Testing Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment as a Jet Lag Remedy

27.07.2023 - 18:23 / smartertravel.com

I’m always on the lookout for jet lag remedies, so when I learned about mild hyperbaric oxygen treatment as a growing trend for treating the ill-effects of air travel and time-zone changes, I knew I wanted to test it out. Here’s the lowdown on my experience.

Airplane cabins are pressurized so that when you’re at cruising altitude (36,000 to 40,000 feet), the air pressure in the cabin is equal to about what you’d experience at 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. The reduced air pressure means the amount of oxygen in your blood is lower than it would be at sea level.

(Here’s cabin air pressure explained by the World Health Organization).

If you’ve ever spent time at high altitudes, you’re likely familiar with the fatigue, headaches, and insomnia that come with reduced oxygen. Add this to the dehydration of air travel and the challenge of shifting time zones and it begins to make sense why jet lag is such a beast.

While airplane cabin air pressure is lower than sea-level air pressure, air pressure inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber is higher—by two to three times. Mild hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatment, or mHBOT, involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized tube, allowing your lungs to gather more oxygen than it gets from breathing pure oxygen at regular air pressure. This helps your blood deliver more oxygen to your organs and tissues, and can help, according to Mayo Clinic, “fight bacteria and stimulate the release of substances called growth factors and stem cells, which promote healing.”

As the trend of mHBOT grows, so do concerns about it being sold as an off-label miracle cure for conditions ranging from autism to cancer. That said, it’s been successfully used for many years by college and pro athletes, who use the method to recover from workouts, heal from injuries faster, and reduce the effects of jet lag while traveling between games.

Receiving mild hyperbaric oxygen treatment requires a prescription. In my phone consultation with the doctor (the treatment clinic referred me to a doctor who did a phone consultation) we discussed mHBOT. I wanted to use it right after landing after my return flight home for both jet lag and muscle soreness, since I was anticipating—correctly—muscle pain from a trip spent cycling, kayaking, and hiking.

After an 11-hour flight, I went home, had a light meal and a quick shower, and then headed to a clinic called Holistic Hyperbarics for a 90-minute session.

I am mildly claustrophobic, so I had some concerns about being in the hyperbaric chamber. But Alex Williams, who runs the