An honest review of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Last month I tried Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) for the first time, and here’s my honest opinion. The therapy involves breathing in pure oxygen in a pressurised chamber, that increases the amount of oxygen in the body’s tissues.
HBOT has traditionally been used to speed up healing of carbon monoxide poisoning, gangrene and wounds that won’t heal. It’s also used by deep-sea divers with the ‘bends’. So why is it becoming so popular? Celebrity endorsement has a lot to do with trends and Justin Beiber uses HBOT to manage anxiety and stress. Running legend Mo Farah also sleeps in an oxygen tent. There are numerous celebs and athletes who use oxygen therapy, as it’s meant to speed up healing and recovery and have anti-ageing properties.
I tried it at Pure Spa & Beauty in Newhaven with points from my ClassPass account. On the day I had tight back muscles with low level muscle pain, and general malaise. I had no idea what to expect…
The therapist did a quick medical check, then issued me with some instructions. She showed me how to fit the face mask, then fully clothed, I sat in the pod (see photo). The therapist zipped me in and the pod pumped up with air, well pure oxygen apparently. It was quite comfortable, but it did start to get warmer which took me by surprise. What was also surprising was that I was allowed to use my phone whilst having the therapy. In fact, the therapist even told me some clients catch up on their admin whilst breathing oxygen. I took some photos and didn’t explode (I was worried the flash from the camera would explode the pod! It didn’t! Obviously!). A selfie showed me to be flushed with frizzy hair, not my favourite look.
After around 30 minutes (I was in for an hour) I realised that I was unconsciously holding my breath. It reminded me of the Wim Hoff YouTube video where you hyperventilate, then hold your breath. Homeostatis is where the body maintains a stable internal environment. Your body is a self-correcting machine, why it can be hard to lose weight sometimes (your body likes to ‘hold on’ to fat). So your body will control it’s preferred oxygen levels by how often and deeply you breathe.
I spent a few minutes taking deep breaths, and then timed how long I could hold my breath for. 1 minute and 20 seconds! Realising that holding my breath in an oxygen treatment was a monumental waste of time, I breathed normally for the rest of the session. The room had been darkened, I guess to aid relaxation, in the photo below you can see the view I had out the ‘porthole’ for an hour, quite surreal.
The pod deflated and I stepped out.
Directly after the therapy my skin looked great, and I cycled up the steep Newhaven hill super quick with fresh legs, so I guess it did have some kind of effect. I tested my blood oxygen levels using a pulse oxometer before and directly after the therapy. It was 99% both times. So I’m not sure what to deduce. I thought about altitude training, and how training at low oxygen increase the number of mitochondria in the body, which is a good thing. Does that mean more oxygen = less mitochondria? Hmmm. I can’t answer that one.
If I was wealthy and chasing eternal life, I might sleep in an oxygen chamber. An hour of breathing pure oxygen was a novel experience. I’m sure this will become popular as it’s low effort, with short term results (and celebrity endorsement). I can see it’s helpful in a medical setting, but personally I think we should all just breath a little deeper in everyday life...
