Why You Should Put YOUR MASK On First (My Brain Without Oxygen) - Smarter Every Day 157

Why HN readers recommended it

It is the go-to demonstration of how hypoxia silently disables decision making, cited in threads on altitude, flying, diving, CO2 and breathwork.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

SmarterEveryDay

Topic

hypoxia

Format

demo

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

5

HN mentions in dataset

13

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Destin from Smarter Every Day (YouTube) has a wonderful video demonstrating this effect [0]. I’d recommend watching the whole thing, but you can see how much of an effect it has starting around the 6:00 mark. [0] [VIDEO]

• To take this tangent even further afield... Here's an actual real life demonstration of why you should put your oxygen mask on first: [VIDEO]

• This Smarter Every Day video demonstrates how dumb you can get under (less mild) hypoxia (and why it's important to take care of your own oxygen mask before others') [VIDEO]