Sleep apnea and learning

The way things change all the time requires that everyone needs to become an active learner, especially when it comes to all the technology devices and gadgets that appear on the market. In order to keep up you have to continually learn new ways of doing things quickly. Education and learning should be a constant for you but unfortunately there is one thing that is standing in your way, and that is from a lack of sleep due to sleep disorders. Without rest learning anything is an ordeal and memorization is also a tough task. One of the worst sleep disorders and one of the most difficult to cure is sleep apnea.

What makes sleep apnea an enemy of learning?

We now know that the brain is very active in certain stages of sleep especially REM.  According to healthysleep dot med “Research suggests that sleep helps learning and memory in two distinct ways. First, a sleep-deprived person cannot focus attention optimally and therefore cannot learn efficiently. Second, sleep itself has a role in the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information.”

 This can be particularly difficult for children in school but it can also have ramifications for older folks also. Being more productive at work often means learning new skills that makes you a more valuable employee. If you are having issues with sleep disorders like sleep apnea then your ability to learn new things will be greatly hampered. if you sleep apnea or sleep disorder is so bad it may also cost you your job.

Checking in with your doctor is always a good place to start when looking for answers to sleep problems.

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Sleep Apnea and the Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation System

It seems like there is always some sort of new innovation regarding the cure of sleep apnea. Whether it is an improvement in the CPAP machines or dental devices or even surgery something is always be invented to try to cure this tiring disorder. The other day I saw an article from the Indy.star about a device that was implanted in a truck driver who had just discover that she had sleep apnea. Earlier in the year I had wrote about this procedure but they hadn’t done any testing at the time.

The truck driver initially went to her doctor with the familiar complaints that suggest sleep apnea, waking up many times during the night and being very tired during the day. As you can probably guess her doctor sent her on a sleep study where it was confirmed that she suffered from sleep apnea. Like most new sleep apnea patients she tried the CPAP and like a lot of us she didn’t find any relief from it. She was then introduced to a new technology called Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation System (they will probably come up with a shorter name for!) The device is planted in the chest and shocks the tongue (somehow) to eliminate the blockage in the back of the throat. For this lady it has seemed to do the trick. She did say that the battery has life span of 3 to 5 years. That a small tradeoff if you can get your sleeping back.

Of course like all new devices it will probably be a while before this system is considered a sparkling success. But it certainly sounds promising.

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Daytime drowsiness and sleep apnea

If you had a bad night where you couldn’t sleep at all, then a bad day where you will be drowsy will follow.  It is a miserable feeling when you don’t get enough sleep, every little thing that you do during the day seems to take all of your energy (what little you have left!) This happens to most folks at one time or the other but if you have a sleep disorder like sleep apnea that it probably occurs every day.

It is difficult to be productive if your energy is sapped and that is exactly what happens after a night of waking every few minutes because the apnea is choking you. It can also cause emotional problems such as depression and physical illnesses like heart disease and diabetes.

 Sleep apnea is caused by blockage in the back of the throat due to loose tissue or an enlarged tongue. There is another type of sleep apnea called central sleep apnea that causes you to awake every few minutes but it isn’t due to blockage in the throat. This type of apnea doesn’t occur as much as obstructive sleep apnea.

Strangely enough a lot of folks with sleep apnea don’t even know they have it so they just do the best they can with the small amount of rest that they get. That’s way it is important to get a sleep study done and see if you have OSA. The most common type of cure for sleep apnea is the CPAP machine which keeps your airway open by blowing air down your throat.  Surgery is also an option but usually saved until everything else has been tried and failed.

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Sleep apnea and divorce

I just read a headline about the 3 things that lead to divorce: Money, infidelity and snoring.  The first two are common knowledge whether is just about money or infidelity or maybe even a combination of the two. But snoring as a common reason for divorce I’m not sure if that is just an exaggeration or what it does have some truth to it especially if you or your partner has sleep apnea. That constant roaring and grunting is enough to drive anyone out of the bedroom (at least that is what my wife says)

Of course it isn’t just the annoying sound of snoring that can cause breakups, there is much more to it than that. The partner with the sleep apnea has to deal with a great many more problems, such as sexual problems, irritability, memory problems and a slew of possible health issues like heart disease and diabetes.  There is some evidence that erectile dysfunction can be brought on by sleep apnea, which would contribute to the demise of any relationship.  Mood fluctuations can happen to anybody who doesn’t get their sleep,  and in turn this would lead irritability and probably arguments another bad sign in relationships.

So what do you do?

The easy answer is to eliminate your sleep apnea with the use of CPAPs, oral devices and (the last resort) surgery.  If you have sleep apnea then you know that finding a way to cure your snoring and apnea can be difficult and nerve-racking.  But it would be than dealing with the damage to your health and personal life that is caused by sleep apnea

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CPAP may not help recover what is lost from sleep apnea

About a year ago I wrote a post about how the CPAP mask after continued use would help to restore brain tissue. Although I have never been able to use the mask it was still good news for those folks who can tolerate a mask on their face all night.  Unfortunately I read an article the other day that disputes that finding.

The latest study was different in a few crucial ways from the first. The folks in the study were older and the study was held over a long period of time. The article suggested that may have played a part in there being different results.

According to Dr. Tracy Kuo “This was an older group of patients, and perhaps this repetitive, chronic hypoxemia they have lived with for many years prior to receiving treatment may have resulted in some changes at the brain level that are irreversible”

Another thing that was different was the length of the study 6 months to a year for the previous study to 18 months for the latest study.

This shouldn’t be considered a deterrent to anyone who is going to try the CPAP mask because it has helped many folks with sleep apnea.

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