Preventing Sleep Apnea Disorder | How to Prevent Sleep Apnea

You have to understand that measures meant to prevent sleep apnea is limited to precautionary measures that are related to medical conditions that may result in getting the syndrome. As such, there is a need to work closely with your doctor on this.

However, there are other measures that you could do, although these are basically behavioral approaches like losing weight.

Other preventive measures along this line include regular exercise, quitting smoking, and avoiding excessive intake of alcohol and drugs.

• Establishing proper sleeping habits is also a great measure against sleep apnea.
• The intake of sleeping pills should be avoided so regular sleeping patterns can be followed.
• It is also best to try to sleep for eight hours and not to keep late hours.
• The effectiveness of the preventive measures that you can adopt to avoid sleep apnea is totally dependent on where you stand about following them. Discipline and a rigid follow-through are very important in this.

Sleep Apnea Symptoms

• Snoring caused by sleep apnea will not happen every night, although this could get louder and occur more often as time passes.
  Not all people who snore have sleep apnea though.
• Sleepiness while awake or working during the day is also another common sign of having sleep apnea. With this, you might find yourself falling asleep any time during the day when you are less active.
• There are also other signs and symptoms that accompany sleep apnea, and these may include morning headaches and frequent urination at night. When you awake, you may also experience having a dry throat because of the condition.
• Experiencing mood swings, depression, changes in personality, and irritability is also another sign that comes with sleep apnea. The inability to concentrate as well as learning and memory problems are also signs of this problem.
• Poor performance in school, hyperactivity, and aggressiveness are common signs of sleep apnea in children. They could also be experiencing wetting the bed and breathing through their mouths instead of by their noses during daytime.

What Can Cause Sleep Apnea?

You need to know that when you are awake, your airway is kept open and stuff by your throat muscles so that air could flow into your lungs. When you are asleep, these muscles will become relaxed and this won’t stop your open airway to let air go to your lungs.

However, if you are experiencing sleep apnea, your airways could be narrowed or blocked during your sleep.

• Your tongue and tonsils are larger than the windpipe opening.
• Your tongue and throat muscles relax more than what is normal.
• The bony structure of your neck and head could cause your airway size to be smaller in your throat and mouth area.
• You are overweight and this causes the extra fat tissue, which is soft, to thicken the windpipe wall and this results in the narrowing of the opening, thus making it harder to be open at all times.
• The aging process could also be limiting the ability of your brain to signal the stiffening of your throat muscles while you are sleeping. This results in the narrowing or collapsing of your airway.

The shortage of air flow into your lungs could lower the levels of blood oxygen as well as cause loud snoring. The oxygen drop could also trigger the brain in disturbing your sleep.

Sleep Apnea Remedies

• The next on the list is avoiding alcoholic beverages and the intake of sleeping pills.
• It is also recommended that you change sleeping positions so that regular breathing can be ensured. This may not sound too much of a home remedy for you, but if followed will do wonders for stopping your snoring and preventing breathing pauses.
• There is also another home cure for sleep apnea that can be done, and this is making a ball out of socks and then tying this around your waist. This will help you in regularly changing your sleeping position and sleeping on your back.
• Another thing that you can do to help you with your sleep apnea problem is keeping your nasal passages open while you sleep. This can be done by spraying on a saline nasal spray before you sleep. However, before doing this, it is best to consult with your doctor about using antihistamines or nasal decongestants. This is because this type of medication is usually just recommended for short-term use.
• It would also help if you would go through a polyscomnography, which is a diagnostic test that will assess and record the number of physiologic variables that occur while you sleep.

So if you believe that you are likely to get sleep apnea, then you should start with these preventive measures as soon as you can. Starting way before you notice any symptoms is best if you really want to stay away from this problem.