Sleep Apnea remedies-Sleep Apnea Exercises

Sleep Apnea Exercises

Singing Exercises for Sleep Apnea:

Different sounds and tunes to focus movement in the soft palate, palatopharyngeal arch, tongue and nasopharynx-

These exercises cannot work for everyone. The action of the exercises is to tone lax muscles in the upper throat. They can only help when lax muscles are a significant factor.

Yawning also uses similar muscles. Try yawning repeatedly for a few minutes to really stretch the muscles. You can do this one anywhere as it’s a silent exercise.

Working out your throat muscles is the same as working out any other muscle in your body. You need to do it regularly in order to see any results.

It won’t happen overnight but gradually over several months you will start to notice that you don’t snore as much as you once did.

Yoga Exercises for Sleep Apnea:

Yoga is appropriate for all ages and can greatly reduce stress and improve the quality of sleep. There are breathing and relaxation techniques that will relieve your sleep apnea.

The special type of yoga that promotes sleep is called Yoga Nidra, which in Sanskrit means Sleep. Yoga uses breathing and visualization techniques to help you relax, and it is recommended you do the exercises every night before sleep.


Jaw Exercise for Sleep Apnea:

Close your mouth and act like you are chewing gum. Chew like this for a minute or so at a time. To do the exercise right make sure your molars on both sides move apart a little, and then touch lightly again. Also notice that your lips are supposed to be closed the whole time.

This exercise is pretty easy on your jaw because you are not actually chewing anything, but you might still feel a little bit sore in the beginning. Just take it easy-maybe chew for only a few seconds in the beginning and then increase the time you exercise.

You can make an "mmm" sound as you chew. This will open the throat better. Making an "mmm" sound is not necessary, it will just give the exercise extra boost

Oropharyngeal Exercises:

If the problem in sleep apnea is the tissues relaxing and collapsing onto each other, you probably wonder if there is any oropharyngeal exercises to strengthen and tone these muscles.

A Brazilian study shows that doing certain tongue and facial exercises for 30 minutes daily may ease the severity of obstructive sleep apnea. Those exercises for sleep apnea included:

• Brushing the tongue with a toothbrush

• Putting the tip of the tongue on the soft palate and sliding the tongue backward

• Pronouncing vowels quickly or continuously

• Keeping the tongue in a certain position when eating

• And other methods

This study included thirty-one adults with moderate obstructive sleep apnea. The results of the study was interesting: after three months of oropharyngeal exercises, the patients had reduced their obstructive sleep apnea severity by thirty-nine percent. They also reported that they were snoring less, sleeping better, and less sleepiness during daytime.

Larger studies are needed to confirm the results and to learn which oropharyngeal exercises were most important, but the basic idea is to strengthen the muscles around the airway so it's less likely to collapse during sleep.

Types of Sleep Apnea-Central And Mixed Apnea

Central Sleep Apnea

Central Apnea is when you repeatedly stop breathing while sleeping because the brain temporarily stops sending signals to the muscles that control breathing.

It occurs when the airway is NOT blocked, but the brain fails to signal the muscles to breathe because there is an underlying problem with the nerves that control the breathing problem which comes from the brain, and not from the upper airway.

So...even if you don't have an obstruction of the upper airway, you can still have this disorder.

How do you breathe while sleeping with CSA syndrome?

A person with this disorder has issues with the respiratory center from the brain. This center controls the chest muscles to make breathing movements. When the respiratory center stops working, then your breathing stops, too. The brain does not respond to the changes of the respiratory gas levels from the blood (oxygen and carbon dioxide).

In CSA, you stop breathing while sleeping for a period of time (at least 10 seconds), but there is no effort to breathe at all, like in OSA. Therefore, snoring is not present in central apnea.

Typically, you will wake up several times at night, often with the sensation of gasping or choking. If this waking up episode is frequent enough to cause disruption and making you restless during snooze, then you may feel very tired during daytime.

Causes of CSA:

The cause of this particular disorder is unknown, but there are risk factors that can influence the development, such as:

    * Age

    * Gender - There is an increased prevalence in the elderly

    * Sleep State

    * Thyroid Disease

    * Neurological or Cardio-logical abnormalities

    * Narcolepsy

It is often seen in people with panic about falling asleep. They breathe quickly which results in low levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. This is a problem. When they fall asleep, the breathing reflex fails to start, because of the low levels of carbon dioxide.

