Today the amount of people who have sleep apnea is constantly increasing. This is because the amount of overweight people is increasing in the USA and in other countries as well.
The basic reasons for having a sleep problem like this are usually cured by a good weight loss plan that is correctly executed, and by sleeping in correct posture to prevent the airways from getting blocked.
How Can Weight Loss Help Sleep Apnea
To understand the reasons why losing a little weight can help with apnea, it is important to fully understand the mechanism at which overweight causes it, and what apea really is.
Apnea is used to describe a situation where a person fails to breathe while they are sleeping. This is happening because of a few reasons but basically it all comes down to one thing – the airways get blocked.
The airways are usually easily blocked during the sleep because they are surrounded by a lot of muscles that are designed to keep the airways open – once you fall asleep the tension in your muscles goes down. Once the muscles in your neck relax the no longer provide the support that allows air to pass freely to your lungs.
The only way that a person suffering from sleep apnea can breathe properly is by waking up, applying some force to their neck muscles and that way freeing the airways that enable the person to properly breathe. Why does overweight cause apnea?
The biggest reasons for someone to have apnea are quite versatile, but there are a few that are more common than others. First of all there is the genetic part, and it has been shown that in 5% of the cases genetics play an important role in having problems breathing. That is quite low, and even if a person has narrow airways and the walls of them are very soft – they collapse easily – this can all be helped with other methods.
Overweight people have a thicker neck. This is because the excess adipose tissue usually enlagens the circumference of their neck, and this causes more pressure to the neck that is coming from the pillow, and from the fat mass itself. That is the reason why proper weight loss tips can greatly improve the quality of someones sleep – proper inhalation is a big factor in improving the quality of sleep.
Once the neck has all that pressure caused by the adipose tissue, it is impossible for the airways to stay open once the neck muscles relax during REM sleep, and this greatly lowers the quality of sleep, causing serious daytime tiredness on other issues. Since weight loss is the only proper solution for this, and using natural sleep aids will not help, since they will not help with breathing, the best results with overweight people who want to improve their sleep quality and lessen daytime tiredness, are achieved by a good weight loss plan that consists of a good exercise plan and a diet.
How To Lose Weight And Get Rid Of Sleep Apnea
The thing is that there are many different ways one can lose weight, but at the same time many of these weight loss tips can hurt your sleep quality. If you go on a no-carb diet, you can suffer from insomnia and if you work out too much you can suffer from overtraining and be unable to sleep.
A proper plan to drop some weight and improve your sleep quality is to go slowly. A very minimal weight loss of 5% already greatly increases sleep quality and has been shown to cure sleep apnea in 95% of the cases. Also working out on a regular basis has been shown to enhance sleep quality and help in creating regular sleeping patterns.
Three workouts a week has been shown to be quite optimal to help with sleep patterns, but as this is not enough for effective weight loss, you will have to vary the exercises a little. To burn fat, you will have to mix your exercises from high intensity to low intensity – the high intensity workouts should be kept at a maximum of three times a week, and then filling the rest of the days with low intensity aerobic workout to increase calorie consumption.
Eating a decent amount of carbohydrates in the evening has been shown to improve sleep quality, but also it lowers your chances of losing weight. You should be consuming a small amount – 10-20 grams of carbohydrates – two or three hours before you go to bed to help with sleeping and also still be able drop weight.
Sleep apnea causes daytime tiredness, weight gain, sleeping problems and serious problems with memory functions. Look for some weight loss tips if you think you are suffering from sleep apnea, since it can greatly decrease the quality of your life.
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