You are literally breathing a narcotic every moment

September 1, 2017 8:36 AM

At sea level, air is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen; at hyperbaric pressures, nitrogen becomes a narcotic, but continues to have effects at lower pressures. Substitute nitrogen with another breathable gas, such as helium, and human reaction times to visual and auditory tests improve by 9.3%. Conclusion: breathing air leaves everyone slightly intoxicated at every moment.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (51 comments total)

So when do athletes start using this information and breath air mixed with helium in order to improve their performance?

If they all start sounding like Mickey Mouse in the post game interviews we'll know for sure.
posted by eye of newt at 8:40 AM on September 1, 2017 [6 favorites]

My first thought was adderall-popping Silicon Valley singulatarians, not athletes.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 8:43 AM on September 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Conclusion: breathing air leaves everyone slightly intoxicated at every moment.

Right on. Need more breathing.
posted by strelitzia at 8:44 AM on September 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

Zinger in the last sentence of the Discussion: "Perhaps this explains the current state of world affairs."
posted by gurple at 8:52 AM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

So, the take home message is that humans who grow up on much higher gravity planets are not only stronger but also smarter? This has important implications for immigration choices in the future space empire.
posted by eotvos at 8:52 AM on September 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

My first thought was adderall-popping Silicon Valley singulatarians, not athletes.

Like Uber, but for air.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:54 AM on September 1, 2017 [15 favorites]

So when do athletes start using this information and breath air mixed with helium in order to improve their performance?

This paper is from 1975, so if they haven't done it by now...
posted by condour75 at 8:55 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'd always heard that if you are well oxygenated then using, say, your dad's oxygen tank won't do anything for you. But this seems to imply that it will, at least in that a higher oxygen ratio means less nitrogen. Am I reading that right?
posted by vacapinta at 8:55 AM on September 1, 2017

Rapture of the Deep always did sound neat, the problem is that 100' below the waves is no place to be high. I wonder if that small-but-detectable reaction deficit from breathing nitrogen is the price we pay for some beneficial mood-boosting effect, like maybe a small increase in empathy and sociability. We've been breathing nitrogen forever, so if there's a cost/benefit tradeoff you'd think evolution would have it dialed in nicely by now. Of course, maybe there's some fundamental constraint and evolutionary processes have simply mitigated the problem as best as possible.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:55 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Athletes already do a lot a weird shit related to air intake, Nike has facilities they keep at artificially low and high air pressure for different types of training for their runners. People living/training in houses that reproduce the effects of extreme altitude. Using pure oxygen recovery is not uncommon and other breathable gas mixtures.
posted by French Fry at 9:02 AM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh, god. You mean THIS could all be worse?
posted by Seamus at 9:02 AM on September 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Drugs. Just Say N₂O
posted by quinndexter at 9:06 AM on September 1, 2017 [52 favorites]

Conclusion: breathing air leaves everyone slightly intoxicated at every moment.

Now I finally understand why conservatives hate air.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:12 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

So, you're saying I could be better? faster? STRONGER?
posted by allthinky at 9:17 AM on September 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

I am still waiting for the day I experience nitrogen narcosis while SCUBA diving.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 9:18 AM on September 1, 2017

*takes deep breath* Woah. Do you think Jesus could microwave a burrito that was so hot that not even He could eat it?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:22 AM on September 1, 2017 [13 favorites]

Now I finally understand why conservatives hate air.

Because it might lead to dancing?
posted by asperity at 9:29 AM on September 1, 2017 [8 favorites]

Some people say not to worry about the air
posted by thelonius at 9:51 AM on September 1, 2017 [8 favorites]

Great, helium improves reaction times. You know what else improves reaction times? Hitler. Meth.

Reaction time is maybe not a complete measure of an anesthetic response. That is to say, the methodology and results of this paper seem reasonable to me, but I'm not knocked out by the conclusion.
posted by maryr at 9:54 AM on September 1, 2017 [7 favorites]

If I'm intoxicated all the time why do I still feel?
posted by tommasz at 10:01 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

> Substitute nitrogen with another breathable gas, such as helium, and human reaction times to visual and auditory tests improve by 9.3%.

So of course I went all cyberpunk and went to mech warfare suits being outfitted with helium packs to improve reaction times. Then a more practical use would be for fighter pilots I guess.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:01 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Rapture of the Deep always did sound neat, the problem is that 100' below the waves is no place to be high..

It's pretty great. The only place I've experienced it was about a metre from the bottom of Nemo 33, a 33m deep swimming pool just outside Brussels. Everything was suddenly joyfully, hilariously funny and perfect. After establishing that ascending about 1m was enough to completely clear the effect, I figured that a warm, crystal-clear swimming pool surrounded and observed by rescue-trained friends was probably the safest opportunity I'd ever have to get narc'd, so I just hovered there for a minute or two, giggling. I've always been underwhelmed by alcohol and (especially) inhaling NO₂, which just makes me feel hypoxic, but if you could bottle nitrogen narcosis I'd be all about that.

More seriously, I do wonder whether this is why diving makes everyone a little bit stupid. Of course some of it is task loading -- you have a lot of other things that you're keeping track of and planning for -- but doing simple arithmetic on a dive slate when you're lower than about 15m is humbling.
posted by metaBugs at 10:05 AM on September 1, 2017 [8 favorites]

There must be something in the air!
posted by Kabanos at 10:06 AM on September 1, 2017

So of course I went all cyberpunk and went to mech warfare suits being outfitted with helium packs to improve reaction times. Then a more practical use would be for fighter pilots I guess.

BRB, re-dubbing Top Gun to give all the pilots squeaky voices.
posted by metaBugs at 10:07 AM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like Uber, but for air.

