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Online Sleep Assessment
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ESG Report 2025
Online Sleep Assessment
Product support & documentation
Energize & inspire your world
ESG Report 2025
Sleep apnea is a condition where breathing stops and restarts many times throughout the night. These interruptions can make it harder for your body to get enough oxygen.1
Sleep apnea is a serious medical condition that can impact your health and well-being. It’s important to know the signs of sleep apnea, if you’re at risk and how to get diagnosed and treated.
Sleep apnea can lead to pauses in breathing that may last from 10 seconds to over a minute. These pauses can starve your organs from getting oxygen.
But what does that actually look like over the course of a night? For someone with moderate sleep apnea, breathing can stop up to 29 times an hour. Over eight hours, that could mean your breathing pauses as many as 232 times.2 As a result, if you suffer from sleep apnea, this lack of sleep often leaves you feeling exhausted, with low energy and craving caffeine during the day.
Even though sleep apnea is a blanket term, there are actually a few distinct types of sleep apnea:
You and your doctor will work together to understand the best treatment options for you based on your sleep concerns and sleep apnea type.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a condition where your upper airway becomes blocked repeatedly during sleep, making it harder for air to flow. These blockages can reduce or completely stop the flow of air, causing your breathing to pause throughout the night.1
A less common type of sleep apnea, central sleep apnea (CSA), occurs when the brain fails to send a signal to the muscles that control your breathing, resulting in pauses in breathing during sleep.3
Sometimes referred to as treatment-emergent central sleep apnea (TECSA), it is a form of central sleep apnea that emerges during the early stages of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. In most cases, TECSA resolves on its own without the need for further intervention.3
Everyone has a bad night’s sleep now and then. But, as a chronic condition, sleep apnea makes the effects of regularly disrupted sleep even more intense. From work to relationships to your overall motivation, untreated sleep apnea can take a toll on many aspects of your life.4
Snoring is one of the most common symptoms of sleep apnea. It occurs when your neck muscles relax and your throat partly closes and becomes narrow, causing the vibration sound known as snoring.
When your breathing is restricted, your brain sends a signal to wake up to breathe. This can cause a sudden and startling gasp for air.
A lack of restful sleep interrupts your body’s natural circadian rhythm and can impair cognitive function. Daily activities that require attention, critical thinking or memory can be impacted by sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea can make you feel like you’re sleepwalking through life. Sleep is a time for our bodies to rest and repair, and missing key stages of the sleep cycle can leave you feeling drained.
Periods of disrupted breathing can cause your blood oxygen levels to drop during sleep, resulting in morning headaches. While the headaches may not last for long, they may be an indicator of sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea and insomnia can be a vicious cycle. You may wake up from apneas and worry about not sleeping, then struggle to sleep because you’re worried.
When your airway is blocked, it can lead to snoring or breathing with your mouth open, both of which can cause you to wake up with a dry mouth.
A lack of quality sleep can leave you feeling tired and irritable. This can make even the simplest tasks a struggle, which can impact your mood. There’s also a strong link between sleep apnea and mood disorders. In fact, 35% of people living with sleep apnea have symptoms of depression.5
Each type of sleep apnea comes with its own causes. Understanding the cause behind your sleep apnea can help you address some symptoms and get the most effective treatment for your condition. While some causes are unavoidable or genetic, you may be able to make lifestyle changes that reduce your risk.
Causes may include alcohol use, smoking, narcotic drug use and excess weight. Other causes can include age, gender, allergies, a narrow airway, enlarged tonsils or adenoids, a receding chin or a deviated septum.
Causes can include high altitude, narcotic drug use or underlying medical conditions, such as heart failure or stroke.
While complex sleep apnea, otherwise known as treatment-emergent sleep apnea is not fully understood, a small percentage of patients develop it during treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.
While it’s true that people who snore, are older, have other medical conditions and are male may be at risk of sleep apnea, they’re not the only ones. Sleep apnea can affect people of all ages, races, genders, shapes and sizes. However, there are some general risk factors to keep in mind. Knowing more about these risk factors can help you have a conversation with your doctor about sleep apnea.
Weight can be a common sleep apnea factor. People with excess weight or obesity tend to have fat deposits in their upper respiratory tract, narrowing the airway and causing obstructed breathing.
Men are more susceptible to sleep apnea than women. The prevalence of moderate-to-severe sleep disordered breathing is 23.4% in women and 49.7% in men,6 although women become more susceptible during pregnancy and after menopause.
Ageing naturally impairs the brain’s ability to control the throat muscles. People over 40 are more likely to develop OSA.
Excess weight around your neck can narrow your airway when you lie down. A neck circumference of 43 or more cm in men and 40 or more cm in women can increase the likelihood of developing sleep apnea.2
Smoking affects your respiratory system and can cause inflammation and narrowing in your upper airway. Alcohol can slow your breathing and over-relax your throat muscles. Both can cause or make sleep apnea symptoms worse.
