Exercise for Sleep Apnea and Overall Health

By doing some kind of exercise, practicing a sport, or having an active lifestyle, people can improve their health greatly. This is the best way to improve every part of life, whether it be health, mental health, mood, sexual life, or social life. People can also add several years to their lives, and it is the best way to have a healthy body. 

When people are active, there is a continuous consumption of energy that makes the body able to rest at the end of the day, making it easy going to sleep and obtaining more energy for the next day. Being active and getting enough sleep can also help to prevent many health issues and health problems. People, especially in today's society, are fairly sedentary and one of the reasons for this is technology.

Changing habits

We have all at our fingertips - we can order food with our smart phone, we can work (in some cases) with our tablets, we can be up to date with all the news, check the weather, and we can even watch movies with our phones.

By changing habits is another way to improve the way people live. People can leave addictions, excesses, and bad habits behind. All these combine lead people to dependence, definitely something that people don’t need. People can start with small changes to their habits. For example, they can change a soda for a juice, change a cigarette for a fruit, and try to quit taking drugs they don't need. People can try not to eat fast food too often, cook their own food, and eat more vegetables. People should also reduce alcohol intake. It is okay to drink a beer once a week or go to a party with friends, but don’t abuse it.

One of the things we want to prevent by having an active life is definitely OSA (obstructive sleep apnea). What is OSA? It is a sleep disorder in which a person stops breathing for one second or several minutes while they are sleeping, and it can happen many times in one night. It is a very common condition. People who are overweight/obese are at greater risk for this dangerous condition, and most of the people who have OSA don’t even know they have it. The first symptom to know if someone has it is snoring, but not all the people who snore suffer it. If you think you might have sleep apnea, visit a doctor for a diagnosis.

OSA can add more problems to a person's life. It can lead to heart problems, blood pressure and respiratory illnesses.

Benefits of living an active lifestyle

• Exercise controls weight gain: People don’t have to constantly go to the gym or have an extensive routine. They just need to be active. For example: Instead of going in your car to a nearly place, use your bike, or go by walking. Take fifteen minutes or half of an hour and go running, jogging or just walk. It might sound funny, but while you are doing your chores, you can also dance. By doing all these things you burn calories, and burning more calories will prevent you from gaining weight.

• Health problems and diseases are being reduced: The more active, the healthier you are going to be. By being active you are going to make your heart work better, your blood is going to be more fluent and clean, all your organs are going to do a better job, and you will boost your metabolism. It is also a big reducer of cholesterol and triglycerides. Including regular exercise to your daily routine will prevent strokes, types of cancer, arthritis, depression and type 2 diabetes.

• Improves your mood: Any physical activity makes your body produce several types of brain chemicals like endorphins and serotonin that can make you feel happy, relax or more tolerant for different situations. It will help you to feel more confident about your appearance, you will feel more attractive, your sex-appeal will likely increase, and you will be able to build a better and stronger self-esteem.

• Make yourself more active: Being active will make more changes to your muscular system; it will make you stronger and all the nutrients and oxygen will be absorbed in a much better and more efficient way. Your lung capacity and your heart rhythm will be improved, too, and when all these changes happen, your energy will last longer.

• People will sleep better: If you do exercise periodically, the moment you go to bed you will fall asleep faster and you will have deeper sleep. The only thing you shouldn’t do is exercise too soon before going to sleep. This is because for a short period after you exercise, you will have increased energy so it would be hard for you to fall asleep.

• Sexual life is going to be improved: When people don’t exercise, they might have a hard time becoming sexually aroused. Being an active person might likely make you feel more energized and lively. It might make you have more energy so you are going to be ready easily in any moment. Blood circulation is improved, so excitation would be much easier. People just overall feel more sexual when they are exercising and feeling good.

• Another way to have some fun and be more social: When you are active, you are more likely to be outside, to enjoy any kind of different spaces and situations. It is a good idea to try out new or different types of activities with friends, like going for long walks, going to the beach, going hiking, taking your bike and going around your town. If you like dancing, go out with friends or with your partner, take some classes, try to practice a new sport, get a dog to walk everyday with. That way, you can meet a lot of people and the list of your activities would be wider.

• Exercise makes you want more: Being active makes you think faster and make decisions is much easier. Your mind is always open while you are living an active lifestyle, so you are always available to learn new things and to live new experiences. It makes you anxious in a good way. Active people are successful people, too.

• Mental health is improved: The hippocampus is the part of the brain in charge of memory and learning, and the different aerobic exercises like dancing, jogging, walking, skiing, swimming, increase the size of it and in women decrease the risk of dementia.

• Live longer: This is the wish many people have on mind. To keep loving all the special people we have in our life, sharing different moments, to love our pets, for as long as we can. We want to have enough time to travel all around the world, to do the things we love, and by doing exercises we can live longer. Your body can be healthy for a longer time and you will maintain the energy to do anything.

The more you move, the more you live. Keep that in mind. Love yourself, take care of yourself, and change your life little by little by being active.