The benefits of oxygen can be felt by anyone, not just those suffering from a medical condition and requiring supplemental oxygen. We can all find easy ways to increase our oxygen levels naturally through breathing exercises, general exercise, getting more fresh air and eating a balanced diet of foods that help increase oxygenation in our blood.
The general benefits that oxygen brings to our body includes:
•    Create energy
•    Digest food
•    Eliminate toxins from the body
•    Fuel the body muscles
•    Metabolize fat and carbohydrates
•    Increased clarity
•    Transport gases across cell membranes
•    Strengthen our immune system
•    Manufacture hormones and proteins
•    Remove viruses, parasites and harmful bacteria
•    Keeps the heart pumping and healthy
•    Incites the lungs to breathe
•    Allow the nerve system, and all other body tissues to function normally
Increasing your oxygenation levels and being fit and healthy has shown to be important for your health as optimum oxygen levels can improve wound healing, vision, mental clarity and intelligence, boost your immune system, help fight cancer cells, reduce stress levels, improve your heart and respiration and help you to lose weight.
For those people who use supplemental oxygen at home there are also long-term benefits:
•    Prolongs life by reducing heart strain
•    Decreases shortness of breath
•    Makes exercise more tolerable
•    Results in fewer days of hospitalization
•    Improves sleeping
•    Improves quality of life
Additional Benefits of Oxygen:
With increased oxygen levels the red blood cells can become fully saturated to provide their maximum potential of oxygen to our cells. Waste gases and toxins are removed more efficiently and cells can perform optimally. Many viruses and bacteria are anaerobic and cannot survive in oxygenated conditions. Oxygen can help build persistence to infections as it not only boosts the immune system but prevents anaerobic organisms from thriving. Oxygen also helps to neutralise acids such as lactate acid which builds up from high-working muscles. It improves wound healing by generating capillaries to grow into the wound to provide blood flow and oxygen to the injured cells to boost regeneration. It generally boosts all chemical pathways in our body and we can burn more fat. We feel better, our body is healthier and we think more clearly because of increased oxygenation.
Recent research has also discovered other benefits:
•    Removes free radicals
•    Reduces tissue swelling
•    Increases energy metabolism in the brain
•    Can create sustained cognitive improvement
•    Wakes up idling brain cells that are metabolising enough to stay alive but are not actively ‘firing’
•    Deactivates toxins and poisons (e.g. side effects from some chemotherapy, spider bites, air pollution, etc.)
•    Enhances wound healing (stimulates new capillaries into wounds)
•    Acts as an anti-inflammatory
Oxygen is required for nearly every mechanism within our body and by ensuring your body has the optimal levels of oxygen will improve your general medical health and well-being.
Too much oxygen however has a negative impact on our health which is why supplemental oxygen needs to be prescribed and regulated by a doctor to ensure that no oxidative stress occurs on the body which could lead to heart and respiration problems and necrosis.
References: http://www.bodydesigncenter.com