The Link Between Sleep Apnea, Anxiety, and Depression

Obstructive sleep apnea has been identified as a serious medical sleep disorder affecting millions of Americans, often without their knowledge. These individuals awake each morning tired, achy, depressed, and confused about why they can't seem to get a good night's sleep, in spite of going to bed early. They overreact, lose their temper, cry more frequently, and can become irrational.

The word apnea translates to "without breath". Individuals with sleep apnea tend to lose their ability to breathe as they sleep, due to a collapsing airway. This sleep disorder means the individual must wake up momentarily after going without oxygen for too long. When this happens minute by minute, hour by hour, night after night, the effects can be devastating, both mentally and physically. The problem is not the number of hours of sleep they get each night. The problem is the number of times they wake up each night to start breathing again.

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Sleep Deprivation Leads To Psychotic Episodes

The Link Between Sleep Apnea, Anxiety, and Depression

Sleep deprivation, as any new parent can tell you, can be a highly destructive and tortuous situation. Being woken up again and again throughout the night makes it impossible for your mind or your body to get the rest needed to function properly. To complicate matters even more, the brains of sleep deprived individuals end up with an over stimulated amygdala, which shuts down the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the center for logical reasoning and the source of calming chemicals. The amygdala, on the other hand, is the Lizard Brain that initiates the "fight or flight" response.

To prepare for perceived conflicts, the amygdala releases chemicals that increase heart rate, glucose levels, and blood pressure. Being constantly "on alert" drains the mental and physical resources of the person suffering form sleep apnea. In contrast, individuals who are able to sleep through the night, both due to healthy airways or the use of CPAP machines or BIPAP machines, are able to think rationally, awake rested, and control their emotions.

Loss Of Sleep Means Loss Of Control

Sleep apnea frequently results in emotional problems such as depression and anxiety. While this sleep disorder is easily resolved with CPAP machines or BIPAP machines, many sufferers ignore their symptoms until they become unbearable, often resulting in difficulties at work, failed relationships, and debilitating depression.

Compromised thought processes resulting from sleep apnea make individuals with this sleep disorder lose their ability to think rationally or to control their emotions. Instead of losing your spouse, your career, or your good health to this treatable sleep disorder, a simple visit to your doctor's office can start you on the path to better health and clearer thinking.

CPAP Machines And BIPAP Machines

CPAP machines and BIPAP machines provide nearly instant relief from the negative effects of sleep apnea by correcting this sleep disorder. CPAP machines deliver air through a CPAP mask, worn as you sleep. While it does take a few nights to get used to, the results are astounding and immediate. BIPAP machines operate in a similar fashion but they provide a higher pressure inhalation and a lower pressure exhalation. Your doctor can tell you which system will help you to get the good night's sleep your mind and body so desperately need.

The Link Between Sleep Apnea, Anxiety, and Depression

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New Treatments for Depression Under Research

Many physicians believe that depression can have an effect on a person's vitality as well as their mental health. In cases were the depression was a side effect of some form of illness, physicians found that using depression medications to treat the depression, also helped to treat the illness.

But if depression can complicate physical illness, it can also be the sole reason for a wide variety of symptoms that resemble those of physical ailments. In a four-year study, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, found fatigue the single most frequent depression symptom of patients diagnosed as depressed.

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Sometimes the patients felt so exhausted they couldn't go through their daily routine. Yet at the same time they reported they couldn't sleep well. They would doze off, and then wake up early in the morning and toss for hours. In fact, any sudden tendency to wake up very early can be one of the cardinal signs of depression.

Headaches are another common symptom. In studying 421 patients with depression, physicians found that 84 per cent complained of headache. Depressive headaches are capricious, aren't limited to one area, tend to be worse in the morning than in the evening and often resist all ordinary remedies. But once recognized for what they are, they can be relieved with specific antidepressant medication treatments for depression [http://www.nomoredepression.org/treatmentsfordepression.html].

It was also found that 75 per cent of the depressed patients in the test lost weight - from five to 20 pounds. Other symptoms included breathing difficulty, dizziness, weakness, urinary disturbance, palpitation, nausea. In a recent seminar to alert family doctors to the guises emotional troubles can take, a Harvard psychiatrist, warned that "depression symptoms are frequently referred to the gastrointestinal tract," and urged a check for depression when patients complained of gas or abdominal pains that couldn't be explained otherwise. He also warned that depression sometimes caused reduced potency in men and menstrual disturbance in women.

Nobody knows how many elderly people considered hopelessly senile are really only depressed. The signs of depression [http://www.nomoredepression.org] of the geriatric patient often remain undiagnosed. There is the feeling that he is too senile to be depressed. Actually, depressions can contribute to or even cause senile confusion.

New Treatments for Depression Under Research

Mike Spencer has been helping people protect their health for many years. For more information visit Mike's What is Depression [http://www.nomoredepression.org] site.

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