Why Do People Get Sleep Apnea?

We often think about snoring as we think of unwanted gas and burping: it’s something which only affects individuals around us. In some instances, this is true. However when snoring is the result of sleep apnea, it represents a lot more than an annoyance to our night time partner; it signifies a threat to our overall health. Sleep apnea is really a persistent condition that’s defined as happening whenever a individual has one or more breathing pauses or short breaths as they sleep.

The actual inhaling and exhaling breaks is often as short as a few seconds or so long as a few minutes. The apnea usually disturbs an individual’s rest in between three and 5 times each week with the breathing disruptions occurring between Five and 30 or even more times per hour.

Sleep apnea has a couple of classifications: obstructive and central. Obstructive apnea is the more prevalent of these two and is a result of a breathing passage that collapses or becomes blocked while asleep, resulting in breathing pauses or shallow breathing. Once the sufferer breathes, the air that pushes beyond the blockage often leads to noisy snoring. Even though it happens more often in people who are overweight, obstructive apneas can happen in anyone. Central apnea commonly occurs with obstructive apnea but could additionally happen alone, in which case snoring is seldom found. Central apnea takes place when the part of the brain that controls breathing does not send the correct signals towards the breathing muscles.

Being obese is easily the most frequently talked about cause of obstructive apnea. The correlation between obesity and obstructive apnea results from soft fat tissue thickening the walls of the windpipe, causing it to narrow and making it harder to maintain open. But there are more physiological problems that are likely to cause obstructive apnea as well. One particular condition happens when a person’s tongue and tonsils are large when compared with their windpipe opening. Once the person lies right down to sleep, the drifting of the tongue and tonsils towards the back of the mouth may cause a partially or totally blocked windpipe opening. Obstructive apnea may also result once the shape of an individual’s neck and head naturally make for a smaller airway within the mouth and throat area.

Both obstructive and central apnea can make heart attack, high blood pressure, cardio problems, hypertension, stroke and diabetes. However they can also comprise the defense mechanisms by developing a lack of adaptive immune responses, making it less efficient at fighting off infection. With apnea, as with all sleep disorders, the immune system weakens because of insufficient sleep, potentially leading to an increased risk for from cancer to the common flu.

Snoring is usually something which we discover embarrassing in ourselves and annoying in others, but it can also be a symptom of the potentially deadly sleep problem. Should you consistently snore and wake up feeling tired as well as if you simply waking up feeling tired with an ongoing basis, contact an AMA accredited sleep clinic and resolve your sleeping issue to enhance your present and long term health.

While conducting research for this article, I learned about sleep problems help and sleep clinic doctors at www.FusionSleep.com.