Fever Pitch: How Rising Temperatures Could Affect Sleep Apnea

Spring is starting, and it’s already looking like we’re in store for some record high temperatures. Climbing temperatures can have all kinds of effects on the way that people live their lives, and especially on your health.

One prominent example is sleep apnea. Depending on the temperature that you sleep at, your capacity to breathe while you sleep can be affected. Here’s what you should know about how heat may exacerbate your sleep apnea.

Heat and Breathing

OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea), in case you don’t know, is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep due to the position of the soft tissues in the mouth. This means that circumstances which make it harder to breathe generally will also worsen the symptoms of sleep apnea.

In the summer months, people with breathing difficulties of all kinds often find that their condition gets worse. Extreme heat puts a lot of stress on the body, making various metabolic processes (like breathing) more difficult.

Hot summer air also tends to be more stagnant, meaning that it’s common for ozone pollution to accumulate much faster at the ground level. This also makes breathing more difficult in the warmer months.

Heat and Sleep

While the crux of sleep apnea is the effect that it has on nighttime breathing, it’s also a sleep condition. That means that circumstances leading to worsening sleep will also exacerbate the symptoms of sleep apnea.

Over the years, researchers have found that high temperatures lead to increased wakefulness and worse REM sleep during the night. The ideal bedroom temperature for sleep is between 60- and 67-degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures that may be hard to reach when it’s hot outside. If you have sleep apnea, this can contribute to your fatigue during the day.

How to Manage Sleep Apnea

If you think that you may be suffering from sleep apnea but have never been diagnosed, now is actually a perfect time for a screening. While the heat may make your symptoms more acute, this has the benefit of making the condition easier to diagnose.

Pursuing treatment from a licensed professional is the best way to handle this condition. As the summer months set in, it may be a good idea to pursue this treatment if you never have before.

About Our Practice

At Glastonbury Dental Associates, we’re incredibly proud of our reputation in our community. Our neighbors know us for the spectacular standard of care that we’d be able to provide, as well as the personalized approach we bring to our practice. We know that sleep apnea is an incredibly complex issue, and we honor that complexity by doing everything that we can to get to know our patients as unique individuals.

If you have any questions about sleep apnea, we can be reached at our website or by phone at (860) 633-3671.