Alright, let’s talk about something that popped into my head the other day – this whole idea about helium. You know, the stuff in party balloons that makes your voice go funny. The question rattling around was: can helium get you high?
So, here’s how I went about figuring this out, just based on my own messing around and looking into things.
My First Encounter – The Squeaky Voice
I remember being at parties, years ago maybe. Someone always grabs a balloon, sucks in a bit of the air, and then starts talking like a cartoon character. Yeah, I tried it too, who hasn’t?
- Grabbed one of those shiny party balloons.
- Took a small puff directly from it.
- Said something silly.
And bam! Squeaky voice city. It’s funny for like, five seconds. You get a laugh, then your voice goes back to normal pretty much straight away. But was that a ‘high’? Not even close. Felt absolutely nothing beyond the weird voice change. Just seemed like a harmless party trick back then.
Digging a Little Deeper
But the question kept bugging me – not the voice thing, but the actual high part. Like, could you get properly buzzed off it? So, I started looking around, just casually reading stuff online, asking a buddy who seems to know random things.
What I gathered pretty quickly was that the squeaky voice thing happens because helium is lighter than air, making your vocal cords vibrate faster. Simple physics, apparently. Nothing to do with being high.
Then I started seeing the other side of it. Turns out, breathing in helium is actually kind of a bad idea. Like, really bad.
The Reality Check
Here’s the thing I learned: when you breathe in helium, you’re basically replacing the oxygen your body needs. Even that quick puff from a balloon isn’t great, but people were talking about doing more, thinking it might lead to some kind of buzz.
From what I read and heard, doing that is just starving your brain of oxygen. That can make you feel dizzy or lightheaded for a second, which I guess some people might mistake for a high? But it’s not a high; it’s your body reacting to a lack of oxygen. And that’s dangerous territory. People can pass out, fall and hit their heads, or worse. Apparently, breathing in a lot of it, especially straight from a tank, can be fatal. Like, seriously, stop-breathing fatal.
My Conclusion? Stick to Balloons
So, after digging into it myself, going from remembering the silly party trick to understanding the risks? Nah. Helium doesn’t get you high in the way people think about getting high. That light-headed feeling is an oxygen-deprivation warning sign.
My takeaway: It’s not worth messing with. The risk is huge for basically zero reward, apart from a seconds-long chipmunk voice. I’m sticking to using helium for what it’s good for – making balloons float. Trying to get high off it seems like a really dumb gamble with your own breathing, and I’m definitely not rolling those dice. Keep it in the balloons, folks. That’s my two cents from looking into it.