The muscles supporting the soft tissues of your throat relax during sleep, narrowing or closing the airway. Breathing is interrupted dozens of times an hour. During each interruption, your breathing is very shallow or stops completely. When it begins again, it’s often accompanied by a gasp, snort, or body jerk. These episodes, called apneas or hypopneas, cause poor quality sleep, irritability, tiredness, and in some cases heart failure, high blood pressure, irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias), and other health problems.

Obstructive sleep apnea can be caused by swollen tonsils, obesity, the shape of your nose and mouth, or certain medical conditions like endocrine disorders and heart disease. It can also increase your risk of diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Understanding Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Causes and Solutions

If you have obstructive sleep apnea, the treatment that works best is nasal continuous positive airway pressure. This is an inexpensive, noninvasive treatment that uses a pump to blow air through tubing into a mask worn over the nose and mouth during sleep. The air pressure pushes on the upper airway and holds it open, allowing you to breathe normally throughout the night.

Even though treatment can’t cure obstructive sleep apnea, it relieves symptoms, improves sleep and energy, and reduces the risk of death due to heart disease, motor vehicle accidents, and other health problems related to untreated hypersomnolence. You should discuss the use of obstructive sleep apnea treatments with your doctor. A complete evaluation of your obstructive sleep apnea requires a sleep study or polysomnography. In a polysomnography, you sleep overnight in a lab while connected to monitoring devices that record physiologic variables, including brain activity, heart rate and blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, and the flow of air in and out of your lungs.