Obesity Causes Sleep Disorders
January 9th, 2009

One of the most dangerous problems associated with obesity is sleep apnea. The technical definition of sleep apnea is the body temporarily stops breathing. Sometimes this cessation of breathing is not permanent and you can suffocate in your sleep. This is caused by something blocking the airway to the lungs; usually excess tissue in the mouth or throat, your tongue, over sized tonsils, and the relaxing and constricting of airway muscles. Excess weight on the throat and chest can attribute to these complications.

Here are list of some of the side effects of sleep apnea

Loud snoring â€" This is the most common side effect of sleep apnea. This is not just your average snore, this is a loud, deep, wake the dead, snore. You may not hear it, but it is probably a safe bet that your bed partner will notice and make you aware of it.

Morning headaches â€" Upon waking you have a splitting headache. Sometimes these can progress to migraines. This is the result of a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Non-refreshing sleep â€" Upon waking you felt as though you have not gotten any sleep. This is caused by your REM sleep cycle being continually interrupted by your body trying to wake you up when you stop breathing. You may not remember actively waking, but your body does wake itself up so you will start breathing again. Your body gets its rest during REM sleep and if this is interrupted, you will not get any useful rest.

Dry mouth upon awakening â€" This is caused by breathing through your mouth. The air in the room dries out your salivary glands.

High blood pressure â€" This is caused by your body not getting enough rest. Without enough rest your body can not properly regulate your heart, therefore causing blood pressure issues.

Irritability â€" Let's face it, when you did not get a good night sleep, anyone can be a bit cranky.

Change in personality â€" Once you have had several nights of not getting any good sleep, you will become irritable, and your personality will start to change. You will not have the energy to socialize the way you used to. People will think you are mean and rude when you don't mean to be.

Difficulty concentrating â€" Due to the lack of oxygen to your brain, you will have a number of head problems including headaches. It's because of these that most people have a difficult time concentrating.

Excessive perspiring during sleep â€" there is just no real nice way to say this, but if you are obese, you have some extra "blanketing" there that keeps you hot.

Heartburn â€" If you eat before sleeping, you will place a lot of weight on your stomach, this can lead to had heartburn when you wake up

Reduced libido â€" Your body has not gotten good sleep in a while. Sometime it feels like you are running on empty. Your chemical make up is not at 100%. Your hormones are not properly regulated. Your libido is directly controlled by hormones in the blood.

Frequent nocturnal urination â€" Your body is more concerned with keeping you alive than it is with keeping your bladder from loosing control. Some psychologist will even argue that wetting yourself is a subconscious way of making your self wake up.

Restless sleep â€" You keep waking up in the night from not breathing, so you can't get comfortable. You don't get much sleep.

Nocturnal snorting, gasping, choking â€" This is a direct result of not breathing. This is how your body wakes you up to start breathing.

Death â€" Your body will do everything in its power to wake you up to start breathing again. Sometimes it fails at waking you up, so you suffocate on your own body and die.

This is just a short list of complications caused by sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a DIRECT result of being overweight. Isn't scary that you could die in your sleep by choking on your own flesh simply because of its weight? That should be enough to make anyone loose weight, which would fix all these problems. You would sleep better and be healthier. Not to mention you don't have to be scared of choking on your own fat

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