What Happens to Your Body at the Top of Mount Everest?

We certainly don’t want to alarm you, but at the same time there’s no point in sugar coating what happens to your body at the top of Mount Everest. The earth’s atmosphere is easier to understand if you liken it to the ocean. At sea level the air pressure is high and oxygen is dense, much like at the bottom of the sea the water pressure is high. As we travel upwards the atmosphere gets ‘lighter’ and levels of oxygen begin to drop. We live around sea level because the oxygen levels are highest and optimal for our health. Travel higher than a mile and a half upwards and you will most likely start to experience ‘altitude sickness’. This condition is characterized by a lack of oxygen, which firstly affects the lungs, when we feel we cannot breathe properly. Shortly after, the levels of oxygen in the blood will drop and we start to feel exhausted as our muscles give in to fatigue. Our brains are also affected, as this organ needs a constant supply of oxygen to stay healthy and functioning. We feel nauseous and dizzy, as well as exhausted and often experience significant muscle aches. Remember those stitches you get when you walk too fast? That’s what happens when a muscle runs out of oxygen. 

Someone living in the Tibetan Mountains, some two to three miles above sea level, will cope much better with the high altitude of Mount Everest than someone living by the coast. This has a lot to do with the fact the Tibetan people have evolved to have muscles and blood that transport (the very low levels of) oxygen around their body far better than the average human. Also, the Tibetan people are constantly exercising at this altitude, carrying heavy baskets of food and clothing, and tending to their cattle.

Someone who lives at 50 to 100 feet above sea level for most of their life is going to find a trip to 29,000 ft very difficult. This is exactly why preparation for the climb usually starts one year before the trip. There’s no easy way to acclimatise your body to high altitudes without being there, so prospective climbers concentrate on getting their body to a peak of physical fitness, often with aerobic and anaerobic exercises. As time draws closer to the climb they’ll also take up hill walking, breathing exercises and even mental exercises to get them ready for the physical toll taken on their body. It’s easy to give up when the symptoms of altitude sickness hit, but with a strong mental attitude that’s practised before attempting the climb, many do manage it. 

So what actually happens to your body at the 29,000 ft up where the summit of Mount Everest stands? Firstly the body will try and compensate for the lack of oxygen by raising the heart rate and breathing. You will feel out of breath and probably a bit dizzy or ‘light headed’ just as you do when you do a lot of exercise and need to breathe heavily. 

Some of the stranger symptoms of altitude sickness include insomnia and increased urination. Swelling of the hands and feet are determined as quite normal reactions to high altitudes by medical experts, but if the condition continues to progress along with other symptoms (such as confusion, distress or a lack of motor coordination) then the sufferer should move to a lower altitude and seek medical help. Altitude sickness is also known as AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) which usually presents with nausea, dizziness, headache, fatigue and lethargy, vomiting and shortness of breath. These symptoms don’t mean that a climb should be terminated completely, but usually that a person should descend until they’re comfortable and let themselves get used to the ascent at a much slower pace. Within a couple of days of suffering mild AMS a climber will be able to ascend again.

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