Ask HN: Could an oxygen concentrator increase my productivity?

Do not do this. Was CTO of Healthcare company that focuses on heart failure. In the course of my work I learned that if you're in the hospital, they only give you just enough to keep your SpO2 in the desired range. If they give you too much oxygen, you can get oxygen toxicity. Your body will also get used to trying less hard for air, so when you go off your SpO2 drops dramatically. You have to slowly titrate off. This isn't a thing you want to fuck with.

As for downsides: I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if your body adapted to the higher oxygen levels that you provide it with the concentrator, resulting in <i>reduced</i> productivity when you&#x27;re not connected to it.<p>Just like people who live at high altitudes adapt to the lower oxygen levels, except in reverse.

Idk, but maybe you can experiment with an oxygen cylinder and one of those nose pieces they give to sick people. If that doesn&#x27;t help, an oxygen concentrator might also not help. The experiment should be relatively inexpensive.

I wonder how you got this idea. If you want to increase your output nothing works better than starting the day with a 30 minute walk. Every 2 hours do some exercise for 5 to 7 minutes. This is also cheaper. I recommend doing a few squads as it is the best exercise.

You might try one of those boost oxygen cans - they are primarily meant for hiking at altitude, but they do provide a mental clarity boost with each &#x27;puff&#x27; that lasts a minute or two. They cost like $10 at Walmart.

Increased alertness, coupled with greater O2 use = greater CO2 production from the increase in respiration - not a straight line as the body will use what it needs and will ramp consumption only if there was a prior deficiency. Increase in CO2 produced also drive faster respiration as the body has detectors for extra CO2 = homeostasis.

A greater partial pressure of oxygen != lesser partial pressure of CO2.

Most of the US is currently blanketed with wildfire smoke. Are you sure CO2 is the problem? Are you testing for PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, humidity, etc?

I&#x27;d be worried about side effects.... I doubt more oxygen is exactly the same as less Co2, isn&#x27;t oxygen toxicity a thing?<p>I wouldn&#x27;t be willing to tolerate even a very small amount of toxicity just for increased productivity if that is the case.

It is way cheaper to hyperventilate. Enjoy the dizziness.

To back up what you&#x27;re saying about CO2 levels – I used to work in a small office with about 40 other devs. In the winter when the windows were closed the room was basically sealed off. The only fresh air we&#x27;d get was when someone occasionally entered or left the room.<p>I was always sceptical of how useful CO2 monitors are, but I was barely functional in that office. A colleague of mine regularly worked in the corridor because he got such bad headaches while in the office. For me I just got drowsy and couldn&#x27;t focus.<p>I&#x27;ve never tried to actively increase oxygen, but I do carry a CO2 monitor now and I think if you&#x27;re going to be doing mentally demanding tasks in a confided space it&#x27;s useful to think about.<p>Personally I wouldn&#x27;t want to increase O2 concentrations beyond levels you&#x27;d generally find outdoors though... Perhaps if you occasionally want a short burst of focus it wouldn&#x27;t be too harmful, but I&#x27;m guessing its effects will be a bit like caffeine in that if you consume it constantly your body will just adjust to a new baseline and you&#x27;ll find it hard to cope without it.

Very unlikely to be helpful. Oxygen saturation is maintained very well within the body and is under normal circumstances outside of disease and high altitude not a product of the environment.

I&#x27;m curious: would a few leafy house plants do the trick here?

I think getting a good sleep in a well ventilated room with fresh air will do way more for productivity (or lack of it).

tl;dr: No<p>A suggestion from someone who has built three different CO2 monitors - don&#x27;t chase the numbers. 420&#x2F;800&#x2F;1200 ppm has no meaningful difference, and if you don&#x27;t have a good way to calibrate your CO2 sensor, such as a pure nitrogen environment or taking your sensor outside at least weekly and forcing a calibration, you can easily be 500 ppm out of true.<p>I suspect that you probably feel more clear-headed outside because there is wind and nature and distractions that aren&#x27;t an LED screen.<p>That said, I think an interesting experiment would be to use a CO2 scrubber to remove carbon dioxide, instead of trying to overpower it with more oxygen. Otherwise, just get a tank of oxygen and face mask and see how it works for you.

how do you measure productivity?

I deal with oxygen concentrators daily after I put together a family of heart failure patients. I think we have 4 working concentrators, plus bottle oxygen.<p>1. Check your blood oxygen saturation with several pulse oximeters. They are not reliable enough to only use one.<p>1.1 You can buy sleep study watches that monitor your oxygen levels constantly and record &#x2F; graph it, but they involve things that clip on your finger tip. It is hard to work with one on.<p>1.2 Most oxygen monitoring activity trackers are fake. Even brand names do not read the same as medical pulse oximeters and sleep study watches.<p>2. Open a window. If outside air is better, breathe outside air.<p>3. Monitor your air. You seem to have a CO2 meter. Get a second one and check if it is reliable. If they disagree, buy a third unit as a tie breaker. Compare your inside air to outside air, which should be below 400 ppm CO2.<p>3.1 Buy several oxygen meters and check the oxygen in your outside air (should be 20 percent, plus or minus 1 percent.) Check the inside air Oxygen meters can usually be calibrated.<p>4. If you use an oxygen cylinder, be aware of what can happen if you drop it. A mount that is screwed to a wall or a good stand is not optional.<p>4.1 if you use an oxygen cylinder, make sure it is medical oxygen and not contaminated with welding gasses.<p>4.2 if you use an oxygen cylinder, make sure you calculate the cost with a regulator, tubing, cannula, and frequency refills. They do not last long.<p>4.3 If you use an oxygen cylinder, make sure not to get too much oxygen in the room. Remember the Apollo 1 fire.<p>4.4 If you buy or rent oxygen cylinders, there are different sizes.<p>5. If you consider an oxygen concentrator, they are cheaper used, but bring your own tester and check them out. Many used ones are broken. Selling a broken oxygen concentrator can kill heart failure patients, but it happens.<p>5.1 If you buy an oxygen concentrator, it separates oxygen from surrounding air. That gives oxygen through a tube and oxygen depleted air around the concentrator. Keep a window open and a fan on for at least an hour a day.<p>5.2 If you buy an oxygen concentrator, do not put it in a box or closet to muffle the noise. It sucks the oxygen out of that area and then can not get any more oxygen.<p>5.3 If you buy an oxygen concentrator you will need tubing and cannulas.<p>5.4 I can imagine someone plugging in an oxygen concentrator without a cannula. It would separate oxygen from room air and dump them out 2 exit points, allowing them to recombine. This would be useless.<p>5.5 Oxygen concentrators heat up the room. Be prepared for as much heat as an extra PC workstation produces.<p>6. Oxygen toxicity is real, but I have no experience with it.<p>7. There are legends of guys putting several oxygen concentrators in a well ventilated out building &#x2F; storage building and flooding a room in the main building with oxygen. This takes us back to the Apollo 1 fire and to oxygen toxicity.

I use concentrators for gas torches. They are not to be trifled with. Enriched oxygen is terrifying.

Open a window and get a fan.

any chance you can put plants around your home OP?<p>greens brings comfort to the eyes, tending to them eases you out too. walking around or exercising gives you better oxygen circulation too.

No. (Thanks Betteridge).