What You Need to Know About Sleep Apnea

There are a lot of different sleeping disorders that afflict man, one of which is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is disorder wherein one's breathing pattern is disrupted. More often than not, people with sleep apnea experience one or more pauses in the sleep-breathing patterns.

These pauses, noted to last anywhere from a few seconds to minutes, could occur between 5 to 30 times in an hour. After each pause, normal breathing resumes as if nothing had happened. This sleep disorder is said to be a chronic condition that wakes you up at least 3 nights in a week.

If you're thinking that nothing bad is going to happen to you since your breathing resumes after a couple of seconds, you're wrong. If you think about it hard enough, those brief seconds that your breathing pauses, you deprive your blood of oxygen it needs, and this could lead to a lot of complications.

But how can one tell if it's possibly sleep apnea? Let's look at some warning signs to watch out for.

• Poor quality of sleep / having shallow sleep / waking up frequently mid-sleep
• Loud snoring that starts as you fall asleep
• Breathing cessation for brief periods of time during sleep that goes back to normal with a snort or choke.
• Feeling lethargic and fatigued the following morning
• Having difficulty focusing
• Feeling depressed

More than 12 million Americans suffering from sleep apnea, a big chunk of which are men. Women are no exemption to this sleeping disorder, however studies have noted that most of the people who suffer from sleep apnea are overweight individuals. It has also been observed to become more common as we age.

Again, this condition may go unnoticed to you because you're sleeping as all the symptoms happen. But when people do tell you that they notice your breathing pause in your sleep, do take heed of it. You may develop cardiovascular complications if you leave this condition untreated.