rickair7777

Yeah, that too. When acclimated to sea level it's harder for me to sleep much above 4000. First day or two at the high altitude house is always low key.

kingairfun

Diet, exercise and sleep habits are the key

The Duke

It is worth noting that suicide rates are much higher amongst those Americans who live in higher altitudes in the intermountain west. I think this may be due to people moving to these locations who are unable to properly adapt to living at higher altitudes.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0309170654.htm

Excargodog

Acute mountain sickness and high altitude pulmonary edema are very real things. I personally know two sea-level acclimatized people who have gotten themselves in trouble trying to do their usual sea-level aerobic exercise routine at 8000+ feet, one on a ZTDY, one on a vacation. It does happen.

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/altitude-sickness#1

flensr

I lived in Colorado Springs for 4 years, lots of sports and other physical activity. I was never a fast runner and up in the Springs I always seemed to run out of gas around the 2 mile point. At sea level while I was still fully acclimated to the higher altitude, I ran 5 miles during one workout without really feeling it. No more speed but tons more endurance.

Later when flying both pressurized and unpressurized high performance military aircraft I'd try to spend some time each flight as high as legally possible with my mask down, as part of my ongoing conditioning program. It's not very scientific but compared to some of my peers I maintained a fairly high tolerance to sustained high Gs even while my overall physical conditioning was slowly degrading due to a chronic back injury. Pulling G's never caused me back pain (it was repeated bending twisting that hurt) so the week before I hung up my G-suit and started working towards getting back surgery, I was still happily flying 6+ Gs during advanced formation training. Again I have no scientific evidence but I think some of my sustained G tolerance was due to intentional exposure to high altitudes without supplemental oxygen over many years.

I didn't really notice any long-term improvement in exercise fatigue levels at sea level once I moved away from Colorado Springs though. That kind of acclimation benefits disappear quickly and I never really noticed positive effects during daily activity. The benefits from high alt acclimatization were obvious to me only during sports or other heavy physical activity at low altitude.

rickair7777

Altitude acclimatization takes a few days to achieve significant noticeable effect, and weeks to fully acclimate (ie best you're going to get). Before acclimating, my performance sucks and it's just not fun trying to gut through stuff that's normally easy.

Unfortunately, that's about how long it takes your body to revert to normal when you return to low altitudes. My cardio performance is, if not better, at least easier for a week or so after return to sea level. But then back to normal soon enough.

UASCOMPILOT

Light beer and Merits...everything in moderation

at6d

A college physiology professor I had once surmised that placing ice packs on your kidneys daily for two weeks before a high altitude move would increase your red blood cell count and speed acclimation.

Whether it works...don’t know. But I live at 5500’ and yes, it takes time.

Big E 757

I’m a sea level creature, and last summer I flew a 5 day trip with 4 layovers in DEN. The first 3 days didn’t seem to affect me, but the 4th morning, I woke up early and noticed my heart was pounding a little and I couldn’t get back to sleep. (I was flying till 11 each night and after the long drive to downtown, wasn’t going to sleep till around 1am.) The fifth morning, again, I woke up at 6:30 am and couldn’t fall back to sleep. At this point, I was starting to feel fatigued and couldn’t wait to finish this trip and get back to sea level and get a good night sleep.

The day after I got home, I rented a two man post hole digger because I had built a bench swing frame I was going to build in the back yard and needed two deep holes to sink the frame uprights in. My brother in law and I were using this post hole auger thing and I kept getting so winded at 600’ elevation, I almost passed out 3 times.
I’ve never felt that out of shape in my life, and I thought I was in reasonable shape. I was surprised that the day after I got home, my BOC hadn’t recovered yet.

On another note, I had a 32 hour layover in Bogota a few years ago. Like the genius I am, my FAA medical was scheduled for the day I got home. The first night in BOG, I slept fine. Worked out the next day and noticed the difference but thought it might be good for me. That second night, I woke up at least 3 times gasping for air, as if I was suffocating. The city of Bogota is even higher than the airport, pushing 9000’ at least. The next morning I had this continuous feeling of claustrophobia, like I was on the verge of suffocating. We land in ATL, I catch my commuter flight to ORD. Go straight to Dr. Kitslaar at ORD, and fail the eye test. He had recommended that I get glasses a few medicals before, and I did, I was a 20/30, but I always passed the 20/20 test. Luckily I had them with me, and since that day, I’ve had the restriction on my medical to wear corrective lenses.

I think the lower BOC caused my vision to suffer, temporarily.

LowerLoon185

I don't have a scientific paper to back it up, but i was told by a flight doc one time that hypoxia and/or your general response to reduced oxygen levels had way more to do with your cardiovascular fitness than anything else. People that are obese and smokers can actually be "hypoxic" at sea level.