Indoor CO2 may slow fat loss and cut your energy....Today's post:  Thursday, 7-12-2018

Not that long ago I discovered that nose breathing and nose breathing while doing cardio can increase your fitness and red blood cells in part because mouth breathing lowers your CO2 level too low.

And, low blood levels of CO2 tends to produce feelings of anxiety or even panic.

More than that it has worked for me:

I feel less anxious and can function better when I am stressed.  I’m clearly more fit.  And my blood pressure readings dropped 5 to 10 points!

I have times in each day that my feeling of energy is low & I still have more belly fat than I want.

With a bedroom that’s often too noisy or too hot and a schedule with 5 to 5 and half hours of sleep a night, I don’t need more explanation than that.  These factors clearly are the main reasons for my periods of low energy and likely help slow my metabolism somewhat.

But what if even some of the low energy and metabolism could be reversed?

I’d love to have 5 pounds less fat and an inch smaller waist and feel more energetic more often unless I’m napping.

According to an email today by Nick Pineault it may be that CO2 levels inside at my workplace and home are too high and that lowering them to what we evolved to operate on might have that effect!

His article says that people evolved to live mostly outside at a time when CO2 levels were about 300 ppm or less.

In fact CO2 levels were measured at 310 ppm in 1944, the year I was born.

They are over 406 ppm now and rising.

But the surprising thing is that inside many homes and workplaces CO2 levels are above 800 to 1,000 ppm.

"A document created by the US air force and released by the Defense Technical Information Center stated that 1,000 ppm might be fine for around 20% of the population, but that in the case of 80% of people -- it will cause fatigue and lethargy. (2)

Oops. If this is accurate, this means that around 25 to 40% of all employees in the US are getting exposed to energy-sapping levels of CO2."

Letting a good bit of outside air in can lower the level of CO2 below 500 to 600 ppm.

But if it’s 25 or 105 degrees F outside or you live near a freeway this can be a problem.

Leaving one window open and using more heat or air conditioning to compensate can work.

Large devices to lower CO2 are being built now to help slow global warming.  At some point small enough devices to use at home and at work will be available.

Until then taking brief breaks outside; leaving one window open; going to a nearby park with trees a few times a week or moving to Hawaii or a lower pollution area away from freeways where you live now can all help.