Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Is My New Hangover Fix

It’s 9 a.m., and I’m painfully aware of how dry my mouth is. My eyes are at the mercy of the lights on the metro as I try to figure out which stop I’m supposed to be getting off at. And I have the shakes. Bad.Before you chastise me, I find myself hungover in the name of investigative journalism. My editor approached me with a simple task: get slightly wasted and see if a thing called hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) would help cure my hangover the next morning. Celebrities like Justin Bieber and LeBron James have raved about its supposed recovery superpowers. Ever up to a request that involves a few bevs, I dragged my boyfriend to the pub, who was slightly puzzled by my sudden eagerness to go hard, and later put myself to bed, unaided.Cut to the next morning: I get to a business called Rebody in the Islington neighborhood of London feeling slightly worse for wear for a quick consultation with co-founder Chris Clare. As he explains the ins and outs of HBOT—an hour-long treatment which involves breathing 100% oxygen inside a pressurized chamber—my eyes are drawn to the slightly ominous-looking nylon bag slumped in the corner of the clinic. It’s a deflated, black pod with a zip running down the middle and looks uncannily like a body bag. I’m going to be lying inside that soon. Clare asks me if I’m prone to my ears popping on planes, to which I vigorously nod. He reassures me all will be well, and says he’ll check in with me as the chamber increases with air pressure. And into the spaceship I go.We usually inhale around 21% oxygen. So the thought of breathing in almost 5 times that amount sounded impossible. But that's the crux of why the treatment is effective. “The oxygen is transported in the blood plasma, which means it can get to areas where red blood cells may be restricted in flow," Clare says, noting that Rebody's HBOT treatment (which is combined with red light therapy) delivers up to up to 850% more oxygen into your body. The proposed benefits are pretty lengthy: from reducing inflammation to regenerating and repairing tissue, boosting mental clarity, and fighting infection.I awkwardly climb inside the pod and nestle into the cushioned seat beneath me, opting for an upright position for now. As instructed, I place the oxygen mask over my mouth, loop the RLT device around my neck—a personal choice—and give Clare the thumbs up. He zips me away and fires up the beast. Within a matter of seconds, the chamber begins to swell with the increasing pressure, and actually, very little noise. After about 15 minutes, the chamber reaches full volume, and I reach peak zen-ness.I maneuver my body so that I’m lying down and admire the real estate. Against all my predictions, there’s both generous room to stretch out and a large amount of light flooding in. You’re told to leave all distractions (namely, your phone) outside the pod, though if you wish, you can take in some light reading or wear headphones. Unwilling to rawdog my first go, I bring Taylor Swift along with me. I focus on breathing in the highly pure air and lean into the stillness. And I realize this is the first time in ages I haven’t felt like I'm on high alert.A study last year found that HBOT can lower resting heart rate and regulate the nervous system. Clare, having personally suffered from insomnia throughout his life, now advises the therapy to those struggling to doze off (though he himself came to HBOT after multiple shoulder surgeries and a belated Thoracic Outlet Syndrome diagnosis, and found this to be the only thing that helped). “Residual pain from years of surgeries began to fade away, and I was able to run and swim and enjoy life again," he says. In men, some studies have also shown it can aid hair loss and erectile dysfunction.HBOT usually gets hyped up by its celebrity fans as an immunity-boosting, longevity-maxxing therapy that supports endurance and recovery. Bit of context here: I dislocated my hip about 10 years ago, and although I go to the gym, stretch, and do all the things, I’m constantly reminded that this particular joint of mine isn’t quite as forgiving as it used to be. Getting older certainly doesn’t help. And yet, within a few hours of exiting my new oxygenated home, I forgot my pain was even there. I wasn't quite limber enough to start doing my old gym tumbles, sure, but I was fit enough that I was able to sit cross-legged on the tube home without wincing. My wine bloat was also gone by the time I left Rebody.Inhaling the cleanest air of my life for over 60 minutes—although I couldn’t tell the difference at the time—had made my lungs feel genuinely… clean. Is this placebo? Maybe. But the effect it had on my composure was quite something. My jitters were much less intense. My head largely stopped aching. I no longer craved my bed. It was enough of a 180 to make me second-guess whether I’d actually made an appearance at the pub not 14 hours prior.In fact, I felt so invigorated that I found myself signing up for a reformer class later that afternoon, and this is coming from someone who is generally better acquainted with my bathroom than daylight when hungover. I wrung far more out of my Saturday than I’d planned and drank considerably less coffee to get me through it. Then, I went home, climbed into bed and had one of the best nights’ sleep I’d had in months.Though Clare advises 40 hours of cumulative treatment, which he calls his ‘golden rule’, to feel the real benefits of HBOT (an expensive prospect when each session costs a little over $100), my goal was to see if a single hour could make even the smallest dent in the aftermath of a heavy night on the town. And I’m pleased to say it did so much more than that.A version of this story originally appeared in British GQ.