Your Snoring Could be a Symptom of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)

Each pause in breathing during sleep is called an "apnea" and these disruptions can occur 5 to 30 times an hour and sometimes hundreds of times during the night. Each time an apnea occurs, the person awakes to resume breathing.  People nevertheless are often unaware that this is happening to them but the result is poor quality sleep and daytime fatigue. In fact 80% of sufferers are ignorant to the fact that these pauses in their sleep are taking place.

The Greek word "apnea" means "without breath," and there are three types of apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed. Out of the three, obstructive is the most common. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) affects 90% of total sufferers and is caused by a blockage of the airway, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses and closes during sleep. Snoring can indicate that the person may be affected by sleep apnea.

Untreated, as well as daytime tiredness, sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease, memory problems, weight gain, impotency, headaches and may be responsible for job impairment and motor vehicle crashes. Sleep apnea can be diagnosed and treated and, indeed, if you feel any concern that you have this problem to a severe and distressing degree, you MUST consult a medical practitioner. Several treatment options exist and research into additional treatments continues.

However, snoring does not usually mean that you have OSA but can be a problem in itself by waking you up intermittently or anyone around you! I've discovered some throat exercises which are effective in strengthening the muscles of the upper respiratory tract, thus helping to stop snoring and they are also beneficial in cases of mild to moderate OSA. They cost you merely a little time and discipline. Do these daily and increase the times a little after a few days, as you would with normal muscle exercises:

1. Repeat each vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u) out loud for 3 minutes throughout the day.
2. Place the tip of your tounge behind your top front teeth. Slide your tongue backwards for 3 minutes a day.
3. Close your mouth and purse your lips. Hold for 30 seconds.
4. With your mouth open, move jaw to left and hold for 30 seconds. Repeat on right.
5. With mouth open, contract the muscle at the back of your throat repeatedly for 30 seconds. To help with this, look in the mirror at the back of your throat and watch the uvula (the dangly bit!) move up and down.

Singing is also recommended to tighten lax throat muscles. (Possibly an exercise to do alone, particularly if tone-deaf!).

There are many more exercises and steps you can take to help stop snoring and improve your night-time breathing so I recommend that you take a look at Christian Goodman's "Stop Snoring Exercise Program" where he offers further exercises and tips. There are many testimonials from people who have found his program very effective and some clients claim to be cured from their sleep apnea too. He also shows a free exercise on the page to relax a tense jaw which is a common reason for snoring. Here's the link:

  

Click Here!

Sleep in Animals

Not only can ducks sleep with one eye shut, the same happens with their brains. Much of what a bird sees in one eye goes to the other side of its brain, which allows it to sleep with the side of the brain connected to the closed eye, while the other side of the brain stays awake.

Dolphins and some other whales have developed this "half-asleep" technique to even more sophisticated degree, so that they can continue swimming, surfacing and breathing. After an hour or so like this the roles reverse, the sleeping side waking up and the other side going to sleep. Like ducks, dolphins sleep with one eye open.

Migrating birds and albatrosses at sea fly for days at a time; it's not yet known whether they sleep on the wing or simply deprive themselves of sleep.

The record for the longest sleeper goes to the South American two-toed sloth, which spends around 20 hours a day asleep, up in the highest branches of the rainforest. Antelopes are fitful sleepers, sleeping in herds, with only those at the centre of the herd able to sleep safely. Being on the perimeter means either no sleep or becoming someone's dinner.

There are no permanent non-sleepers in the animal kingdom, which points towards sleep having essential life-preserving purpose.

I do however wish I had the ability to sleep with one eye open - could be very useful!

Another Light-Hearted Quote

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone."
Anthony Burgess - Writer, 1917-1993, particularly famous for "A Clockwork Orange"

Want to Look Attractive and Healthy? Get a Good Night's Sleep.

There is a really cheap and effective way of making sure you look as attractive as possible: get plenty of sleep. You will also look much healthier, researchers from Sweden have reported.  They have just conducted a study involving 23, non-smoking, young adult volunteers, aged between 18 and 31. They were photographed twice, each time between 2pm and 3pm. The first photograph was taken after they had had a good night's sleep, while the second one showed what they looked like after sleep deprivation.

All pictures were taken in the same, well-lit room, with a fixed camera and at a fixed distance. None of the participants wore make-up, their hair was combed back, and had undergone similar shaving and washing procedures before each photograph was taken. The photographer asked them to assume a neutral, relaxed facial expression on both photo shoots.

The participants were not allowed to consume alcohol for a period of 48 hours before the study.

Sixty-five other people were asked to rate the photographs for attractiveness, health aspect, and whether or not the person looked tired. The photograph observers did not know the sleep status of the participants they were asked to rate.

The researchers reported that, in the vast majority of cases, the observers rated those who had had a good night's sleep as more attractive, healthier, and with more energy, compared to the ones which had been deprived of sleep.

I would seem then that it is a fact that our lack of sleep is visible to others so when we feel drained and think we look tired, we probably do.  Time to get help sleeping as soon as possible!

Turn Off Your TV For A More Restful Night's Sleep

According to a recent study presented at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, glowing television screens are the cause for most folks' chronic sleep deprivation.

Researchers looked at the sleep habits and rituals of 21,475 participants for three years. They found that during the two hours prior to bedtime, watching television ranked as the most common activity. This means more people may be staying up longer than normal to finish watching programs and those alarm clocks are waking people out of their slumber earlier than expected. These two scenarios lead to sleep deprivation, decreased alertness and impaired concentration throughout the day.

So be sure to minimize your nightly TV time in order to help you get seven to eight hours of uninterrupted restful sleep.  Think carefully too whether you REALLY want to watch  "The Walking Dead"!  

EFT - Have You Heard of This?

Excuse my ignorance but I've only just discovered this help method!  The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is an effective and easy to learn acupressure method used by thousands of people to help with their problems.  Strange but true, by tapping on just nine meridian points on your body, you can quickly change your mood and attitude.  It was developed by Gary Craig, a Stanford engineer, out of his work with "Thought Field Therapy".  He contends that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system.  He learned that tapping on the body's energy system while focusing on the negative emotion or experience would relieve disruption.  It can help with anxiety, pain, phobias and other aspects of your present state which may be causing sleep problems - it can also help change your attitude to sleep itself!  The good thing about it is that YOU are in control, it is very safe to practise and you are not putting prescription medicines into your body which seem to work short-term but do not help sleeping in the long run.  Why not try a FREE download which focuses on anxiety relief - it will give you a good idea of how EFT works:
Video - Introduction to EFT + Anxiety Relief Session 
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