall.