Sleep Apnea is a disorder that causes repeated brief periods of not breathing during sleep, keeping you from getting a good night’s rest. It also may affect your health by raising your risk for serious conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease. The right treatment can help you feel better and reduce your risk for these problems.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common type of this disorder. It occurs when your airways become blocked as you sleep — usually due to the muscles in the back of your throat relaxing and narrowing. This can block your breath and cut the amount of oxygen that gets to your lungs.

How Sleep Apnea Affects Your Health and What You Can Do

Other symptoms of this condition include snoring, daytime drowsiness that makes it hard to concentrate or perform tasks that require your full attention, and a change in your heart rhythm. It’s important to have your doctor diagnose and treat this condition, because it can be dangerous if you try to drive or operate machinery while drowsy.

A number of things can raise your risk for sleep apnea, including age, family history, being overweight, smoking, drinking alcohol, having a sedative-based medication habit, or using opioid-based pain medicines over long periods of time. You can reduce your risk by eating a healthy diet, losing weight, not smoking or taking sedatives at bedtime, and sleeping on your side instead of on your back. You can also get a sleep test, either at home or in the lab, to see if you have OSA.