Snoring & Sleep Apnea Impacting Your Sleep & Health?
Did you know that breathing issues are correlated with snoring and sleep apnea?
Firstly, what are these conditions:
Sleep apnea is when you have a condition that makes you stop breathing during sleep. This could be obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea, or mixed.
Obstructive sleep apnea happens when the throat muscles relax during sleep and narrow/block the airway. Breathing can then jolt back to start again with a gasping breath or choking.
Central sleep apnea is when the brain fails to send signals to the muscles that control breathing. This is a less common form of sleep apnea.
Mixed is, as the name suggests, a combination of both.
A sleep study is important in diagnosing and understanding what is happening in your sleep.
As for snoring? Considering that snoring is also happening from airway obstruction, similar to obstructive sleep apnea, we can consider snoring alongside sleep apnea. Snoring happens with the airflow becomes turbulent dur to a partially blocked airway. In snoring, breathing does not stop. Snoring alongside gasping, pauses in breathing, and choking can indicate obstructive sleep apnea. So, it is important to get checked. Speak to your doctor who may then refer you for a sleep study.
What is the impact of these conditions?
Snoring along without sleep apnea can contribute to poor sleep of both the person snoring, their partner, and others in the house. We don’t always notice when we wake up in the night due to these small interruptions, but our body does. It impacts the ability of our body to progress through our sleep cycles. Poor sleep quality leads to fatigue, cognitive impairment, mood issues, and physiological health risks such as an increase in poor vascular health and heart health.
If snoring progresses to - or is rather a sign of sleep apnea - it comes with increased health risks. If left untreated it can lead to:
Impaired sleep quality
Poor performance in work or sport
Work accidents
Motor vehicle accidents
Short term Memory Problems
Depression
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Heart Arrhythmia
Increased risk of cardiovascular diseases like heart disease and stroke
Increased risk of type 2 diabetes
Linked to metabolic syndromes
Linked to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)
For children: impaired development
Source: https://healthify.nz/health-a-z/o/obstructive-sleep-apnoea
What are the symptoms of Obstructive Sleep Apnea?
Snoring
Waking up tired
Morning headaches
Concentration issues
Mood changes
Stopping breathing for longer than 10 seconds at night
Waking up frequently feeling a sense of choking
A dry mouth/sore throat for no reason (eg not better explained by a cold)
Getting up a lot to go to the toilet
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-apnea/symptoms-causes/syc-20377631
What is the difference with Central Sleep Apnea?
Much less common making up only around 5% of diagnosed cases
It is the brain sending signals rather than blocked airways
What causes it?
For obstructive sleep apnea this is caused by airway obstructions.
Physical Factors: Obesity, anatomical issues that narrow the airway, age
Non-physical: Approximately 70% of people with obstructive sleep apnea have at least one non-anatomical contributor to the Obstructive sleep apnea.
Airway obstruction: As the airway is narrower due to anatomy, obesity, or other causes airflow then needs to sleep up to pass it. This speed causes a suction effect that can lead to collapsing of the airway.
When a person breathes harder and faster during this amplifies the effects of this suction even in people without naturally narrow airways.
This can lead to frequent nighttime waking or sleep structure fragmentation even if the person is not aware they woke.
Poor airway muscle function will contribute due to the increased relaxation at night.
Source: https://www.aadsm.org/docs/jdsm.4.10.19.r1.pdf
Treatments:
CPAP machine - often poorly tolerated. Additional lifestyle interventions alongside CPAP may improve breathing above CPAP alone.
Mouth devices such as Mandibular Advancement Splints and Tongue Stablilizing devices.
Positional therapy - i.e. don’t lay on your back
Surgery to remove obstructions.
Lifestyle: weightloss, reduced alcohol consumption, addressing nasal congestion.
Myofunctional therapy and muscle retraining can reduce apneas by almost 50% but impact varies between individuals.
Where does Breathing Retraining Help?
A study completed in 2021 indicates that breathing retraining and myofunctional therapy may be helpful for patients with sleep apnea. This reeducation includes: nasal breathing, improving tongue posture, slowing the respiratory rate, improving tolerance to Co2 and normal breathing volume, restoring proper use of the diaphragm. While further studies are needed to better understand this considering the wide health benefits of improved breathing, the low compliance to CPAP use and other interventions many people are considering breathing reeducation to reduce the impact of their snoring and sleep apnea.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33530621/
If you would like to talk to a real person, have one on one personalised help, and learn more about if breathing retraining can help you with snoring and sleep apnea please book a free 15 minute consultation in to see how breathcraft lab may help you.
