Update: Here are a list of things I think I'll try based on comments: 1. oxygen cylinder, 2. CO2 scrubber, 3. oxygen concentrator, 4. air exchanger.
A suggestion from someone who has built three different CO2 monitors - don't chase the numbers. 420/800/1200 ppm has no meaningful difference, and if you don'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.
I suspect that you probably feel more clear-headed outside because there is wind and nature and distractions that aren't an LED screen.
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.
That claim contradicts the results of the NIEHS study "Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant?"[1], which has found that "Relative to 600 ppm, at 1,000 ppm CO2, moderate and statistically significant decrements occurred in six of nine scales of decision-making performance."
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160305212909/http://ehp.niehs....
"I suspect that you probably feel more clear-headed outside because there is wind and nature and distractions that aren't an LED screen."
I definitely agree that those things make a difference in how I feel, but I think that the CO2 makes a difference even at those lower levels. I'll say this: if I drink coffee, I can power through it / not notice it. But if I'm not using caffeine, I'm a lot more sensitive to it.
"I think an interesting experiment would be to use a CO2 scrubber to remove carbon dioxide"
Thank you for that idea! I didn't know a CO2 scrubber was a thing, so this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to get from the HN crowd.
If your sensors are able to do remote logging, you can do your own double blind test and cover up the displays for a week and log what you feel like the CO2 level might be, and then at the end of the week compare it to the logged levels.
Either way, you might consider an air exchanger - either commercial or homemade[0] that can efficiently move air from outside to inside, without much heat loss.
[0] https://www.loudawson.com/17884/how-to-build-air-cross-flow-...
Don't get me wrong, if you go to the mall or whatever to get oxygen treatment, I'm sure you'll be fine. It's not super concentrated and you're only on it for an hour. Different beast than an oxygen concentrator long term.
With the CO2 scrubber, you might be fighting a bit of a losing battle with it if you have a whole house air exchanger, but that seems like a cheaper/easier solution to keeping CO2 in sync with ambient environment. A whole house air exchanger is also a fantastic way to mitigate radon (mostly a midwest issue, but is a problem in central eastern states and appalachia) and your radon is borderline between safe and unsafe. I have such an air exchanger, a radon monitor, and no radon mitigation. When the air is particularly cold, sometimes I'll turn off my air exchanger and my radon levels go from 3pCi/L to 4.0-4.5 (4 is usually when they recommend you get mitigation system. If it is borderline like that you can get a passive system that exposes your sump well to ambient environment. And at higher levels you should get an active one where a fan will draw vacuum on your sump 24/7)
Cleaning and recirculating your environments air can achieve a big improvement in its own
Also oxygen toxicity is a thing, when breathing oxygen at surface pressure it is usually mild, and worth it for people short of it! But it's not candy.
Pinene, for example, is a significant bronchodilator.
1. Check your blood oxygen saturation with several pulse oximeters. They are not reliable enough to only use one.
1.1 You can buy sleep study watches that monitor your oxygen levels constantly and record / graph it, but they involve things that clip on your finger tip. It is hard to work with one on.
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.
2. Open a window. If outside air is better, breathe outside air.
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.
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.
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.
4.1 if you use an oxygen cylinder, make sure it is medical oxygen and not contaminated with welding gasses.
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.
4.3 If you use an oxygen cylinder, make sure not to get too much oxygen in the room. Remember the Apollo 1 fire.
4.4 If you buy or rent oxygen cylinders, there are different sizes.
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.
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.
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.
5.3 If you buy an oxygen concentrator you will need tubing and cannulas.
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.
5.5 Oxygen concentrators heat up the room. Be prepared for as much heat as an extra PC workstation produces.
6. Oxygen toxicity is real, but I have no experience with it.
7. There are legends of guys putting several oxygen concentrators in a well ventilated out building / 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.
Just like people who live at high altitudes adapt to the lower oxygen levels, except in reverse.
You wouldn't want the room to be 98% O2 though, that's just asking for oxygen toxicity. You wouldn't want CO2 really low either, that's just asking for hypocapnia. So unless you have specialised equipment to control the gas mixture you are breathing, why not just increase ventilation a bit if you'd like to decrease CO2 levels?
I wouldn't be willing to tolerate even a very small amount of toxicity just for increased productivity if that is the case.
[0]: https://respirasbreathing.com/documents/breathing/Hyperventi...
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't focus.
I've never tried to actively increase oxygen, but I do carry a CO2 monitor now and I think if you're going to be doing mentally demanding tasks in a confided space it's useful to think about.
Personally I wouldn't want to increase O2 concentrations beyond levels you'd generally find outdoors though... Perhaps if you occasionally want a short burst of focus it wouldn't be too harmful, but I'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'll find it hard to cope without it.
greens brings comfort to the eyes, tending to them eases you out too. walking around or exercising gives you better oxygen circulation too.
