Sleep Disorders are very common. Waking up tired and being tired all day is an epidemic of this age. Reducing sleep for school, job, family and life in general is bad. The inability to rest regularly may need medical treatment. Sleep is the universal building block for the body's ability to function.
Sleep disorders are more complex than lost hours counting sheep. Many medical disorders involve sleeplessness. Some of the main sleeping disorders are:
Obstructive Sleep ApneaBruxism or "teeth grinding"Somnambulism or "sleep-walking"Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) or "uncontrollable leg movement"Rapid Eye Movement Behavior Disorder (RBD) or "acting out dreams while asleep"
Of all sleeping disorders, sleep apnea affects around 20 to 30 million Americans. Even sheer numbers like these do not tell the full story of how bad sleep apnea has become.
Three top reasons for sleep apnea being the worst sleeping disorder is how it affects the brain, damages the heart and is dismissed as "no big deal".
1. Sleep Apnea Causes Temporary Brain Damage
Apnea affects the brain in many ways. When a person's normal breathing pattern is interrupted during sleep, that person never falls asleep. Rest is for the body but sleep is for the brain. The brain reboots during sleep.
Imagine your computer running and running and running, unable to shut down, unable to repair and unable to defrag. It is just a matter of time until your computer breaks. A good thing about sleep apnea treatment with therapy such as CPAP, after a few weeks of deep sleep, the brain will be able to reset.
2. Sleep Apnea Causes Permanent Heart Damage
When a person has shallow or multiple non-breathing episodes while asleep, blood oxygen levels drop. Blood carries oxygen to body tissues. During periods of low blood oxygen levels, the heart pumps extra blood to make up for the loss. This can cause high blood pressure and irreversible changes to heart muscle.
The heart is just like any muscle in the body. The more it works the bigger it gets. One of the main reasons for heart failure and heart transplant is the heart becomes enlarged to a point it no longer works as it should. An over worked heart is a ticking time bomb but it is not the worst condition sleep apnea can cause.
When a person spends hours without enough oxygen, blood oxygen levels drop lower and lower. See above, we know that. Sleep apnea can drop these levels so low it can trigger a heart attack. Even death.
Lack of oxygen to heart tissue causes chest pain. Heart muscle cut off from oxygen causes heart attack. A heart attack while your body is shutting down to sleep combined with a very low blood oxygen level will cause death. Not every time. Many times the paramedics arrive to save the day.
3. Snoring is no big deal. Right?
You snore. I snore. My uncle John snores. Everybody snores. No big deal...right? Snoring is common but abnormal. Snoring indicates parts of the mouth and throat are cutting off oxygen's path into the lungs. If you wake yourself up snoring or someone else cannot sleep near you because of your snoring, it is just a matter of time before you develop full-blown medical problems.
Worst of all, many medical conditions such as:
StressMood SwingsChronic Chest PainMental DeficienciesHigh Blood PressureWeight Gain (in spite of clean diet with regular exercise)
are treated without any thought given to the possibility that sleep apnea may be the cause of them all.
Imagine being diagnosed with multiple medical problems, spending huge sums of money on doctor visits, treatments and medications all because you have one simple, very treatable, medical condition. Sleep apnea truly is the worst of all sleep disorders.
If you are interested in learn more about sleep disorders check out SleepApneaCPAP.info today.
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