Sleep Apnea can be a cause of waking in the morning feeling like you have had a very poor nights sleep, as it disrupts your sleep pattern meaning you don’t get enough REM sleep to feel fully rested. Sleep Apnea can be life threatening if it is left undiagnosed and untreated so it is important to rule it out if you find you are constantly feeling like you have had a poor nights sleep.

Sleep Apnea is caused when breathing stops during sleep. This leads to a depletion of oxygen and an excess of carbon dioxide in the body. Depending on the type of apnea there are different causes for the cessation of breathing, but ultimately the bodys emergency arousal response will kick in to snap you out of sleep to get you breathing again. This can be so quick you are not even aware that you have woken and gone back to sleep again.

There are three types of sleep apnea and they are classified according to their cause. Central sleep apnea, obstuctive sleep apnea and mixed sleep apnea. It is important to understand which type of apnea you are suffering from in order to get the correct treatment.

Central sleep apnea is the least common type. It is caused by the respiratory centre in the brain or the central nervous system stopping working during sleep. This means the chest muscles don’t receive signals to make the movements required for breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea is caused when the upper airway is blocked by either the tissue of the soft palate or throat, or the tongue. Instead of just stopping breathing as with Central sleep apnea, someone with obstructive sleep apnea will struggle to breathe through the obstruction, and while the chest muscles are making the correct movements, no air is getting in or out of the lungs. Mixed Sleep Apnea is a combination of Central and Obstructive, it is unknown which triggers which, some believe that obstructive apnea causes overbreathing which then creates unusually low levels of carbon dioxide, which in turn triggers a central response, others believe that some kind of central reflex problem actually creates the obstructive apnea aspect.