Getting a good night s sleep is needed not only to remove dark circles but to improve your overall health as well. Ideally, adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. This helps you stay physically and mentally healthy. However, getting a good night s sleep is easier said than done, as sleep apnea is one of the factors that could affect the quality of your sleep. This can cause a number of health issues including heart disease.

What is sleep apnea?
Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder that can make your breathing start and stop repeatedly while you are asleep. These pauses can range from 5 times an hour to 30 times in one hour. Waking up tired after a long sleep and snoring are characteristic symptoms of this condition. This can be annoying for others, but for you, it could be life-threatening. When your breathing stops; your airways get blocked. 

This is characteristic of obstructive sleep apnea, as every time this happens, you wake up. This can increase the risk of high blood pressure. High blood pressure, in turn, can cause arrhythmia, heart failure, and strokes. This can increase the risk of a fatal heart attack by up to 5 times.

Heart disease and central sleep apnea have a cyclic relationship. In this case, heart disease causes the person to retain water and salts. At night, this excess fluid can enter the lungs making the person wake up feeling short of breath. This is not necessarily because the airways get blocked but because the brain does not send the diaphragm a signal to expand and contract. This is not as common as obstructive sleep apnea.

Reducing your risk of heart disease caused by sleep apnea
There are ways to treat sleep apnea so as to reduce the chances of heart diseases. To treat it, it must first be diagnosed. Thus, if your roommate notices you snoring, consult a doctor immediately. For a diagnosis, you will need to undergo a sleep study. This involves staying overnight in the hospital where they will monitor your sleep. Treatment for sleep apnea is known as continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP. 

This form of treatment involves wearing a mask that regulates the air pressure as you breathe thus ensuring that the air passages do not close down. In case of obstructive sleep apnea, losing weight if you are obese, can also help treat the condition and keep the airways open. 

Sleep Apnea - How It Can Increase The Risk Of Heart Disease?

Sleep problems, which can be defined as a sleeping pattern where the parents are unsatisfied, are one of the leading concerns of parents. Children should get a minimum nine hours of sleep so that their health and brain development can occur. Sleep problems can affect not only their health, but also their social and school life. Any interruption or abnormality in a child's sleeping patterns should be examined by a doctor and parents should make necessary efforts for knowing the actual causes of sleep interruption of their kids.

What are the causes of sleep disorders in children?

    Injuries and accidents
    Behavioural troubles
    Overeating
    Slow-reaction times
    Performance problems
    Mood problems
    Learning, concentration and memory troubles

Commonest signs of sleep troubles in kids:

    Difficulty in falling asleep
    Occurrence of unusual events at the time of sleeping like nightmares or sleep-walking
    Snoring and breathing pauses
    Difficulty in staying awake in daylight
    Daytime performances can be adversely affected

Best methods for dealing with sleep disorders in children:

    Regular bed-timing should be sincerely maintained at night.
    Relaxing routine for bedtime needs to be followed,including story-book reading, getting warm bath and others.
    Noise in the house, especially at night, should be minimized so that unwanted disturbances can be eliminated.
    If the room temperature is pretty comfortable, then your kids can sleep peacefully.
    Giving caffeine in excess quantity, especially before sleeping, should be reduced otherwise the kids will not sleep well.
    Meals should not be provided just before bedtime; rather they should be taken a few hours before sleeping.
    If your kids are so very addicted to different electronic gadgets or devices like telephones, televisions, computers and others, then they might face sleeping troubles. Thus, it is your duty to keep your kids away from this kind of addiction.
    If your kids are too very tired, then do not keep them awake forcibly; rather you should make them sleep immediately so that they can get a relaxed sleep at night.

If you think that sleep disorder has become a serious issue with your kids as well, then nothing can be a better option than consulting any health physician. They can best analyse the underlying cause of this issue with your kids.

How to Deal With Abnormal Sleep Behaviour in Children?

6 Tips for helping you sleep better

Resting at night plays an important role in regulating your daily health and your level of energy throughout a day. Also, not only the quantity but the quality of sleep is also important for a healthy lifestyle. Bedtime habits do play a vital role in shaping up your lifestyle and personality as a whole. Here are 6 lifestyle habits that can help you to get sound sleep on a daily basis.

