Sleep Matters!

Sleep is our body's natural way of shutting off and recuperating from the entire day's activities. Sleep keeps our brain healthy by giving rest to parts that control emotions and social interactions and maintain cognitive skills such as speech and thinking. Lack of sleep can have the absolute opposite effect on brain functioning with controls like memory, concentration, planning and sense of time being severely affected. In more serious cases, lack of sleep is manifested as a sleep disorder that is intimately related to various psychological disorders like depression and anxiety.
What Is Sleep Apnoea?

According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep apnoea may affect between 20 and 40% of adult snoring population, topping the list of sleep disorders. The more common form is referred to as “Obstructive Sleep Apnoea” (OSA), which occurs due to an obstruction that prevents air from entering lungs. Lack of muscle tone in the upper airways during sleep causes their collapse and blocks the airway. The brain senses this lack of oxygen and automatically wakes you up, usually with a loud snore in order to breathe again. OSA becomes clinically significant only if the stopping of breathing lasts more than 10 seconds and occurs more than 10 times in an hour.

The more serious form of sleep apnoea is referred to as “Central sleep apnoea” wherein the brain 'forgets to breathe' during sleep. Brain cells live on oxygen and a long pause in breathing reduces the blood level of oxygen, eventually causing severe brain damage and even death.
Symptoms

Disturbed sleep, excessive sleepiness during the day along with irritability and restlessness are common symptoms. Surprisingly though, patients are unaware of the lack of a proper night's sleep caused by these repeated interruptions. The other common symptoms are:

* Snoring
* Impaired concentration
* Restlessness during sleep
* Decreased libido
* A personality change
* Choking during sleep

Snoring And Insomnia- Their Correlation With Sleep Apnoea

Snoring does not always mean “difficulty in breathing” and does not confirm sleep apnoea. On the contrary, blocked airways hardly allow any air to circulate diminishing the possibility of a snore. However, snoring coupled with obesity could be a strong indicator for OSA, the reason being, fat deposition around the upper airway cause obstruction.

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