People will visit Denver or New Mexico and feel the altitude at only 6,000 feet or so. They’ll get winded or headaches or other issues till they adjust after a few days.
So how come we breathe without issue on planes if they’re pressurized to 8,000 feet?
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It means the pressure of the air you’re breathing is the same as if you were on an 8,000′ mountain (even though you’re actually ~30,000-40,000′ above sea level).
It does feel like breathing at high altitude. But virtually nobody that doesn’t already live there spends hours just sitting in a chair watching TV for hours at 8,000′. The only time us normal low-altitude humans experience those kinds of altitudes is on an airplane when we’re doing nothing or when we’re climbing a mountain. If you try to run a treadmill on an airplane you’ll notice it pretty quickly.
Most people don’t start exhibiting any noticeable altitude symptoms until about 6,500′, and most don’t have any meaningful symptoms until near 10,000′. At 8,000′ while sedentary most people just don’t notice.
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