SLEEP ASSESSMENTA new year has begun, and with it, resolutions to get healthier and happier. One thing that can help achieve both of those goals is making sure you get the good night’s sleep your mind and body need to thrive! It’s no secret that exhaustion can drag down one’s mental and physical day to day performance. Anxiety, depression, and chronic headaches are all related outcomes after ongoing nights of poor sleep, not to mention a host of physical problems you might incur.
To support your quest to get the best sleep possible, we have some facts about sleep apnea that might help you! Along with a supportive mattress and better general health goals overall, understanding what sleep apnea is and how to treat it can make your 2021 a powerhouse year for you!
There are three types of Sleep Apnea:
- 1. Obstructive Sleep Apnea: where the airways are blocked because of the throat muscles intermittently relaxing.
2. Central Sleep Apnea: where signals from your brain aren’t properly sent out to the muscles controlling your breathing.
3. Complex Sleep Apnea: where you have both obstructive and complex sleep apnea.
Sleep Apnea Facts
- -Sleep apnea is a serious, potentially life-threatening condition affecting nearly 30 million adults in the U.S. alone as it pauses your breathing while you sleep. Women with sleep apnea often underreport their snoring and find themselves saddled with fatigue and insomnia.
-Sleep apnea can easily go unrecognized, undiagnosed and untreated. This is when having a partner who complains about your excessively loud and frequent snoring, gasping, or choking
as you sleep can be a good thing as they alert you to your condition!
-Untreated sleep apnea raises your risk factors for high blood pressure, motor vehicle accidents, heart disease and attack, stroke, diabetes and other serious medical conditions.
-Sleep apnea can happen at any age from infants to seniors. Children tend to have sleep apnea from enlarged tonsils and adenoids that block their airways during the night. Aging invites sleep apnea as well, especially for women after menopause.
-Making simple lifestyle changes can help lessen the severity of chronic sleep apnea. This is where your new year’s health goals such as weight loss can turn around your sleep apnea. Achieving your healthy goal weight can improve your nighttime breathing, as can quitting a smoking or alcohol habit to improve your sleep quality.
-Even changing your sleeping habits can help sleep apnea, particularly if you use positional therapy where you sleep on your side instead of your back. This can reduce blockages in your throat while treating nasal allergies can improve your nighttime breathing as well.
-Medical intervention, such as sleeping with a continuous positive airway pressure device (CPAP) machine, can improve air pressure and ease breathing. There are also oral appliances that position your mouth and throat so that airflow is increased, like bringing the lower jaw or tongue forward.
-Other sleep apnea solutions might involve having some form of surgery like removing or lessening the tissue blocking your airways, as can repositioning your jaw or having a tracheostomy when other options have been exhausted.
Get the Help You Need
In the end, no matter how many facts you know about sleep apnea, nothing will make a difference if you ignore your snoring or other symptoms of sleep apnea. If you have been told that you snore or gasp or stop breathing in your sleep, this is a good indication that it is time to see our sleep specialist to have a sleep study test (polysomnography). It’s important to find out if you suffer from sleep apnea and the severity of your condition.
Call Today!
We are trained to help you get the best sleep possible by treating your sleep apnea. We are ready to help you achieve your best health by getting the sleep your mind and body needs to thrive. Call today to schedule your consultation with our experienced team and make 2021 the year you feel your best!