Posted ByAmelia JoshSleep apnea is a disorder where the patient stops breathing during sleep. When this happens, their oxygen is reduced significantly, which can often lead to severe complications due to the lack of oxygen. You can train yourself to control your breathing in a few different ways. Here are ways in which breath training helps with sleep apnea.
1. Strengthening and Opening Your Airway Muscles
When you sleep, your muscles in the neck and face relax, which makes it easier for you to breathe. If you have sleep apnea, these muscles are tired and need to be pumped up. It would help if you worked out your airway or accessory muscles to do this through breath training.
First, you need to work out your constrictions in the throat. This will improve your breathing and help you cough out any blockage that stops the oxygen flow. Next, you need to work on the upper airway muscles responsible for pulling your tongue up as you inhale and relaxing it as you exhale.
Lastly, your lower airway muscles control how open or closed your throat is while breathing. When trained through breath training, these muscles will get stronger.
2. Pushing the Chest Out as You Breathe
People with sleep apnea can try to stop the apnea through physical therapy exercises. They will either put their hands on their chest or stick a finger in their throat and push it out.
While this does work for some, it does not work for everyone. If you practice breathing correctly, you will learn how to breathe from your abdomen, which will push out your chest naturally.
3. Breath Training Keeps the Muscles Toned and Prevents Them from Vibrating
One reason why people with sleep apnea have a hard time breathing is that the muscles in the neck and face are tight. That makes relaxing and breathing difficult. If you cannot relax your muscles, it is difficult to push oxygen into them.
That is why many people who have sleep apnea also suffer from anxiety. As you practice breath training, your muscles will become more flexible and relaxed, making it easier for oxygen to flow into the body. Not only will this improve sleep apnea, but it will help to prevent other disorders such as anxiety and heart disease.
Vibrating muscles may also lead to more snoring and, in some cases, can even lead to sleep apnea. When you practice breath training, you can stop the vibrating muscles, which will help you to get a good night’s rest.
For breath training to work, you must practice daily. If you do not use the right breathing technique, you will make your body lazy and prevent it from relaxing naturally.
Here are some other effective exercises if you are wondering how to stop snoring or control your sleep apnea.
Cardio and Stretching Exercises
The best exercises you can do to help sleep apnea are cardio exercises and stretching. Cardio exercises help you get your heart rate up so that your body can burn off any excess fats in your body.
Some of the best cardio exercises are walking, running, swimming, biking, and dancing. Even a 30-minute walk is a great way to increase your heart rate.
Yoga
You can also use yoga to help you stop snoring and sleep apnea. When practicing yoga, you must breathe through your nose. This helps keep your throat open while running your exhalations through your nose.
Although yoga will help, it is important to stick with one type of yoga for a certain amount of time before adding another type in. If you become bored with one form, try another.
Oropharyngeal Exercises
You can try a lot of exercises to help the tongue, jaw, and throat muscles relax and become stronger. All these exercises involve moving the muscles in your throat in different ways.
For example, you can push the muscles on the sides of your tongue out as if you were saying “ahhh” or press the back of your tongue to the back wall of your mouth. Some people use a tongue depressor to strengthen these muscles as they brush their teeth every morning.
Conclusion
While many think you can only fix sleep apnea through surgery, there is another option. Breath training can help you to get more oxygen and push more carbon dioxide out of your body.
Not only will this help you to fall asleep faster, but it will also help you have a better night’s rest. Because sleep apnea can lead to serious complications, the best way to treat it is through proper breathing techniques.