HeliPad™
posted by Kabanos at 10:07 AM on September 1, 2017

I could see gamers trying this. Makes me wonder if offensive language dropped in game comes across less offensive if uttered in a helium voice,
posted by mfu at 10:10 AM on September 1, 2017

The other added benefit are the squeaky voices.
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:10 AM on September 1, 2017

Great, helium improves reaction times. You know what else improves reaction times? Hitler. Meth.

Yeahbut meth or other drugs are going to improve reaction times through chemical reactions with the body's biochemistry. Will helium react with anything outside of conditions that would kill a human?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:19 AM on September 1, 2017

I guess this means that our bodies evolved to be affected by nitrogen. I wonder what the evolutionary benefits were.
posted by mantecol at 10:21 AM on September 1, 2017

I guess this means that our bodies evolved to be affected by nitrogen. I wonder what the evolutionary benefits were.

Not suffocating?
posted by thelonius at 10:24 AM on September 1, 2017 [6 favorites]

Kabanos: "Like Uber, but for air.

HeliPad™"

SCUBER, surely.
posted by chavenet at 10:34 AM on September 1, 2017 [13 favorites]

It's interesting that the lightest noble gas, helium, is anti-narcotic; yet xenon, the heaviest non-radioactive noble gas, is strongly narcotic -- and of course the nitrogen molecule (N₂) has an orbital electron configuration that in some sense mimics two neon atoms stuck together.

So where's the tipping point from anti-narcotic to narcotic in the noble gases? You'd have to guess it might be argon or later.

In terms of cost you'd think that helium would be the most expensive, but since it's a product of radioactive decay, a lot of it has accumulated in natural gas deposits, and for some reason that isn't clear to me, the price of neon went up by a factor of six in 2014 ...
posted by jamjam at 10:44 AM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Don't try this at home, or in your parked car with a bag over your head. I had a friend deliberately end his life with helium.
posted by Oyéah at 10:44 AM on September 1, 2017

I breathe to forget.
posted by klarck at 10:53 AM on September 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

I got to go in a hyperbaric chamber as part of my scuba certification class...it's kind of like getting nitrous oxide, at the dentist...extremely dangerous, if you're deep under water.
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 11:05 AM on September 1, 2017

This explains why every night I pass out for six to eight hours.
posted by ejs at 11:05 AM on September 1, 2017 [10 favorites]

Day breathing will do that to ya
posted by French Fry at 11:22 AM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Clearly Nancy Reagan was unaware.
posted by notreally at 11:39 AM on September 1, 2017

Please, please let this be a long-con troll on the hyper-optimizing Soylent-drinking crowd, so that we eventually see them with cans of helium at tech events, sucking a bit in every tenth breath and talking in high pitched tones while we all snicker at them.
posted by ChrisR at 12:21 PM on September 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Shit, the world seems tough to take already, I don't want to know what it looks if I ever sober up.
posted by mark k at 12:29 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

My fictional take on this is cyperpunk, but with squeaky voices.

Helium really does give people an edge, but there isn't enough helium to go around, so we get helium wars.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:40 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is why I don't inhale in the morning or during work hours. Except on weekends when I indulge in the occasional bit of daytime breathing. Still, I try not to until at least after lunch. It's just too much of a slippery slope. Before you know it you take "just one" breath in the morning and its all downhill from there.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:41 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Air. Not Even Once.
posted by Amor Bellator at 1:03 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The: "...We've been breathing nitrogen forever, so if there's a cost/benefit tradeoff you'd think evolution would have it dialed in nicely by now. Of course, maybe there's some fundamental constraint and evolutionary processes have simply mitigated the problem as best as possible."


I wonder if it's a trade-off animals have made with the plant kingdom. Plants need the nitrogen cycle to stay alive, and we need the oxygen they produce. So we've adapted to live with their nitrogen, even if it's not optimal for us.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:43 PM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

I finally understand breatharians.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:26 PM on September 1, 2017

"anesthetic response... not knocked out by it". I C wat U did there...
posted by drowsy at 6:15 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh snap, this is as close to eponysterical as I have ever been on MF.
posted by drowsy at 6:16 PM on September 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

You know what other atmospheric gas has measurable effects on human cognition at surprisingly low levels?

Carbon dioxide.
posted by MrVisible at 9:00 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Normally I'd find this news really upsetting, but it turns out it's pretty easy to accept if you just stop to relax, center, and take a few deep breaths.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:22 AM on September 2, 2017

(As usual, late to the party but...)

I've collected a fist-full of SCUBA certifications over the years up to and including basic Tri-mix procedures: reduce 02 to under 20% (just fine at depth) and replace N2 with He for less narcotic effects. I've also done my share of hairball dives below 130 feet on "straight from the atmosphere" 80/20. If you dive a lot at these depths, you can sort-of get used to the narcotic effects, though it's really the increased P02 that you need to worry about. Anyway...where I was going was here:

One of the most startling effects of Tri-mix is how clear headed you are at depth. Or, to put it another way: you realize how looped you were on regular air. And then you also realize how utterly creepy the whole diving deep experience is, especially in a place like Monterrey where it can be rather gloomy that deep down. A series of mandatory decompression stops (which can take 60 minutes or more) separates you from safely returning to the surface. You are in effect stuck underwater. Without N2's "soothing" effects it can definitely get to you.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 10:39 AM on September 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I got narced in dive school in what they call a wet pot, basically a large decompression chamber standing on end, with water at the bottom. Air pressure then brings the whole thing down to the desired depth. In our case, 180 feet. The buzz was pretty mild. I wasn't being asked to solve math equations, but tie knots, which is a more typical underwater task.
posted by atchafalaya at 6:51 AM on September 3, 2017