regularly, the altitude may not be at all a problem.
When we moved from Phoenix, AZ to Boulder, CO in 1987, I had no problem adjusting. But my husband, who had to keep on returning to Phoenix for his job for the first three months, had a terrible time. He just had a huge problem. I read, sometime later, that altitude adjustment was typically harder for men than for women, although I don't recall any reason being given. But no matter what, going back and forth was not at all fun.
Here's the thing about adjusting to high altitude: At altitude, your red blood cells do not carry as much oxygen as they do lower down. And so you need more red blood cells to get the same oxygen. Ok. Now your body needs to make more red blood cells. Which it can normally do quite well, although it takes a bit of time, typically several days. An important thing here is that you need to drink LOTS of water. In part to stay hydrated, because it's a lot drier at altitude, and also to facilitate manufacturing all those red blood cells.
So my husband's problem was that he'd spend two days at altitude, and would be half-way acclimatized, then go back to Phoenix and his body would go, "Oh, yes, I'm where I belong, I can relax now" and then he'd go back up to altitude. About five or six times. No wonder he was miserable. Once he no longer was going back to Phoenix he adjusted and had no problems living at 6,000 feet.
An aside about cooking. When we were in Boulder I made all the necessary altitude adjustments for cooking. Then we moved to Kansas and I went back to normal cooking. In 2008 I moved to Santa Fe, which is a good 1,000 feet higher than Boulder. I re-made the altitude adjustments and a bit more, because that additional thousand feet is noticeable in cooking. Interesting.
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