Weariness, fatigue, tossing and turning; while it's easy to blame our modern lifestyle with all its screens and alert sounds for our bad sleep habits, sometimes the true culprit is a more natural issue. Sleep apnea affects millions of North Americans, with more receiving diagnosis daily. While your inability to reach REM sleep might be the result of watching The Walking Dead before bedtime, it could also be that your body, albeit briefly, stops breathing when you sleep. 

When our bodies relax into slumber, the muscles of your throat (soft palate, tonsils, uvula, tongue and throat) can relax too much. This causes your soft palate to drop further than it normally would, and block part of your airway as you sleep. In response, your body will awaken itself extremely briefly in order to remove the obstacle before dropping back into sleep. So briefly, in fact, that this cycle can repeat itself dozens of times in the course of an hour and leave no trace memory of the event. 

In central sleep apnea, your sleeping brain simply forgets to send the appropriate signals to your body, reminding it to breathe. Much less common than obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea also tends to wake the sleeper for longer periods of time as they are likely to cough or choke lightly when they cannot breathe. This type of apnea makes it much more difficult to fall and stay asleep for most patients.

How to tell?

So, do you stop breathing when you sleep? The best way to tell of course is to set up an appointment with a sleep center, and be tested for these conditions. But if you are not ready to commit to a test either in terms of money or time, there are other lifestyle changes you can make to rule out other causes of poor sleep. 

Keep a journal

Keep a sleep calendar or journal. Use it to help you keep to a solid sleep schedule (no cheating on bedtimes!) and to write down how many times a night you wake up, your quality of sleep, and whether or not you had a dream, since this indicates a REM cycle. If keeping a more regular sleep schedule is helping you sleep better after two weeks, it's likely that you are not suffering sleep apnea. 

Cut out stimulations before bed

Second, make sure to stop your screen time at least half an hour, preferably an hour, before bedtime. This will give your body and mind the time and space it needs away from mental stimulation to fall into healthy sleep. This also applies to eating and drinking right before bed, which can also throw off your sleep schedule. 

Use available devices

You can use a video or audio recorder to record yourself sleeping to track any sleep interruptions. 

There are also some fantastic apps available for smart phones that can help you determine the length and quality of sleep you're getting, as well as indicate whether or not you snore, which can be an indicator of apnea. A quick Google search will show you apps such as SleepBot, Sleep Cycle and FitBit. These are also a great way to keep a record of your sleep habits. 

If your sleep doesn't improve, or you suspect that you might be waking up consistently throughout the night, that may be your cue to talk to your physician about the need for a sleep study.