Sleep Deprivation Can Lead To Fatigue

Breathing through the nose also slows down airflow, allowing it to mix with the nitric oxide released in the maxillary sinuses. It has been shown that blood is oxygenated 10–15 percent more when you breathe through your nose. It’s far better at this than the mouth. Nitric oxide is a very important molecule in the body that helps in many physiological processes such as expanding the blood vessels and increasing blood flow. The growth of teeth depends, in part, on their contact with each other. This tells the teeth to keep growing. It can also cause heartburn and throat and ear infections. Many doctors will even underplay or dismiss it, assuming it’s due to congestion, or that the child will grow out of it. But, unless they are sick, children should be breathing through their noses. An obstruction that isn’t addressed, like enlarged adenoids, can affect the child’s physical and intellectual development. We take our breathing for granted, and we turn snoring into a joke. But if you’re not breathing well, your cells are in trouble.

The Song Remains The Same

Your body and mind are literally suffocating. It’s worth investigating your options because, as with anything, different solutions work for different people. When you breathe in, your diaphragm contracts to allow more air into the lungs. When you exhale, it relaxes. Diaphragmatic breathing encourages higher oxygen intake, slows down the heartbeat, and may help you calm down. We all know innately how to breathe deeply using our diaphragms, but as we get older, we tend to forget. The constant stresses and worries of life get us into the habit of breathing more shallowly, using our chests. If you practice regularly, you can train your body to breathe properly on its own. Put one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. The hand on your belly should feel the air moving out. Like other muscles in your body, it can lose its tone and position if it’s not used correctly. A flaccid tongue can interfere with breathing, especially during sleep when muscles are relaxed.

Here, There And Everywhere

Sleep is restoration, recovery, and rebuilding. It heals injury, stores memory, and refreshes the brain. Amazingly, despite many decades of intensive research, there are elements of sleep that still remain a mystery. We don’t exactly know how dreaming benefits memory, for example, only that it seems to do so. But we do know for certain that adequate sleep is essential for good health. People can be very sensitive to even moderate sleep interruptions. This is especially true for kids. This is also the case for many adults. Sleep deprivation can lead to fatigue, chronic pain, obesity, behavioral issues, concentration and performance challenges, anxiety, depression, and a variety of systemic diseases. It can also raise a person’s risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s. Healthy breathing starts with the healthy growth and development of the mouth. But breathing problems can be treated at any age.

No Place To Go

Epigenetic changes related to the modern diet, breastfeeding, and environmental toxins have also affected the mouth and airways. Finally, dentists play a role. By focusing only on fixing cavities and straightening crookedness, dentists may fail to see the mouth for anything more than just a collection of teeth. This is when you dream. A sleep cycle is one rotation through the stages of sleep. Most people go through four to six sleep cycles a night, and each one lasts about 90–120 minutes. It’s useful to note that wakefulness is part of the sleep cycle, too, and composes about 5 to 10 percent of sleep. These periods of wakefulness are called partial arousals. That’s when you change positions and, hopefully, go right back to sleep afterward. It is possible that these partial arousals had an evolutionary purpose. Sleeping is dangerous when predators are around, so for our early ancestors, waking during the night may have been an important safety feature. Today, it’s just part of a normal, healthy rhythm. About 5 to 10 percent of your nights are spent partially awake. This stage starts with drowsiness, heavy eyelids, slowed heart rate, eye movements, relaxing muscles, and perhaps occasional movements or jerking of the arms and legs. It ends with a light sleep. Heart rate and breathing slow down even more. Your muscles relax even further. Heart rate and breathing reach their slowest pace, and muscles are totally relaxed. This is the most difficult stage to wake up from. Your brain activity switches to delta waves. Also, your body restores physical energy by directing blood flow away from your brain and toward your muscles. According to a recent study, everyone dreams, even though some people think they never do.14 For some reason, every brain needs to dream. This stage is important for learning and memory and accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of your total sleep time. The accumulation of amyloid plaques is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. There is a new body of evidence that suggests that sleep plays an important role in this storage process.17 This is true for facts and experiences, but also for physical skills like riding a bike or playing an instrument. We also know how much sleep can be helpful for finding creative solutions to problems. Think about how many times you’ve awoken with a solution to the problem you were considering when you fell asleep. The saying Let’s sleep on it is popular for a reason! This is most obvious in kids. The National Sleep Foundation found that 15 percent of children fall asleep at school because of a lack of sleep at home. That’s three kids in a class of 20! Falling asleep in class is extreme, but I often wonder how many kids are just tired enough to struggle to pay attention. By age four, these children were 20–60 percent more likely to exhibit behavioral difficulties. By age seven, they were 40–100 percent more likely. The worst sleep symptoms were associated with the worst behavioral outcomes, especially hyperactivity. These children were also more likely to experience anxiety and depression, have problems getting along with peers, and show more aggression.