Somnology: diseases — симптомы, диагностика и лечение

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is a recurrent cessation of breathing during sleep due to collapse of the pharyngeal walls. The airways are blocked, air stops flowing, the level of oxygen in the blood drops, and the brain is forced to pull the person out of deep sleep for a few seconds in order to restore muscle tone. Such episodes can be repeated dozens or even hundreds of times a night, and the person does not remember about them: in the morning he simply feels exhausted, as if he had not slept at all. The key thing to understand is that regular snoring and apnea are different things, and the first person to notice the problem is almost always not the patient himself, but the one who sleeps next to him. Untreated apnea isn't just poor sleep: it means pill-resistant hypertension, arrhythmias, an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and a real risk of falling asleep while driving.

Insomnia is not just “I don’t sleep well,” but a condition in which sleep disturbance occurs at least three nights a week and affects daytime well-being. Its main feature is that over time it breaks away from the original cause and begins to support itself: a person is afraid of not falling asleep, goes to bed with anxiety, and it is this anxiety that prevents sleep. Therefore, sleeping pills, which seem like an obvious solution, work the worst for chronic insomnia - but the first choice is considered to be something completely different.