In my last post I mentioned that I had been spending time over the summer in South America. One of the interesting points I noticed on my travels was to do with the change that occurs with altitude. Anyone who has flown will have seen what happen to an empty plastic bottle between cruising and landing, even though the aircraft is pressurised. It rather surprised me when this happened to such an extreme amount on land.
I had been staying by Lake Titicaca, which is about 4,000 metres high (that’s about 13,000ft), and takes a while to get used to the thin air. To put that into perspective the highest mountain in England is 978 metres and in the British Isles 1344 metres. If you have not been at altitude it is humbling to realize that you can no longer walk at the same speed and you get out of breath very quickly, until you have acclimatised, so things have to be done more slowly. Once I had acclimatised, traveling over one of the high passes I met the llama in the picture. This was at 5,700 metres (18,500ft). I took a drink of water from a plastic bottle, which I emptied. I put it back in my rucksack and thought little more about it. When I took it out to throw away it was almost flat from the increased pressure lower in the mountains. Interesting I thought. So what is happens to our bodies as we change altitude?
Now this got me thinking about a range of things. How we perform under pressure, how too much pressure can flatten us and ruin our performance, but, and this was a big BUT for me, how too little pressure does not allow us to perform at our best. The thin air slows one’s body down, the thin air slows one’s mind down, and the thin air means that we are well, slower. So:
- Do you have enough pressure to keep you moving?
- Do you have enough pressure to keep your mind sharp? Or…
- Do you have too much pressure which is flattening your performance?
Now those are questions to really make you think….unless you are at too high an altitude.
My best wishes,
Peter
