What is sleep apnea? Sleep apnea is a potentially life threatening sleeping disorder that can be very difficult to catch if you always sleep alone. Apnea, literally translated, means without breath. When you sleep and snore, you have the disorder when your breathing stops for ten or more seconds in between snores. Usually, the lapse in breathing is directly followed by an audible gasp for air, your body's way of getting the oxygen it so desperately needs. Sleep apnea causes a blood oxygen desaturation of three to four percent or more. While the percentage may not seem like much, it can have disastrous effects on your overall health.

A quick internet search of what is sleep apnea will bring back over 25,000 responses. Once you sift through all of the garbage sites, you'll find out that there are many symptoms of the sleeping disorder. The scary fact is that many of the symptoms, such as depression, irritability and changes in behavior can be attributed to a ton of other non sleep apnea related conditions. In most cases, these symptoms will be misconstrued and misdiagnosed as a mental condition. As a result, the treatments will only relieve the symptoms and leave the actual disorder untouched and not addressed. If left untreated, sleep apnea can cause major damage to the heart, culminating in a massive heart attack that can leave you lifeless.

If you think that you may have sleep apnea, I highly encourage you to do a Google search of "what is sleep apnea". The thousands of pages can give you much more information than I can in this brief article, and can end up saving your life. If, after doing some background research, you believe you suffer from sleep apnea, make an appointment and see your doctor as soon as possible.