Snoring: What is really happening?
Do you know what is really happening when you snores?
The sound of snoring is actually caused by vibration of the muscles. It can be muscles in our nose or our throat. Snoring is not just some noise that you make to annoy people or to make people laugh. It is actually an indication that you might have some serious health problem.
Normally when we are in our deep sleep (when we are dreaming), our body are paralysed. We will not be able to move our muscle during this stage of sleep (otherwise we will all be sleep-walking!). So what happens is our muscle will relax and if those muscle in our nose/throat are too heavy or big, it will collapse and block the airway.
Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS) is a term used to describe those who have partial blockage in their upper airway. The partial blockage prevents smooth airflow and reduce the amount of air that is breath into the lungs. As a result, the person will have a drop in their blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2).
Sometimes, an arousal will occur. Arousal is an event where the brain sends signals to the body so that it will wake up from its paralysed stage. Although the person is still unconscious at this stage, the muscle is actually working hard (i.e holding up the airway to let air pass through). After the oxygen level is back to normal, the body start to fall asleep again. The cycle will repeat until the person is awake from sleep, often feeling very tired.
The fluctuation of our blood oxygen saturation level have a bad effect on our body, our heart in particular. Just imagine this, the oxygen in your blood drop, your heart will have to pump harder so that more blood can run in the circulation to ensure that enough oxygen is sent to the body system. Then when your oxygen level goes back to normal, the heart goes back to normal pace. But then, in as short as a few seconds, your oxygen level drops again, and the heart have to work hard again.
This is a tough job for a healthy heart, not to mention if you already have a heart condition!
The number one killer in Malaysia is Cardiovascular diseases. I wonder if this is an underlying contributing factor.
