Best Sleep Apnea Treatments.com

We spent one third of our life sleeping – an activity seemingly to be useless. But we need sleep as much as we need oxgen and food. Sleep is important to us : it increases one’s work efficiency, extends one’s lifespan, cures illnesses. One should not deprive him/herself of sleep.

But during our lives, we will experience some sleepless nights which are considered normal. But for some people, poor quality sleep is a recurring or even a lifelong problem.

When your sleep quality is affected, the end results could well be feelings of fatigue during the day, irritability, poor memory, loss of productivity and loss of interest in family and social life.

Thus, focusing on improving your sleep quality is very important to your health. The quality of sleep is associated with number of sleeping hours. Doctors normally recommend that adults should need 7 to 10 hours of sleep daily and children would require more hours. But it varies among individuals. What matters is, for the duration you sleep, are you achieving the right quality of sleep?

Insomnia, or the inability to sleep well, is a common problem which could affect anyone at one time or another. A person with insomnia may have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, wake up frequently during the night, or wake up earlier than desired the next morning.

There are two kinds of insomnia, acute insomnia and chronic insomnia.

Acute insomnia, which can last from one night up to several weeks, may be caused by:

1. A single stressful event

2. A period of emotional stress

3. Illness

4. Temporary pain or discomfort

5. Disturbances in the sleeping environment such as noise, light or sleeping in a different bed

6. A change in the normal sleep pattern, caused by jet lag or working in a late shift

This kind of insomnia usually doesn’t last long once the root cause(s) is resolved. But be extra careful as insufficient sleep could cloud your judgement, leading to accidents while driving or at work.

Chronic insomnia is more serious as it can last for months or even years. The likely causes are:

1. Existing mental health situations eg. depression, anxiety or stress.

2. Poor sleep habits, such as watching television programmes in bed or going to bed at different times.

3. Excessive consumption of caffeine or nicotine laden items like coffee, tea or cigarettes.

4. Excessive drinking

5. Lack of regular exercise

6. Existing medical health problems such as breathing or heart problems, hormonal or digestive disorder, or chronic pain

7. Side effects of certain drugs

8. A different sleep disorder such as sleep apnea.

Before we go on, a little more explanation is required here for sleep apnea. It is a condition whereby a person regularly stops breathing, or has slowed breathing during sleep for 10 seconds or longer. Depending on the frequency the breathing stops (apnea) or slows (hypopnea), we classify the condition as mild, moderate or severe.

A person suffering from sleep apnea may snore loudly, and have restless sleep with difficulty breathing. As a result, he may wake up with a headache and tiredness which last the whole day. But, you can cure sleep apnea by adjusting your sleeping habits. Sometimes, doctors may suggest use of devices to help easier breathing during sleep or even surgery.

Insomnia can be cured as long as the victim develops a regular sleeping habit.

Here are some remedies to help you ease or eliminate your sleeping disorder:

1. Reserve your bedroom for sleeping and sex only i.e. avoid eating, working, computers, TV, video or loud music in the bedroom

2. Create a clean and comfy environment for sleeping

While eupnoea is normal breathing, hypopnea is an abnormal type of breathing when the airflow is labored because of some pathology of the respiratory system. In other words it’s underbreathing. Hypopnea comes from the Greek roots hypo- (meaning low, under, beneath, down, below normal) and pnoe (meaning breathing). Among other abnormal breathing patterns are: bradypnea – rare and slow breath, dyspnea – intense breath with a shortness, sometimes with cyanosis, hyperpnea – the increased amplitude of breathing at the normal rate, tachypnea – quickened and fast breathing, oligopnea – weakening of respiratory movements accompanied with reduction of breath. Hypopnea is often confused with apnea. But while hypopnea is a reduced amplitude of breathing at the normal rate, apnea is a total cessation of breathing.

Hypopnea can occur during sleep. In this case it may turn into a serious sleeping disorder. Sleep hypopnea can be characterized by person’s repetitive stops of breathing or low breathing for short periods of time during sleep. Speaking in anatomical terms, there is intermittent collapse of the upper airway and reductions in blood oxygen levels during sleep. Thus, a sleeping person becomes incapable to breathe normally and awakens with each collapse. Quantity and quality of sleep is lowered, what results in sleep deprivation and excessive daytime sleepiness. The most usual physiological consequences of hypopnea are cognitive disfunction, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, hypertension, memory loss, heart attack, stroke, impotence, psychiatric problems. People suffering from sleep hypopnea increase considerably the overall number of traffic accidents. Their productivity is diminished and they have constant emotional problems and strains.

The most common hypopnea symptoms are: loss of energy, forgetfulness, excessive sleepiness, snoring, lack of concentration, depression, rapid changes in mood and behavior, morning headaches, nervousness.

There is the so called hypopnea index that can be calculated by dividing the number of hypopneas by the number of hours of sleep. But as far as hypopnea is closely related to apnea most often we speak of the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). AHI is an index of severity that combines apneas and hypopneas. It is calculated by dividing the number of apneas and hypopneas by the number of hours of sleep correspondingly. When AHI is positive we usually speak of sleep-disordered breathing or SDB.

Although hypopnea itself is not a mortal disease, if it is not treated properly it may shorten a person’s life considerably by aggravating other diseases. CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure, is considered to be the most effective treatment of hypopnea. It is usually used in case of heavy hypopnea. A patient puts up a mask over his nose or mouth while an air blower forces air through the upper airway. The air pressure is adjusted in a way to avoid the upper airway tissues from collapsing during sleep. Mild hypopnea is treated more conservatively. In the majority of cases hypopnea treatment presupposes refusing from alcohol and smoking before sleep, strengthening gullet muscles by doing certain excercises, avoiding sleeping on the back. Also there is a straight relation between weight loss and improvement of breathing while sleeping. It is established that abnormal breathing patterns during sleep such as sleep apnea and hypopnea, obesity hyperventilation syndrome, etc. usually improve when eating disorders causing overweight and obesity are properly treated.