Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea (Obstructive sleep apnea, OSA) is a collapse of the upper airway during sleep, which reduces airflow to the lungs. It has many serious health outcomes if untreated, but can very often be effectively treated with positive air pressure therapy. Nasal problems such as a deviated septum will shut down the airway and increase swelling in the mucus lining and nasal turbinates. Corrective surgery (septoplasty) will maximise the airflow and correct the feedback loop to the brain which keeps awakening the sufferer so as not to asphyxiate.
Central sleep apnea is repeated stops in breathing during sleep when the brain temporarily stops sending signals to the muscles that control breathing.
Read more about this topic: Sleep Deprivation
Famous quotes containing the word sleep:
“Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)