End Fatigue

Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a condition in which you repeatedly stop breathing during the night, and it may be present in as many as 17 percent of adults. The main cause of sleep apnea is being overweight. When fat deposits develop in the rest of your body, they also occur in the tissue surrounding the throat. When you get into certain positions, you can actually compress the pipe that carries air into the lungs cutting off the air flow. The primary symptoms associated with sleep apnea are snoring followed by gasping, hypertension, and daytime sleepiness. This can include having auto accidents because of falling asleep at the wheel. Having a neck circumference of seventeen inches or more also predisposes one to sleep apnea.

If you have several of these symptoms, you should be checked for sleep apnea. You can do this by having an overnight sleep study done. Alternatively, as these tests can be very expensive (costing approximately two thousand dollars), I recommend that you simply videotape yourself sleeping for an hour or two instead. If you do have snoring and periods where you stop breathing, see if this occurs predominantly when you are laying on your back. If so, simply wearing a tight pajama or T-shirt at night that has a tennis ball sewn into the area by the small of your back may be enough to keep you from laying on your back while sleeping—and this may be enough to eliminate the problem. If not, I would do the more formal sleep study in a sleep lab. Other treatments for sleep apnea include weight loss, CPAP, and surgery or appliances that keep your airway open.