1. Having a fixed sleep pattern: Going to sleep and waking up approximately during the same time every day helps to maintain an equilibrium in the sleep-wake cycle. If this balance is maintained then your body will be accustomed to this pattern and as a result, you will feel less tired and sleepy during the daytime.

2. Maintaining certain dietary regulations: You should also maintain a proper diet plan and examine the consequences of the foods that you are eating and the fluids that you are drinking. Taking a proper and nutritious diet on a daily basis will help you to stay healthy by not disrupting your natural sleep-wake cycle.

3. Ensuring that your room has appropriate lighting: The level of light also matters at the time of your sleep. You should definitely make sure that there is a very minimal level of light around you during bed time. This should be done because the lesser is the light, the more comfortable you are while sleeping. Additionally, the sleep that you will get into a dark room will also be sound and undistorted as it helps keep all the sensory organs calm.

4. Regular exercise: Exercising regularly helps to improve the overall quality of sleep by making you tired at night and sending you to bed more efficiently. Light to mild exercises also helps cure sleep disorders like insomnia.

5. Opting for some relaxing activities before bed: Depending on your personality, you should follow simple techniques of relaxation in order to calm down the brain before sleep. Some of the most common relaxation techniques include- deep breathing exercise, muscle relaxing activity, visualizing a peaceful setting/ scenario and a light before-bed snack. The above-mentioned activities are just suggestive and you should do anything that helps you to get a sound sleep.

6. Having daytime naps: Having short naps of less than one hour is absolutely okay if you are excessively tired during the day or you did not have a sound sleep the previous night. But, if you are consistently having long naps during the day then you are bound to have sleep issues during the night. So it is advisable to sleep early and wake up early for a healthy schedule.



6 Tips for helping you sleep better

Insomnia is a disorder where a person has difficulty sleeping. One can have problem falling asleep or staying asleep for long. Some people also have disturbed sleep. This can be a major problem as due to lack of sleep one feels tired and fatigued all day.

Recurring cases of insomnia hamper your daily activities and interfere with the smooth functioning of your life. Therefore, this condition should not be ignored and treated immediately.

Here are the various ways to treat insomnia:
Non-Medical (Cognitive and Behavioral treatment)
Several psychological and behavioral techniques can be used for the treatment of insomnia. Many of these methods can be easily self-taught and others require a therapist to be carried out properly. 

1. Relaxation training, which is also called progressive muscle relaxation involves the patient to tense and relax his muscles systematically in various parts or regions of the body. Relaxation techniques, such as breathing exercises, various forms of meditation, mindfulness and guided imagery are used for treating insomnia people. The use of audio recordings for guidance in these techniques is quite popular.

2. Stimulus control enables building an association between the bedroom and sleep. This is done by limiting several kinds of activities done in a bedroom. This may include going to bed only when very sleepy and leaving bed if you cannot sleep within twenty minutes. A strict bedtime and wake up time schedule has to be maintained.

3. Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT involves changes in behavior like maintaining a strict sleep time schedule, elimination of afternoon naps and other habits related to sleep. A cognitive component is also added to this method. Unhealthy beliefs and fear regarding sleep are challenged and positive, rational thinking is encouraged. CBT is a very effective procedure for treating insomnia and the track record regarding success is high.

4. Changes in lifestyle are required to treat insomnia and prevent recurrence of insomnia, you should change certain habits and start some new practices. You should limit your intake of caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. Do not consume coffee or tea before going to sleep and avoid smoking. The habits may be stimulating and will keep you awake. Your diet should be balanced. You should avoid having rich and spicy food before going to bed. Avoid late meals and maintain a proper schedule for meals. Regular exercise can improve the symptoms of insomnia and you should try to work out every day.

Medical Treatment
There are many forms of medicines, which can treat insomnia. This includes over-the-counter medicines, as well as prescribed medicines. The type of medicine required completely depends on the severity and symptoms of your insomnia and other factors related to health. Therefore, you must consult a doctor before having any kind of medicine for treating insomnia.