While the short-term symptoms of sleep apnea can be frustrating, its long-term effects can be potentially life-threatening. If left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and cognitive decline. Because sleep apnea interrupts a much-needed good night’s rest, it can impact organ function, mood and daily energy levels. Early detection, diagnosis and treatment is the best way to potentially avoid these long-term risks.7
Your doctor can make a recommendation or referral to a sleep specialist based on your current symptoms. It’s important to discuss your symptoms with your doctor early, so they can determine if a sleep test is the right step to take next.There are two types of sleep tests your doctor can recommend:
Here are a few of the key steps involved in diagnosing sleep apnea:
Make an appointment with your doctor to discuss your current symptoms and how they relate to typical risk factors and causes of sleep apnea. Your doctor will be able to measure your symptoms against your broader health history to determine if you should see a sleep specialist.
A referral to a medical sleep specialist will include a more in-depth evaluation of your sleep patterns, current symptoms and overall past health record. The sleep specialist will help determine if you need further evaluation.
An official sleep apnea test can either occur at home or at a sleep clinic. This test is an overnight evaluation that involves monitoring your breathing and other bodily functions–such as your blood oxygen levels and heart rate– while you sleep.
After completing a sleep apnea test, your test results will include measurements of breathing patterns, arm and leg movements, blood oxygen levels, heart rate and overall airflow. A specific measurement linked directly to sleep apnea is the apnea-hypopnoea index (AHI), which will also be assessed during the overnight sleep apnea test.
Your AHI measures the severity of sleep apnea based on the number of times your breathing was excessively shallow (hypopneas) or when it stopped altogether (apnea) during each hour of sleep.
If you are officially diagnosed with sleep apnea, your healthcare provider will discuss treatment options for the specific type of sleep apnea you have. Treatment options can include a mixture of lifestyle changes, sleep devices and medications, or even surgical treatments. It may take a little time to get used to these changes in your routine, but ultimately, your sleep apnea treatment plan should have a positive impact on your sleep and improve your quality of life.
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is highly effective and is the most used and understood method for treating sleep apnea.9 It involves a mask that fits over your nose and/or mouth and connects to a machine that pushes air through the mask. This flow of air is continuously delivered to your airway and helps prevent the stops and pauses in overnight breathing that sleep apnea can cause. In short, CPAP helps you breathe during the night, so you wake up feeling refreshed and well-rested.
Some people may have trouble getting used to CPAP. In those cases, auto-adjusting positive airway pressure (APAP) therapy allows the level of delivered air to adjust based on the person’s needs. It only delivers the amount of pressure needed at any given moment.
Whether or not you have sleep apnea, lifestyle changes may benefit you. Your doctor may recommend you lose weight, cut down on alcohol or quit smoking to help improve your sleep apnea symptoms.
CPAP therapy is the gold standard for treating mild to moderate sleep apnea, although doctors may prescribe oral appliance therapy as an alternative option. An oral appliance, or a mandibular repositioning device (MRD), holds your lower jaw in a forward position while you sleep. A part of the device expands the space behind the tongue and puts tension on the walls of the throat to help keep the airway open and reduce palate vibration.
Your doctor may review your medications to determine if they’re contributing to your sleep apnea symptoms. Medications such as antihistamines, opiates and benzodiazepines for anxiety can exacerbate sleep apnea symptoms by causing the airway to relax and narrow.
If you’re suffering from allergies or chronic nasal congestion, your doctor may prescribe nasal sprays or decongestants to help reduce swelling and open your airway.
While surgery isn’t generally a first line of defence against sleep apnea, some surgical treatments are available.
For people with moderate to severe OSA who may not respond to CPAP or oral appliance therapy, another option is hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HGNS), also known as upper airway stimulation (UAS). This is an implantable therapy that is intended to help keep the airway open during sleep.10
Other less common surgical options include nasal surgery to fix a crooked or deviated septum, jaw surgery to change the position of the jaw, surgery to remove the tonsils or adenoids or somnoplasty, which uses radiofrequency to shrink the tissue in the upper airway.11
If you or a loved one has sleep apnea, there are things you can do to reduce symptoms and improve your quality of life. As always, consult your doctor before starting new therapies, diets or exercise programmes.
Communicate regularly with your doctor or sleep care team about any concerns or challenges you may be facing with the proposed treatment.
CPAP can take some getting used to, but the more consistent you are with your therapy, the more likely you are to reap the health benefits.
Managing your weight can help take pressure off your airway, helping you sleep more comfortably and improving your sleep apnea symptoms.
Alcohol can exacerbate sleep apnea symptoms. Your best bet is to drink in moderation (or not at all) and avoid alcohol before bedtime.
Smoking may increase inflammation and narrowing in your upper airway. Quitting is a positive step towards improving your sleep and your health.
Allergies create nasal congestion and can dry out your mouth or block your airways. Consult your doctor about the best medical recommendation for treating your allergies.
Take our online sleep assessment and discuss the results with your doctor.
This blog post contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider.
If you have any specific questions about any medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this website. The views expressed on this blog and website have no relation to those of any academic, hospital, practice, or other institution with which the authors are affiliated and do not directly reflect the views of Resmed or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.
