Explaining Sleep Apnea to Family

Sleep apnea seems like a pretty simple condition to explain, but there are certain aspects that will help you explain it better to your family, so they fully understand the condition.

It is important for your family to understand what sleep apnea is and what it does to your body so they can help you during bad days and help you have a good night's sleep, so you have fewer bad days or tired days.

You can also help educate them on what to look out for in case they develop the condition, especially if they are at risk. Not only will they know what to look for, but they can catch it early before it causes any damage to their bodies.

The basics of sleep apnea

Breaking down the 2 words, sleep and apnea, basically says what the condition is and when it happens. It is when you sleep, and you have apnea which is when you stop breathing.

The breathing doesn’t stop because your body forgets to breathe or anything like that. It’s because the soft tissue in your airway becomes relaxed and collapses, making it difficult to breathe. This is why a lot of people snore who have sleep apnea.

Also, when people with sleep apnea take those big gasping breathes, it’s because it is harder to breathe with the constricted airway, and eventually, their body has to take that harsh breath to get air in.

A simple way to explain how sleep apnea feels

A lot of people with sleep apnea have certain amounts of times and durations they hold their breath in their sleep. If you want to teach someone how it affects you during the day, you can have them try 1 exercise that will help explain it so they can experience it themselves.

Have the individual you are teaching hold their breath for 10 to 15 seconds. Then let them take a few normal breaths and repeat. See how long it takes before they start to get tired or need to breathe more than you let them catch their breath.

Now, explain to them, when you don’t have a CPAP, or before you did, this is how you breathed when you slept. This should help them understand this is a condition that can cause you to become very tired, and when your body was trying to rest and recover, this is how hard it was for you.

How to describe CPAP therapy

Explaining the importance of the CPAP machine can follow the previous teaching you have done. Knowing what happens to your airway and how badly you rest because of it, you can focus on the treatment and how important it is.

Knowing it is hard for your body to breathe, you can explain the CPAP machine sends constant positive air pressure to your airway, making a lot less effort for you to get in each breath and keeps the airway open so you can breathe normally.

One thing you may need to explain is the CPAP is not like a ventilator. It doesn’t breathe for you. You still have to breathe. It just makes it easier for you to take breaths and keep the airway open during the night.