Apnea is a Greek word meaning “without breath”. When a person stops breathing while sleeping they are experiencing Sleep Apnea.¹

 Following are the three classes of Sleep Apnea:

1. Central Sleep Apnea: While sleeping a person’s brain “forgets” to signal the chest muscles to breathe and breathing stops.
2. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA): This is the most common form of Sleep Apnea. Patients with OSA breathe normally, but the airflow is temporarily blocked from the lungs by an obstruction caused when the soft tissue in the airway blocks the passage of air. The airway can also become blocked if a person has an abnormally large uvula (the floppy thing at the beginning of your throat), tonsils or tongue. The structure of your jaw and airway play a part in OSA too.
3. Mixed Sleep Apnea: This type of Sleep Apnea is the most difficult to treat. Mixed Sleep Apnea is a combination of the preceding types of apnea. The brain “forgets” to signal the body to breathe and when it does “remember” the person can’t breathe because of a blockage in the airway.

In all cases of Sleep Apnea the body is momentarily asphyxiated. The sudden drop in oxygen levels causes carbon dioxide levels to rise in the blood. To protect itself the body increases the person’s heart rate in order to move the remaining oxygen throughout the body. The health problems of individuals with Sleep Apnea are directly related to the decreased oxygen supply and the extra load that is put on the heart. The brain then signals for the body to breathe and this interrupts the Sleep Cycle.²

The Sleep Cycle:

A person with Sleep Apnea does not have a normal sleep cycle. The sleep cycle has five stages: drowsiness, then light sleep, drifting to deep sleep, then Rapid Eye Movement (R.E.M) and finally, waking. A person with sleep apnea stops breathing for a few seconds to a minute and the brain then signals the body, because of a lack of oxygen, to start breathing again. When the signal to breathe is given it temporarily wakes the body and the person has to start the Sleep Cycle over again. The body does not get the amount of sleep and recovery it needs, leaving the person feeling tired and groggy the next day. Some people can experience apnea events hundreds of times a night.

Because the body has to increase the heart rate to move oxygen, sleep apnea can cause:

• High blood pressure
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Impotence
• Irregular heartbeat
• Heart disease

1.http://www.sleepapnea.org/info/index.html