Dunwoody, GA Sleep Apnea Treatment Benefits
Improve Your Health
If you have sleep apnea, your health is in jeopardy. Snoring is often characterized as an annoying habit. It is, to be sure, but it’s dangerous to assume that’s all it is. Your health – in fact, your very life – is at stake with a sleep breathing disorder like sleep apnea.
Your body works hard every day. Whether you know it or not, you’re storing up stress, and by the time you’re getting to bed, your heart and body need to decompress and let go of it. Rest recharges you with the energy you need for the next day, and when you go without it, you let that stress keep building up without any recharge of your energy reserves.
Sleep loss creates a strain on your heart. That’s why patients with sleep-breathing disorders, which disrupt sleep, are at a higher risk of heart attack, strokes, heart disease, and even premature death.
If you snore, it’s a good sign that you should be screened for sleep apnea, a disorder that blocks vital oxygen from entering the airway and prevents deep, restorative REM sleep. The health problems caused by sleep apnea are two-fold, though. Just as your body desperately needs sleep, you also need air. The prolonged lack of oxygen that sleep apnea sufferers endure every night affects blood oxygen levels and brain function. If you’re living with this untreated condition, it could be causing memory loss and brain cell damage.
Control Your Weight
Weight problems? Sleep loss may be a factor. Studies show that people who get deep sleep regularly are often thinner than their sleep-deprived counterparts. Coincidence? Think again. There’s a strong and proven connection between good sleep habits and good health. In fact, you may gravitate toward high calorie foods if you’ve been sleep deficient because of a hunger-controlling hormone gone haywire.
During sleep, our bodies perform self-repair, restoring our muscles and cells to optimal function. When the sleep cycle is interrupted, so is that cell rejuvenation and nutrient storage process. What does that mean? Well, fewer nutrients are used for our bodily needs, and the rest…you guessed it: they’re stored as fat reserves. So even when you’re taking in an abundance (or overabundance) of nutrition, your body still feels undernourished and begins to crave sugary foods and other substances that are easy for your body to convert into energy.
If we can’t properly use the nutrients we’re taking in, we can get pulled in to a downward spiral of overeating and obesity. While it may not be the primary cause of a patient’s weight problem, it certainly isn’t making the effort to maintain a healthy weight any easier.
Renew Your Libido
Sleep apnea and a decreased sex drive? It’s true—they’re connected.
We all know men who’d rather suffer physical pain than discuss a deficiency in the romance department. Combine personal pride with a social taboo, and you have a lot of tight-lipped guys who don’t talk openly with anyone about the sexual problems they’re experiencing with their partners.
What’s often most puzzling for men with decreased libido is that they’re otherwise in good health. It’s hard to understand because you may feel perfectly fine on a physical level but the desire and passion you once enjoyed has waned. You feel frustrated. Your partner feels helpless.
Studies suggest that sleep is very closely linked to a man’s testosterone levels. Inadequate amounts of this hormone can lead to weight problems, hair loss, blood pressure problems, and finally, decreased libido. Men with sleep apnea exhibit remarkably low levels of testosterone, so if this problem describes you or your partner, call Dr. Rodgers in Dunwoody, GA for a sleep apnea evaluation. Sleep could be a major factor in creating a healthy sex drive. In addition, make sure your diet is well-balanced and nutritious. Don’t avoid exercise—it helps manage your stress and keeps your heart in good shape.
Address Your Depression
Sleep apnea sufferers are more likely to be depressed than the average person.
Everyone has an off day now and then. You may not feel like socializing when you’re stressed, or maybe you’d just rather stay in bed than face the day. If someone says they never feel down, they’re just not being honest! But when those feelings are a daily occurrence and you just can’t shake that blue mood, it may be time to seek medical intervention. Many people assume that lack of sleep is caused by depression rather than the other way around, but the truth is that they feed into each other.
Feelings of depression are amplified when you’re sleep deprived. When you’re depressed, it can wreak havoc with your personal life, your professional life, and your health. Call Dr. Rodgers in Dunwoody, GA for a sleep apnea consultation before this disorder leads to serious problems. Getting yourself tested and treated for sleep apnea could be a big step forward in regaining a sense of overall wellbeing.
Improve Your Job Performance
Could sleep apnea be to blame for your impaired job performance?
Every day, Carol’s coworkers hear her joke about taking naps at her desk. “I’ll just crawl under here with a pillow, and you wake me up if you need me,” has become her refrain. It used to be a funny quip, but it’s hitting a little too close to home now. She looks sleep-deprived, she’s always yawning, and her mental acuity and memory are less than trustworthy. While she used to be considered part of the team and still has friends in the office, people have stopped counting on her to deliver. The worst part is that it’s drawing the boss’s attention…
You can’t escape the heavy marketing for energy products. On TV, on the radio, in print ads, on the internet. It seems as if everyone must struggle with the daily fog and grogginess that a lack of sleep causes. Caffeine is one of the often-pitched solutions for this problem, but common sense and experience tell you that it doesn’t solve anything. All you get is the jitters and then a nice crash from your caffeine high a few hours later.
Meanwhile, you’re trying to give your best effort to the important projects you’re heading up, but it’s just not working. You can’t focus, and you’re more irritable than normal, which isn’t garnering you any friends. Upon polling sleep-deprived employees, researchers found that even those who couldn’t list any major grievances against their workplace or company still rated themselves as unsatisfied with their job. Lack of sleep alone can contribute to job frustration. That’s a frustrating reality for employers and employees, especially considering that the overall workforce is sleeping fewer hours a night than ever.
The possibility for work-related accidents and judgment errors increases when you are sleep deprived as well. Your fatigue and lack of attention might not only reap financial consequences, but it could be endangering the health and safety of yourself and others. Employees who aren’t getting enough sleep are absent more often, too. If you’re tired of being tired at work, call Dr. Rodgers in Dunwoody, GA and schedule your sleep apnea assessment today.
Get Help Today
Get evaluated and regain the good night’s rest your body has been craving.
Proper sleep isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. When you don’t have it, you don’t act or feel like yourself. You’re on edge, you crave sleep, and you even drive your friends and family away with your irritable attitude. Dr. Rodgers believes that you deserve to enjoy waking up refreshed each morning, excited about what the day could bring. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get treatment for sleep apnea because sleep deprivation prevents you and them from experiencing a full and rewarding relationship.
After a comprehensive sleep analysis, Dr. Rodgers can prescribe conservative treatment for sleep apnea that will dramatically transform your quality of life and improve your overall health. This serious condition could be threatening your life, so don’t wait any longer to enjoy improved health. Call our Dunwoody dental sleep medicine office today. Our Dunwoody, GA office serves patients from Roswell, Norcross, and many surrounding areas.