Posted by: admin in on July 25th, 2010

Just plain tired:
As many can attest, the impact of lack of sleep can be overwhelming.  In more extreme cases snoring is coupled with sleep apnea, where sleep is interrupted regularly and oxygen levels are lower than they should be due to the impeded breathing.  The primary effect I felt was upon waking up in the morning I was that I was very groggy and unrefreshed. I noticed I had trouble remembering tasks I needed to accomplish that day and even trouble being alert while driving into work.


Where’d the dreams go?
Another interesting result I noticed was that I was having very few, if any, dreams during the night.  I didn’t particularly care to dream too much anyway due to nightmares and just plain weird ones. However, for some reason though I think dreams help me feel more alive when I am awake so I’d rather have them I suppose. I’ve heard that through dreaming your memories may be rehearsed a bit and that helps with retention and recall. Who knows..

Attention while at work
I also know my work was suffering. I would take in quite a few cups of coffee to help “get me going” and really not have great attention span until a few hours into the day.

At odds with my wife
The impact for others can be just as negative.  My wife spent countless nights putting up with the snoring and the erratic breathing.  Often she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me.  If my snoring were bad enough a particular night, she would sometimes even retreat to the other side of the house to sleep on the couch in the basement where the sound couldn’t carry.

Heart problems
The sleep doctor informed me the health consequences of sleep apnea were not so clear cut.  He did tell me that some studies indicated those people with sleep apnea were more likely to encounter increased risk of heart attack, heart disease and stroke, but that sleep apnea was in of itself rarely fatal.


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