The most common medicines for insomnia, which are usually prescribed by doctors are benzodiazepine hypnotics, non-benzodiazepine hypnotics and melatonin receptor agonists. However, medicines should only be taken after consulting with a specialist. Insomnia not only affects your health but also interferes with all your daily activities. Proper treatment should be taken to treat the same.

Ways to Treat Insomnia

Sleep Apnea refers to sleep disorder which is characterized by irregular pauses or interruption in breathing during sleep. Every pause usually lasts for a few minutes or seconds and occurs several times at night. This may indicate that your brain as well as rest of your body is not getting sufficient supply of oxygen. Sleep apnea is of two types - Central Sleep Apnea (CSA) and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).

Obstructive Sleep Apnea- This occurs when the air passage gets blocked, generally when the throat muscles periodically relax and obstruct your air passage during sleep. It is the most common type of sleep apnea and is characterized by snoring.
Central Sleep Apnea- In this case, the airway does not get blocked, but the brain stops passing signals to the muscles that control your breathing.
Mostly people who are diagnosed with a number of underlying medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, chronic nasal congestion etc. are prone to Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Although Central Sleep Apnea is a less common type of sleep disorder, and does not lead to serious complications, various research studies show that Obstructive Sleep Apnea can pose adverse consequences if not treated at the right time.

One such fatal consequence is cardiovascular problems. Sudden drops in the levels of oxygen in blood that happens during Obstructive Sleep Apnea results can lead to increased blood pressure and damage of the cardiovascular system, which in turn increases the chance of a heart attack. Since men are more prone to heart ailments than women, men with sleep apnea are at a greater risk of heart ailments like stroke or heart failure, coronary artery disease and others.

Since Obstructive Sleep Apnea occurs due to interruption in the breathing procedure, it can lead to abnormal irregular heartbeats, known as arrhythmia. Arrhythmia can decrease the level of oxygen in blood and if there s an underlying heart condition, these repetitive encounters of low blood oxygen can even lead to a sudden cardiac arrest.

Most research studies have established a positive correlation between sleep apnea and heart ailment. According to researchers, the risk of untimely death increases as the acuteness of sleep apnea increases. However, there are ways of seeking treatment for this particular sleep disorder. You should consult a doctor immediately and get yourself proper medical assistance to prevent the condition from aggravating.

Can Sleep Apnea Be Fatal?

Sleep is a natural part of the daily biological functions and we spend some time of the 24 hours sleeping.

Sleep cycles are different for different persons and while 5 to 6 hours of sleep may be enough for some people, others may need up to 8 hours of sleep to feel refreshed. How you sleep is as important as the duration. This is one area which is often neglected by people.

Why sleeping positions are important?

Sleeping positions are very important as you stay in a single position for hours at a time every day, and if these habits are bad, they can contribute to spinal problems. Thus, many of the spinal problems can also be alleviated by sleeping correctly.

Some of the bad sleeping positions that may adversely affect your spine are as follows.

On your stomach - This position is in overall a bad position as it curls up the spine, especially where the neck meets the spine and can cause spinal deformities over a long period of time. Certain adjustments to this position can lessen the effects, but it is important to try to change habits and sleep in a better position.

The fetal position - Although this is one of the more natural positions and most babies are crouched up in this form in the mother's womb; as a sleeping position, it has its disadvantages as well. The lower spine is especially put under a lot of stress when someone curls up in this position.

On your side - Although this is safer compared to the other two, sleeping on your sides straight would cause blood circulation issues and also put a lot of stress on the relevant organs, depending on the side you were sleeping on.

In all of the cases, slight adjustments to these positions will lessen the stress on the spine and also help you sleep better.

Some of the adjustments that you can make are:

1. Sleep with a pillow between your knees to align your hips and cause less strain on the spine.
2. If you don't have sleep apnea, put a pillow under your knees to raise them while lying on you back.
3. If you sleep on your back, try to consciously change your position to sleep on the side.
4. Try and actively change your posture throughout the day to ensure good sleeping position at night.

How Badly Sleeping Postures Can Affect Your Spine and Ways to Undo It

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