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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
To Sleep, Perchance, to Breathe
By Mary Cartledgehayes
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is the time when we do
the best dreaming. It’s also the time when I stop breathing.
I don’t mean I pause between each breath. I mean I stop
breathing for up to two minutes at a time. Then my body
rebels and forces me, gasping and doing what my
compadre calls snorkeling, to semi-consciousness.I looked
like the Bride of Frankenstein. Wires in all shades of the
color wheel — including blue, peach, orange, green, purple,
gray, and burgundy — sprouted from my body. I had two
wires on each leg, one on my throat, one on my chest, and
20 clustered on my chin, eyelids, forehead, and skull.
Was I auditioning for a low-budget horror movie? No such
luck. I was in the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Baptist Hospital
East, wired to a machine that would reveal whether I had
one (or more) of 88 different sleep disorders.
How could I possibly sleep with all of those wires attached, you may wonder. As well
as ever, it turns out. I’m a sound sleeper except during periods of REM sleep. REM
(rapid eye movement) sleep is the time when we do the best dreaming. It’s also the
time when I stop breathing. I don’t mean I pause between each breath. I mean I stop
breathing for up to two minutes at a time. Then my body rebels and forces me,
gasping and doing what my compadre calls snorkeling, to semi-consciousness. I
inhale deeply enough to fill my lungs from the toes up and lapse immediately back
into REM sleep. After a few minutes, I stop breathing again. The pattern repeats
throughout the night.
Obviously, a shortage of oxygen contributes nothing at all to good health. Nor does a
shortage of sleep. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, about five
percent of Americans have a sleep disorder. They, and I, are at increased risk for
high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and depression. Those of us with
Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) — disorders that prevent the free flow of
air — are further subject to the fretting of family members who are awakened either
by the noise or by the death-like silence the disorder spawns.
A lack of sleep causes more than extreme physical problems. It also contributes to
memory lapses, weight gain, sexual problems, traffic accidents, and general all-
around grouchiness. You don’t need OSAS to suffer these effects. Functioning in a
constant state of sleep deprivation, as many of us do, is another culprit. According to
WebMD magazine, driving while drowsy accounts for 100,000 car accidents a year;
and losing an hour and a half of sleep “reduces daytime alertness by 32 percent.” All
of which is to say that if you aren’t getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, you’
re short-sheeting yourself.
The problem for folks with OSAS is that we can sleep 8, 10, 12 hours a day and still
never be rested, because our sleep may be interrupted as often as 150 times an
hour. And there’s a good chance we don’t know it’s happening. I recently paged back
through several years worth of journals and was struck by how often I dreamed that I
was underwater, my lungs burning as I fought to get to the surface. Only in retrospect
do I know what triggered the dreams.
The most common solution for OSAS is, fortunately, non-intrusive. Unfortunately, it
leaves you looking goofy as all get-out. Picture a World War II-era oxygen mask
covering your nose, held in place by headgear similar to that used by kids with
braces. Now picture Scotty, the baby elephant at our zoo in Louisville. Can you see
his trunk in your mind? Good. That’s what the air tube that runs from your face to the
air-pressure machine beside the bed looks like. The system provides pressurized air
to correct the mechanical defect that allows my breathing to shut down.
The first time I installed this regalia, I bemoaned the effect to my compadre. He kindly
replied, “I think it makes you look sexy.”
A few weeks later, I was spending the night with friends out of town, and I told them
about the machine and the comment. Later, heading off to bed, I said, “Now what is it
you’re supposed to say if you accidentally spot me with the mask on?”
“Say ‘cheese’?” was the pseudo-innocent reply.
Nobody took my picture, but surely they appreciated the fact that sound waves from
my snorkeling didn’t crack the foundations of their house.
I think of myself as a sensible person. I fasten my seatbelt every time I get in a car
and wear a raincoat when it rains. Still, I was told about my snorkeling for three years
before I asked my doctor about it. What was up with that?
One of my daughters works for a medical supply company. From her, I’d learned what
the C-PAP (the air pressure machine) looks like, and I wanted no part of it.
If vanity were an ATM machine, we’d all be millionaires. As it is, now I have to settle for
feeling like a million dollars every morning, after I get a good night’s sleep.