Nevertheless, central apnea is most commonly seen in persons with neurological disorders that affect the control center of respiration, such as:

    * Lesions of the brain stem

    * Cardiovascular disorders

    * Cerebral vascular disease

    * Lesions of the spinal cord

CSA can also occur in infants who are prematurely born. Such symptoms generally disappear in the first six months of age. However, there is an increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in infants who suffer from CSA.

The snoring is less common in central apnea, but it may be a symptom of mixed sleep apnea. In children, its syndrome is usually accompanied by a change in their facial color, such as a bluish or purplish skin, and they may also a change in their muscle tone like a limp body.

The long-term effects of CSA disorder are:

    * Abnormal heart rhythm.

    * Heart failure.

    * Lung complications.

    * Enlargement of the heart.

Mixed Sleep Apnea

As the name implies, it is the combination of the two types of apnea Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Central Sleep Apnea (CSA). All three types of apnea cause sleep deprivation and oxygen deprivation.

Types of Sleep Apnea-Obstructive Sleep Apnea-OSA

Obstructive Sleep Apnea:

OSA occurs when air is physically blocked from entering the lungs during sleeping. When we are sleeping all our body parts relaxes and rest so the muscles of the upper respiratory tract (nose, mouth, pharynx and larynx) also relaxes but if they relaxed too much they collapses the air way. People with OSA have an airway that is more narrow than normal, usually at the base of the tongue and palate. When lying flat, the palate is above the air passage. When the pharyngeal muscles (muscles of the pharynx or throat)

A person who has obesity and is overweight is more likely to have this disorder. In male prevalence of OSA is three times higher women. The reasons are related to hormonal influence. Gender differences in the prevalence of OSA may also be related to body fat distribution. Men exhibit a more central fat distribution, including the neck, thereby increasing the risk for narrowing and closure of the upper airway. Postmenopausal women are at higher risk for obstructive apnea. This disorder is more common in African-Americans and Hispanics.

Numerous studies have shown correlations between the prevalence of OSA syndrome and obesity. Men and women with large neck sizes: 17 inches or more for men and 16 inches or more for women.

Although obesity is the most common cause of OSA, it also occurs in non-obese patients. 

Causes of OSA:

• Narrowing of the hard palate
• Nasal abnormalities including septal deviation and allergic rhinitis.
• Children with large tonsils and adenoids.
• People with Down Syndrome.
• Increasing age - when you become older, there is an increased risk to get a sleep disorder.
• Having this disorder genetically.

Evidence is accumulating that genetic factors may be involved in the pathogenesis of apnea disorder. The risk factors arise from changes to upper airway structure alteration in craniofacial structures.

Enlargement of important upper airway structures (tongue, soft palate, and lateral pharyngeal walls). Drugs, such as narcotics, benzodiazepines and alcohol.

Macroglossia associated with hypothyroidism contributes to the higher frequency of sleep disordered breathing.

Sleep apnea syndrome is more common and often severe in acromegalic patients (a chronic disease marked by enlargement of the bones of the extremities, face, and jaw) presumably related to a large tongue narrowing the upper airway.

Smoking - decrease the amount of oxygen in your blood and with alcohol reduces the upper airway tone relax the palate can fall backwards and this can obstruct the airway risk factors of obstructive sleep apnea.

WHAT IS SLEEP APNEA DISORDER?

Sleep Apnea is a common physiological disorder characterized by reduction of breathing during sleep. Breathing pauses lasts from 10-20 seconds they often occur 5-30 times an hour while you sleep and then normal breathing starts again.                                                                                                                                                         

Apnea means a period of time in which breathing is stopped or markedly reduced. It is a chronic condition that disrupts your nap you often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing pauses this results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired throughout the day and it is one of the major causes of excessive daytime sleepiness.

This condition is common in adults and is often related to obesity. In children common causes of this disorder is Tonsillitis (a condition in which children have enlarged tonsils tissues in their throats) in many cases usually people don't know that they have a disorder because it occurs only in sleep so the diagnosis of this disorder is little complicated.

Symptoms:

• Extremely loud snoring.
• Choking.      
• Loud pauses in breathing 
• Day time sleepiness no matter how much time you on bed
• Waking up with dry mouth.
• Morning headaches.
• Restlessness.
  
• Insomnia.
• Going to bathroom frequently during night.
• Forgetfulness.  
• Difficulty in concentrating.
• Irritability.
• Depression.
• Fatigue.
• Difficulty performing work.
• Anxiety.
  
• Emotional problems.
• Social problems.
• Difficulty in learning new tasks.
• Sexual dysfunction.                                                                                     

Types of Apnea:

There are three types of apnea:

1. Obstructive.
2. Central.
3. Mixed.