Causes of Sleep Apnea Symptoms

My father suffers from sleep apnea and he has experienced a lifetime of struggles because of it until recently. For most of his life he has had trouble falling into deep sleep he has snored very aggressively, woken up early, and dealt with drowsiness during the day. Recently sleep apnea was deemed the cause of his drowsiness while driving which resulted in a very serious car accident. Sleep apnea is not a mere annoyance it can have drastic affects on your life if you do not have it diagnosed and treated. It can even have further affects on your health and can lead to more serious health conditions down the road if left untreated.

Sleep apnea is essentially a condition where the soft tissues surrounding the throat collapse in on the sufferer during sleep. When this happens air flow into the lungs is blocked causing severe snoring, lapses in breath, or causing the patient to wake up periodically when breathing becomes to light. Because of the constant waking up and labored or intermittent breath oxygenation of the blood sometimes drops to unhealthy levels akin to poor asthma control throughout the night. This is a direct cause of the sleep apnea and creates drowsiness throughout the day due to poor sleep quality night after night.

Sleep apnea is also heavily correlated with weight gain and body fat. Less well known however, sleep apnea, hypertension, and overeating are highly correlated regardless of weight. In the obese or overweight population it is believed that excess body fat contributes to the lack on tension in the soft tissues of the throat. When extra weight exists the throat is more apt to close in on itself. To combat this weight loss is paramount while other means of keeping the airway open are in order and nessesary in order to improve breathing problems. Some other ways of keeping breath quality high include tilting the bed so that it is inclined rather than flat or wearing a forced breathing sleep apnea mask which forces air into the lungs even when the patient cannot breathe in alone.

In the case of those with sleep apnea who are not overweight, scientific studies have shown that hypertension is a major correlate to the condition. As your blood pressure rises, your risks of suffering from sleep apnea increase regardless of your weight. This is good information to know for those who are thin but don’t seem to sleep well. It is yet another reason to emphasize the need to monitor blood pressure levels and keep them in a safe range. By doing this alone you may be able to relieve sleep apnea symptoms without the need for medical intervention or sleep apnea masks.

Sleep apnea is a condition that is quite prevalent in our society especially as our population is getting heavier on average year after year. Assuming obesity trends continue as they are heading sleep apnea will continue to affect more people every year and thus it will be more important to understand what it is and how it affects us. Treating sleep apnea at it’s fundamental level requires changes lifestyle and body type. This should be the number one priority because not only will sleep apnea become less of a problem, many other diseases of obesity will become less of an issue as well.