oxygenated room benefits

What oxygen does

Oxygen is one of the building blocks of muscle fuel (think heart) and is crucial to muscle performance.  Oxygen is essential for the burning of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat, which the cells turn into energy (called ATP).  Without enough oxygen to turn food into energy, your cells produce lactic acid instead.  This is why your muscles hurt after working out.  In aerobic metabolism, oxygen passes through alveoli sacs in the lungs into the bloodstream to begin the process.  More oxygen means less muscle pain from less lactic acid and greater efficiency delivering energy to your cells

The Problem

Air is heavy (why airplanes fly), and at sea level you have the most atmospheric pressure pushing down on every living thing and compressing the air.  The higher you go, less pressure, and thus the expansion of all gases.  The air you breathe is 21% oxygen (o2), 78% nitrogen, and 1% co2 and other gases.  That does not change at altitude, but there is less of all gases in equal amounts.  For instance, the effective oxygen you receive is no longer 21%, but 6.9% on Mount Everest, and 15.4% in Aspen Colorado (7,907’ elev.).  By raising the percentage of oxygen to over 25% we can bring your effective oxygen level back to sea level, depending on elevation.

Solution:  Red blood cellls

Given time, lots of time, the body will increase the amount of red blood cells to carry more oxygen to the cells to compensate for diminished oxygen at altitude.  That is why athletes come to the mountains to train, or train on hypoxic air machine which provides oxygen dimished air thought to boost the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, which in turn boosts the production of red blood cells—in much the same way as the banned drug erythropoietin (EPO).  As we age our ability to respond to low oxygen decreases, and sleeping in an oxygen bedroom (and good sleep) is a way to counteract the aging process.  Good sleep is good.

Muscle mass and sleep

Endurance athletes have started to incorporate oxygen-based treatments into their training regiment.  Oxygen therapy has been known to reduce inflammation, scar tissue, and muscle soreness.  By sleeping in an oxygen enriched room, your muscles (including the heart muscle).  REM sleep supplies energy to the brain that nurtures it during waking hours.  Non-Rem sleep is critical for muscle recovery.  The growth hormone Somatotropin is released during non-REM sleep from your pituitary gland to stimulate muscle growth.  Lack of good sleep, decreases muscle mass.