Poor Sleep Affects Your Daily Routine

I hope you are faring well during this challenging time. I find it’s important to keep up with regular routines, especially when it comes to health. While most of our patients who live with sleep apnea are well aware of how a bad night’s sleep affects their daily routine, I thought this would be a good time to remind people of the effects of long-term poor sleep on overall health. Read on to find out more.

Did you know that the most important systems of the body are affected by poor sleep quality?

• Cardiovascular system: Heart failure is common in people with sleep apnea, due to the presence of abnormal rhythms like atrial fibrillation, which increases the risk of stroke. An overworked heart caused by a tired, unrested body is linked to obesity and high blood pressure. Both cardiovascular conditions deeply relate to sleep apnea.
• Nervous system: Lack of sleep doesn’t only affect the nervous system’s ability to respond to external stimulation — depending on the severity of the sleep apnea, the disruption in the brain’s signals for breathing can cause neurological symptoms that include numbness and tingling, among others.
• Respiratory system: The exhaustion caused by lack of sleep and the poor quality of what little sleep you can get, has a catastrophic effect on your respiratory system. Oxygen deprivation during sleep apnea episodes and the fatigue caused by interrupted sleep can cause issues ranging from shortness of breath and difficulty exercising to respiratory complications such as asthma.
• Endocrine and digestive systems: An altered sleep cycle negatively impacts the metabolic rhythms of the body. For the endocrine system, developing insulin resistance, high cholesterol, and liver disease are only some of the consequences of lack of sleep. And when it comes to the digestive system, apnea causes heartburn and other symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

Please feel free to reach out to our office by phone or email if you have any questions about sleep apnea treatments.