Figuring out how to get a good night's rest can be exhausting. Many of us wake up tired every day, sometimes even after getting our eight hours of sleep.
For some of us the problem may be sleep apnea -- a condition many of us don't even know we have. It's estimated that one in four middle-aged men and more than one in 10 middle-aged women has the condition. Among adults, sleep apnea is even more common than asthma.
"It's really actively under-diagnosed," expert Dr. Jeffery Lipsitz of the Sleep Disorders Centre Of Metropolitan Toronto told Canada AM. "One study suggested only 10 to 20 per cent of all of the millions of people in North America who have this condition have been diagnosed."
Apnea sufferers literally stop breathing during their sleep, sometimes for 10 seconds or more, hundreds of times every night. Untreated, sleep apnea can cause a multitude of health problems.
Excessive daytime sleepiness can cause people to fall asleep at inappropriate times, such as while they are driving.
Sleep apnea also appears to put people at a higher risk for stroke and transient ischemic attacks (also known as "mini-strokes"), and is associated with coronary heart disease, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, heart attack, and high blood pressure.
"If you have it and you haven't been diagnosed, you're at risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, five times the risk of a car crash -- so a lot of things we would like to avoid," says Lipsitz.
The condition is most common among those who are overweight. The risk of developing the condition increases with age.
"Just lying down will increase the resistance to air flow by as much as 30 to 40 per cent," explains Lipsitz. "When we fall asleep and our muscles begin to relax, the airway narrows even further. So at some point, the air is not flowing through smoothly and you make this snoring noise that so many people recognize.
"And if you go a step beyond that, the airway closes completely and that's when you have the apnea and your brain jump-starts you awake."
It's no wonder then that those people who awake hundreds of times a night wake up complaining they don't feel refreshed. They're also the ones who are straining their cardiovascular systems.
An accurate sleep apnea diagnosis requires a sleep test at a sleep lab. But waiting lists for the testing can be long in underserved areas. Lipsitz says there are solutions that can help right away. There are so-called "compact sleep laboratories," small bedside devices that can monitor things like snoring, breathing, oxygen levels and other apnea hallmarks.
Once sleep apnea is diagnosed, "the treatment is quite straightforward," Lipsitz says.
"Weight loss is one thing that can be used to significantly help people with sleep apnea. We now have a doctor in our clinic who we work with who helps people with weight loss. It's a big undertaking but it's a very successful approach."
Beyond that important measure, there are devices to alleviate some of the blockages. There are dental appliances that can be used to help advance your lower jaw. There is also an air pump that's called CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure).
Some of the staff at Canada AM have been testing the devices and sleep kits and will be reporting back on Tuesday about their experiences.
Watch Canada AM all this week for more info on getting a good night's sleep.
Our sleep expert will also be on hand to solve some of your nighttime dilemmas. Send your questions to sleep@ctv.ca
Until then, sleep tight!
