![]() This may not be felt or known by the person but can easily be seen on a sleep apnea test. Thus they can end up sleeping all night without ever having had any satisfactory deep sleep. Then they have start to process all over again, getting back to deep sleep, where they are again woken up, again missing the chance to compete a normal sleep cycle. ![]() ![]() In a normal night, a person will pass up and down through the sleep levels slowly, and will often complete three to four full cycles of REM sleep. With sleep apnea, those normal cycles are interrupted because every time the body finally gets deep enough in sleep to begin a REM cycle, the person gets woken back up to light sleep because of an apneic episode. Why? Because they never had the chance to complete a full cycle of deep sleep or REM sleep. They will think they had an entirely normal night’s sleep. And because the person never actually wakes up all the way, they do not realize what is happening. When they wake up in the morning, they will have no recollection of ever having been woken up out of deep sleep to a lighter stage of sleep. In severe sleep apnea this can happen hundreds of time every night. This causes a person to keep cycling from deep sleep to lighter sleep and back again. We don’t wake up all the way, but just to the lighter stages of sleep where our breathing muscles are able to take a deep breath. When we begin to sleep we drift through the stages, from lighter sleep to deeper sleep. When an apneic episode and corresponding drop in oxygen level occurs during the deeper stages of sleep, including REM sleep, our bodies are stimulated to wake up just enough so that we can take a few deep breaths to get our oxygen levels back up to normal. And the effects can accumulate over time, resulting in chronic fatigue, anxiety, irritability, and many other symptoms. If we are deprived of REM sleep, we will not feel rested. While the exact purpose of REM sleep and of dreams in general is still the subject of much research and debate, one thing is clear – it is very important to the restfulness of our sleep. The only voluntary muscles which are not paralyzed during REM sleep are those in our eyes. Our eyes move back and forth rapidly as we “look” at all the things taking place in our dreams. During REM sleep our bodies are automatically and naturally paralyzed such that we don’t actually move around, acting out our dreams, even though they seem very real at the time. REM stands for rapid eye movement and is so named because it is the stage when we dream. One of the more important stages of sleep is called REM sleep. When we sleep we progress through several stages of sleep ranging from light sleep to very deep sleep. ![]() In either case the result is a decrease in airflow which causes low blood oxygen levels. Non-obstructive sleep apnea is a less common variant which can occur due to problems with the central nervous system areas which control breathing. This occurs when there is an obstruction to air flowing down through the nose, mouth and throat into the windpipe and is often accompanied by loud snoring. The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea. ![]() This causes their oxygen levels to drop which in turn causes them to wake up just enough to unconsciously take a deep breath to get their oxygen levels back up to normal. Sleep apnea is a condition where a person has many episodes during the night where they stop breathing for a short time. An apneic episode is an episode where someone stops breathing for a short time. ![]()
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