Sleep apnea affects numerous people. It is a condition where a person stops breathing while sleeping. It can affect anybody of any age, race, or gender. There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central and mixed. The cause of each type is specific and determining which type you have is necessary to see what type of treatment you should get.

Only your doctor or sleep specialist can tell you which treatment option is best for you.

1. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (or O.S.A. for short) is about as bad as it gets. People may joke about it, but O.S.A. iscertainly no laughing matter because it can kill you. And according to the Mayo Clinic, up to 1 in 4 Americans suffer from this deadly health concern. Now this is a really worrying statistic to say the least.

- Positional therapy: Apneas be predisposed to be worse when sleeping on the back as gravity makes it more likely for the tongue to fall back over the airway and/or for the airway muscles and other tissue) to collapse and block the airway.

- Weight loss: Sleep apnea can be weight-related. Additional fat around the neck may make the airway narrower, making obstructions more likely to occur. For some overweight people, especially those with mild cases, losing weight can be an effective treatment. Read The Full Story…

Sleep and weight loss have a power connection. They are invert relation: sleep loss, weight gain and sleep more, weight loss. Sleep loss appears to do two worst things that affect our weight: boost the appetite that makes you take in more calories and reduce the metabolism which helps to burn calories.

Study:
Researchers at Laval University in Quebec looked at 276 people for six years who were part of a larger Canadian study.

Sleep duration was determined from a questionnaire and the participants were classified into three groups: short sleepers slept five to six hours a night, the average got seven to eight hours, and the long sleepers put in nine to 10 hours of sleep every night.

Some of the findings:
Over six years, short sleepers were 35% more likely to gain 11 pounds than average-duration sleepers.
Over the same time period, long sleepers were 25% more likely to gain 11 pounds than average-duration sleepers.
Short sleepers gained 58% more around their waists and 124% more body fat than the average sleeper.

Sleep Apnea and Weight
Weight loss to treat sleep apnea can create an interesting dilemma. While losing weight reduces the symptoms of sleep apnea, losing weight when you have sleep apnea can prove to be a difficult undertaking. The reason for this is simple: when you can’t get enough sleep, you are too tired to exercise for weight loss. Read The Full Story…