Archive for May, 2008
Sleep apnea is a serious sleeping disorder. During sleep apnea, individuals experience irregular breathing accompanied by unusual pause. Each cessation in breathing may last for 10 to 20 seconds and it may occur more than 30 times in an hour. Typically there are two types of sleep apnea ” one is obstructive sleep apnea and the other one is central sleep apnea.
Breathing is either reduced or stopped if you have sleep apnea. Simply the most common sign of sleep apnea is when breathing stops for at least 10 seconds. In this write up we will examine some of the other sleep apnea signs.
Declining Oxygen Levels
The decline of oxygen levels during sleep apnea can result in at least a 4% drop of the oxygen saturation level in the blood. This is a direct result of the decline of the transfer rate of oxygen through the blood when breathing stops. This is one of the most serious signs.
Sleep Disturbance
Sleep can be severely interrupted. You may even wake up fully. You may wake from a deep sleep and still stay in a lighter sleep. This is a common sign and is why sleep apnea measured while sleeping.
Headaches and Dry Throats
These are the common signs of sleep apnea. When the individuals having sleep apnea wake up in the morning, they experience excessively dry throat. This causes a strong sense of discomfort and the individual experiences a persistent difficulty in breathing. Additionally, morning headache is another sign that makes the individual to feel more exhausted.
Fatigue and Daytime Sleepiness
Since people having sleep apnea experience an impaired sleeping pattern in which they are unable to reach deep, soothing sleep, they suffer from extreme fatigue and daytime sleepiness throughout the day. Their sleep is typically accompanied by loud snoring along with snorting sounds especially during late night.
Inadequate Oxygen Supply
The cardiovascular system can be threatened because of the drop of the oxygen level while sleeping. It is important that the cardiovascular system work at its peak in order to supply the tissues with the required amount of oxygen. Without this happening you could develop high blood pressure and even be at risk for heart attacks or strokes.
Posted in Sleep Apnea
It’s nice and relaxing to pop into the tavern at the end of the work day with a few co-workers. You can un-wind over a couple of drinks before going home then to bed. However, That little stop-over at the tavern may be costing you much more than than a couple of bucks. It may be causing you to lose sleep, it could be the reason for your snoring problems.
Alcohol is one cause of snoring. By consuming a few drinks you could be creating your snoring problems. The cause is that while we ingest liquor our muscles become loose, this includes the muscles of the throat. Generally, when a person has drank a couple of cocktails they will slip into a very deep slumber which usually results in very loud snoring. If you’ve been at a gathering or social event where a individual has drank too much and fallen a sleep, You know exactly what I am saying.
To stop the snoring they need to know that their drinking is adding to the seriousness of the snoring. a person in a relationship, their mate will probably protest often enough about the noise that no more motivation will be required. While others, may be wakened by their own snoring. This could happen when the snoring is especially loud and the person is sleeping restlessly. They’ll wake up suddenly and won’t know why. What happened was the snoring was disruptive enough to wake them from their sleep .It is almost impossible to know this yourself, think about it, how do we listen to our selves snore if we are asleep. especially if we are asleep from the effects of alcohol.
An additional suggestion to stop your snoring caused by drinking is to eat extra food as you consume the alcohol. Eating more while drinking spirits helps you to absorb less of the alcohol into your body. For people who snore as a result of alcohol consumption this is great news, it allows them to drink and at the same time, reduce or eliminate their snoring.
The best method to aid snoring that is caused by drinking alcohol is to either drink less or not at all. If this is not a choice you want another option would be switching to another kind of drink. Many alcoholic beverages have a higher amount of alcohol than others. If you are snoring as a result of drinking a couple of glasses of wine, switching to a larger could be your cure for snoring.
If snoring is caused by that beer that you have with your meal, it is probably time to changed to a soda or a glass of water. Weighing the taste of the beer against the chance of stopping your snoring is a personal decision.
Posted in Sleep Apnea
At one time sleep was considered just the time you were not awake as a single entity, but now we know that sleep has several different stages where different processes occur. During sleep there is quite a bit of brain activity and many functions are performed that are essential to our health and well-being.
Because of this, insufficient sleep can be unhealthy and even dangerous. One of the first systems affected by lack of sleep is the immune system. Too little sleep damages immune function and makes us vulnerable to illnesses. Hence, adequate sleep is required for truly healthy immune function. Another organ negatively impacted by too little sleep is the liver. The liver is the largest of the internal organs and has over 500 functions in the body. One is regulating the energy level one will have for the next day so that staying up late and not sleeping long enough impairs the liver’s ability to do this and other jobs.
It is said that a person requires at least eight hours of sound sleep. After a days work the body needs to rest in order to restore the damages occurred during the day. The liver itself does over 500 different specific functions one of the most important being cleaning the blood. There is lot of chemicals now in air, water and food; because of this the liver is being overburdened to clean up everything which is another function of the liver. Thus we see that liver does many different functions during the day and so there is the need for the body to shut down and sleep to repair itself. Some people sleep less than eight hours. However research done on sleep has shown that the brain needs to have at least three hours to shut down, for it to kind of reset the cycle.
Some people are able to function well with less, but most people should try for a full eight hours. Adequate sleeping time is essential to get all the repairs made from the day and to filter all the toxins. When we do not get enough sleep for repair, we feel tired and require even more sleep to “catch up” for that time we missed. The body may literally cry out with various discomforts for enough sleep.
The brain may function with merely three or four hours of sleep, but it will not function at its best without that eight hours we truly need. Liver function also impacts the immune system so sleep is doubly important. We must have a strong and vigorous immune system to fight invaders like viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites, so enough sleep is essential for everyone. Getting adequate sleep makes for a healthy liver and a strong and vital immune system which makes us feel better and be healthier.
Posted in Sleep