By Mary Cartledgehayes
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is the time when we do
the best dreaming. It’s also the time when I stop breathing.
I don’t mean I pause between each breath. I mean I stop
breathing for up to two minutes at a time. Then my body
rebels and forces me, gasping and doing what my
compadre calls snorkeling, to semi-consciousness.I looked
like the Bride of Frankenstein. Wires in all shades of the
color wheel — including blue, peach, orange, green, purple,
gray, and burgundy — sprouted from my body. I had two
wires on each leg, one on my throat, one on my chest, and
20 clustered on my chin, eyelids, forehead, and skull.
Was I auditioning for a low-budget horror movie? No such
luck. I was in the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Baptist Hospital
East, wired to a machine that would reveal whether I had
one (or more) of 88 different sleep disorders.
How could I possibly sleep with all of those wires attached, you may wonder. As well
as ever, it turns out. I’m a sound sleeper except during periods of REM sleep. REM
(rapid eye movement) sleep is the time when we do the best dreaming. It’s also the
time when I stop breathing. I don’t mean I pause between each breath. I mean I stop
breathing for up to two minutes at a time. Then my body rebels and forces me,
gasping and doing what my compadre calls snorkeling, to semi-consciousness. I
inhale deeply enough to fill my lungs from the toes up and lapse immediately back
into REM sleep. After a few minutes, I stop breathing again. The pattern repeats
throughout the night.
Obviously, a shortage of oxygen contributes nothing at all to good health. Nor does a
shortage of sleep. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, about five
percent of Americans have a sleep disorder. They, and I, are at increased risk for
high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and depression. Those of us with
Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) — disorders that prevent the free flow of
air — are further subject to the fretting of family members who are awakened either
by the noise or by the death-like silence the disorder spawns.
A lack of sleep causes more than extreme physical problems. It also contributes to
memory lapses, weight gain, sexual problems, traffic accidents, and general all-
around grouchiness. You don’t need OSAS to suffer these effects. Functioning in a
constant state of sleep deprivation, as many of us do, is another culprit. According to
WebMD magazine, driving while drowsy accounts for 100,000 car accidents a year;
and losing an hour and a half of sleep “reduces daytime alertness by 32 percent.” All
of which is to say that if you aren’t getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, you’
re short-sheeting yourself.
The problem for folks with OSAS is that we can sleep 8, 10, 12 hours a day and still
never be rested, because our sleep may be interrupted as often as 150 times an
hour. And there’s a good chance we don’t know it’s happening. I recently paged back
through several years worth of journals and was struck by how often I dreamed that I
was underwater, my lungs burning as I fought to get to the surface. Only in retrospect
do I know what triggered the dreams.
The most common solution for OSAS is, fortunately, non-intrusive. Unfortunately, it
leaves you looking goofy as all get-out. Picture a World War II-era oxygen mask
covering your nose, held in place by headgear similar to that used by kids with
braces. Now picture Scotty, the baby elephant at our zoo in Louisville. Can you see
his trunk in your mind? Good. That’s what the air tube that runs from your face to the
air-pressure machine beside the bed looks like. The system provides pressurized air
to correct the mechanical defect that allows my breathing to shut down.
The first time I installed this regalia, I bemoaned the effect to my compadre. He kindly
replied, “I think it makes you look sexy.”
A few weeks later, I was spending the night with friends out of town, and I told them
about the machine and the comment. Later, heading off to bed, I said, “Now what is it
you’re supposed to say if you accidentally spot me with the mask on?”
“Say ‘cheese’?” was the pseudo-innocent reply.
Nobody took my picture, but surely they appreciated the fact that sound waves from
my snorkeling didn’t crack the foundations of their house.
I think of myself as a sensible person. I fasten my seatbelt every time I get in a car
and wear a raincoat when it rains. Still, I was told about my snorkeling for three years
before I asked my doctor about it. What was up with that?
One of my daughters works for a medical supply company. From her, I’d learned what
the C-PAP (the air pressure machine) looks like, and I wanted no part of it.
If vanity were an ATM machine, we’d all be millionaires. As it is, now I have to settle for
feeling like a million dollars every morning, after I get a good night’s sleep.