I love sleeping…. and I love getting my six hours of beauty sleep. But it is only beautiful if it is sound. Six hours of tossing and turning has me feeling wretched the whole of the next day. So it really doesn’t matter if I have been in bed for six hours – what matters is if I have slept soundly in those six hours.

While we accord so much of importance to getting the adequate hours of sleep, we also need to give equal significance to quality of sleep. Sleep is very precious to our physical and mental wellbeing and lack of sound sleep can be detrimental to our health. Researchers have found out that ‘lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease’. And lack of sound sleep is as bad as not sleeping!

The factors that contribute to a sound sleep need to be taken into consideration. These would include good sleeping environment and comfortable bedding. A high quality mattress is essential as much as an atmosphere that is conducive to good sleep. However, even if these are well provided for, sound sleep can elude you if you have a sleep disorder.

Sleep disorders can be serious enough to affect your normal, physical and mental functioning. Some of the common disorders are insomnia, sleep walking, restless legs syndrome, nocturia and sleep apnea.

I know of a friend whose father suffered from sleep apnea. In the beginning he was unaware of being affected by this disorder and so chose to ignore it. He snored a lot and so the disturbed sleep was attributed to this snoring. What he did not realize at that time was that snoring is part of this syndrome. It was only after he suffered from severe daytime fatigue that he decided to see a doctor to cure his snoring and then was told that he actually had sleep apnea and the snoring was a result of that.

For those of you who are not familiar with this term, sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that is characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep. This happens throughout the duration of sleep but the person isn’t aware he is having difficulty breathing. And even on waking up he does not recall any such an occurrence. But what he does feel is daytime sleepiness and fatigue. Symptoms of sleep apnea include snoring and restless sleep.

Who is at risk of sleep apnea? It is those persons with low muscle tone and soft tissue around the airway which constricts the airway. It happens because the upper airway becomes narrow as the muscles relax naturally when the person is asleep thus causing pauses in breathing. Lifestyle changes or medical treatment can help people with this disorder.

There are also products in the market that have been designed especially for sleep apnea patients. Examples are Humidifiers, Masks, CPAP Systems and more. Check these items out on this site. To name a few, one can look up the Hudson Snore-No-Pillow which is an aid for providing relief from sleep apnea. Other examples are the Invacare Twilight Full Face Mask, the GoodKnight 420G CPAP System and Sunpentown Digital Ultrasonic Humidifier with Hygrostat Sensor. Check these products out and you will get a fair idea of their suitability for this condition.