I have no idea if this is only a conscious thing, or whether I do it when asleep as well. If indeed I do it when asleep, I wonder if it could be the source of all the fragmented sleep?
I wrote a post early last month (December) about natural cures for sleep apnea, but I never thought at the time that I might just be talking about me! If indeed that's the problem, then I would say that it would be the rare (1%) kind - Central Sleep Apnea, not Obstructive Sleep Apnea (CSA versus OSA). I'm not overweight and I don't snore that much.
Of all the treatments I talk about in the sleep apnea post, I already do most of them. I sleep on my side, don't drink, don't take muscle relaxants, don't smoke - pretty much the only things I don't do that are common natural treatments for apnea are:
- sleep partially sitting up
- play the didgeridoo
I'm not taking up the didgeridoo quite yet, so maybe I'll try sitting up. It makes sense that most of these recommendations would be for OSA, as that's the most common type, but CSA may be influenced as well. If sleeping partially sitting up doesn't do anything, I'll visit my doctor and ask him about it...
There's another unique phenomenon I've noticed recently - the use of isochronic tones to help me relax and get into a better frame of mind for sleep. I think maybe that counter intuitively they are doing more harm than good. These graphs are from my Zeo system, and they show sleep quality versus the tones:
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| Overall Sleep Quality (ZQ) versus Tones |
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| Total Sleep (Z) versus Tones |
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| Time in Deep Sleep versus Tones |
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| Time in REM Sleep versus Tones |
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| Times Woken versus Tones |
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| Time Spent Awake versus Tones |
From left to right, on all the graphs, the first bar represents no tones, the second bar insomnia-SMR tones, the third is anti-anxiety or meditation tones, and the bar on the far right represents a combination of insomnia-SMR and anxiety/meditation tones (SMR tones are sensorimotor rhythm tones at a frequency that's said to affect insomnia). There is some improvement in the number of time awakened at night by the use of anxiety/meditation tones, but it's offset by the amount of time those awakenings are...
I'm sure that looking at all these graphs drives you crazy, and you could care less, but I'd be interested to know if anyone can see anything else in them ... am I seeing things when I assume the tones do more overall harm than good?
2 comments:
Interesting stuff Cousin! Maybe a sleep test would be full of wonderful info. for you. All I know is that Steve is like a different person when he gets a full night's sleep with the CPAP! Good luck!
Obstructive Sleep Apnea affects approximately 20 million people in the U.S. alone, and millions more are affected worldwide. Over the last 10 years, significant research has been performed and now there is overwhelming evidence of the connection between Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and cardiovascular disease. Specifically, people affected by sleep apnea are at increased risk for hypertension (also known as high blood pressure), coronary artery disease (AKA atherosclerosis), heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure, diabetes, and even death.
Florastor
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