Empower Sleep

Why does sleep apnea get so much worse when you’re on your back?

A couple things worth knowing before you put on a full face mask.

The data isn’t subtle with this one. CPAP works.

Sleep is the housekeeping process for your body. If you or anyone you know struggles from poor sleep, know that there is a path forward.

Sleep regularity predicts mortality better than sleep duration does. How consistent you are night to night is arguably more important than how many hours you sleep.

If you think you might have restless legs, here's the first thing you can do.

Good mask seal, still getting a high leak alert on your CPAP? The mask isn’t always the problem.

Mask still leaking? Here’s the checklist to run through before you blame the mask itself.

What if your CPAP’s report is wrong, and your sleep apnea is still happening every night? This isn’t hypothetical. It’s published research.

How do you tell the difference between a cramp and something your body is trying to tell you? If your legs feel restless, not painful, not cramping, but an urge to move that eases the second you get up, especially at night, that’s not random. It’s a recognized pattern.

What if anxiety, high blood pressure, or restless legs aren't the primary problem? What if they're just downstream symptoms of something nobody’s screened for?

What’s the point of a perfect daytime routine if the eight hours it depends on aren’t working?

The question every sleep doctor gets asked: “I had a bad night of sleep, what should I do?” Step one is having a consistent, well-entrained circadian rhythm by waking up and going to bed at around the same time every day.

Your entire physiology runs on a 24-hour cycle, and that includes far more than when you feel sleepy. Alertness has a peak and a trough. Growth hormone has a peak and a trough. Nearly everything in the body oscillates on a daily rhythm, down to things you wouldn’t expect.

Some of the most complex patients in sleep medicine are dealing with four or five things stacked on top of each other. Apnea, restless legs, anxiety, chronic pain, sometimes a mood disorder and a circadian issue, all at once. If that's you, you're not a lost cause.

Shift work and circadian rhythm are fighting each other by design. If you’re a nurse, a resident, anyone rotating nights, this one’s for you.