There are conditions that will live with for most of our lives and work around oblivious of the fact that we have them. It is surprising how some health disorders have become part and parcel of our lives when they are not supposed to be. One of these disorders is the infamous sleep apnea that affects a large population of the adults in the world today. A lot of people may recognize this is a disorder but what they don’t know is the health implications attached to it. A characteristic of this disorder is the frequent pauses and breaks in breathing when someone is asleep. These breaks have various causes, the first one being a miscommunication between the respiratory system and the brain. How this happens is that the brain does not receive breath signals from the respiratory system and therefore it causes a pause in breathing. The breaks can also be caused by breath being interrupted by physical blockages. For instance, the tongue may collapse in the airway and obstruct breathing. This obstruction is particularly common and accounts for 85% of all cases of sleep apnea disorder.
The reason why most people don’t notice this disorder is because it manifests when they are asleep. However, other symptoms that are experienced when not sleeping may signify the presence of the disorder. The first symptom is extreme mood swings. Sleep apnea affects the quality of sleep and people tend to get moody when they’ve not had enough sleep. If you realize that you’re getting short tempered, irritable and always in a bad mood, it may be time to consider the possibility of having this disorder. Since sleep apnea affects the quality of sleep, it also causes high blood pressure. In this case, during the breaks where you’re not breathing, the brain does not receive enough oxygen and the response of the body is to increase blood pressure.
Yet another common symptom of the sleep apnea disorder is headaches especially right after waking up. This is a symptom that is closely related to the brain not receiving enough oxygen and the pressure in blood vessels increasing. The result is vascular headaches that basically come about because of all the pressure in the blood vessels. On top of these, being overweight and obesity are conditions that also contribute to this sleep disorder in that the fat buildup in the throat area becomes the physical obstruction to proper breathing. They act is a symptom and also as causes for sleep apnea. Losing weight is one of the solutions to curing sleep apnea among other options.