Snoring can wreck your happy home, keep you awake or a spouse awake and make you the butt of all family jokes. However, sleep apnea can kill you. Both tend to have the same causes. In fact, people with sleep apnea tend to snore but not all people who snore have sleep apnea. Snoring comes from blockage in the airway caused by a number of different things. If that blockage is severe enough, it locks the airway shut and causes you to stop breathing, that’s sleep apnea.
There are three types of sleep apnea. The first and most common one is obstructive sleep apnea. The second is central sleep apnea and the third is mixed that has some elements of central sleep apnea and some of obstructive.
Central sleep apnea, CSA, is relatively rare and comes from the breathing center in the brain shutting down so the body makes no effort to breathe. It’s a neurological disorder. Obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, comes from blocking the breathing. Even though the results tend to be the same, the treatment and cause are quite different.
OSA, the most common occurs because of a number of different reasons but the most common are age, weight, drinking, smoking, improper sleeping position, flabby palate, improper breathing and the tongue falling to the back of the throat. All of these also cause snoring. However, a spouse that listens to you snore will be able to tell whether you have sleep apnea or are just one loud sleeper.
If you have rhythmic snoring throughout the night, you’re an irritating snorer. If you have rhythmic breathing with interruptions of ten seconds or more periodically where no breathing occurs, you have sleep apnea. If you have five or more incidences of interrupted breathing in an hour, clinicians view that as reason for concern.
There are things you can do about a large soft palate or lazy tongue that wants to fall back but most of the time these require an appliance, doctor’s visit or even surgery. Aging has no cure! However, if you have a few extra pounds, smoke or have a few nightcaps before bedtime, you can change those things first to see if it helps. Its doesn’t take much extra weight to cause sleep apnea, just a few pounds placed in the right location can seal off the flow of air.
For those severely overweight, you have a long road to travel. Extra weight in your midsection can push against the lungs and cause decreased capacity. Weight around the neck and on the upper chest can close the airways and if you’re heavy enough, make it almost impossible to awaken. If you’ve had any cold medicine, alcohol, tranquilizers or other medication to help you sleep, rousing may not occur and you die of asphyxiation because your body won’t rouse to help you get your breath.
If you find yourself worn out even after eight hours of sleep, you could potentially have sleep apnea. Maybe you’re sitting watching television and suddenly realize that a new program is on, even though you were just in the middle of the last one or find yourself dozing off during a business meeting at the office. These are indications that your quality of sleep is lacking and you may be awakening periodically throughout the night without realizing it.
If you live with someone else and share a bed, sleep apnea is easier to identify. Just have your spouse listen to your snoring. However, even if you live alone, sitting up a microphone and tape recorder beside the bed can help identify the sleep apnea.
Heavy, loud snoring is an indication and as mentioned before, not everyone that snores has apnea; however, most people that have sleep apnea do snore. Excessive body movements at the end of an episode with apnea are also a sign to the partner. Often your movement wakes them, and not your snoring.
Once you discover you have sleep apnea, or your snoring is irritating enough to cause friction in the house, it’s time to take some action. Losing weight, if you’re overweight, is the first course of action for sufferers from sleep apnea. A light and sensible diet with no snacking, alcohol or caffeine before bedtime can help you reduce your snoring and control your weight.
Even though snacks at bedtime might help you sleep, they can be the cause of GERD, which can be a contributor to both sleep apnea and snoring. The acid reflux from GERD can burn the lining of the esophagus and cause scarring making an even larger obstruction.
Getting adequate exercise is another way to not only lose weight and get healthier sleep. Aerobic exercise can increase your breathing capacity and specific facial and oral exercises can tone your throat and make it less likely to close and block breathing. Of course, toning the rest of your body can’t hurt and helps you lose weight. This is particularly important around your midriff.
The oral exercises can be as simple as singing at the top of your lungs for 15 minutes every day. It also can be tongue strengthening exercises or palate exercise to tighten the soft floppy skin in that area. You can practice the scales like the opera stars do to warm their voice. Start with la-la-la-la-la moving your voice up and down the scale and move to ka-ka-ka-ka-ka. Do your grand finale of ma-ma-ma-ma-ma. Do this exercise several times in a row a few times throughout the day. You can purse your lips with your mouth closed and hold it for a minimum of 30 seconds.
Your tongue exercise is also important. You can put your tongue on the backside of the front teeth and slide toward the back of your mouth, holding it there several minutes. In addition, if you open your mouth widely, you’ll notice the uvula, the dangling piece of flesh in the back. If you tighten your throat muscles, the uvula move upward, loosen them and it moves down. Do this exercise several times in a row to strengthen the throat and palate area.
Changing your habits can save your life. It just makes sense to lose weight if you’re overweight, even if it doesn’t help stop the snoring, you’ll still end up a healthier person.