Benefits of Using a CPAP Machine

Did you know that 5-10% of adult Australians are affected by sleep apnea? Even though these numbers are difficult to quantify because 80% of Australians with sleep apnea are undiagnosed, they are still high and on the rise each day.

What Is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that happens when the breathing of a person is interrupted and inconsistent during the night. When left untreated, sleep apnea can stop the breathing process sometimes for hundreds of times during the night. It can also cause other health problems such as heart failure, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, cardiomyopathy and heart attacks. It can affect your work, social life and confidence. That’s why this is a serious condition that needs to be treated as soon as possible.

Luckily, there are many ways to treat sleep apnea and relieve the symptoms – starting with homemade therapy to surgery. But there is one way that’s both effective and harmless – with the help of CPAP machines.

What Are CPAP Machines?

A continuous positive airway pressure machine or CPAP is a machine used to ease your breathing during the night. Its motor creates steam of pressurized air that goes through an air filter into a flexible tube, and the tube delivers purified air into your mouth or nose through a mask sealed around your face. The steady flow of oxygen allows you to sleep normally, without any interruptions, and breathe with ease.  

One of the top suppliers in Australia for these machines is ResMed CPAP. This company offers a variety of premium quality CPAP machines. Since its beginnings, ResMed strives to develop technologies that will help you sleep and breathe regardless of your age, sex and longevity of the disease. The company has developed a unique algorithm that can detect your limited flow of breath and can regulate automatically the delivery of pressure. 

Depending on your breathing requirements, the ResMed CPAP machine will adapt to your needs and you don’t have to keep waking up and regulating it through the night. The ResMed store offers a variety of trustworthy and already established products and ResMed CPAP supplies that will help you enjoy a comfortable and quality sleep all night long.

What Are the Benefits of CPAP Machines?

Aside from treating sleep apnea by preventing your airways from collapsing, CPAP machines have additional health benefits.

Prevention of Heart Disease

Sleep apnea can affect the heart greatly. Because there is a sudden drop in blood oxygen levels, blood pressure increases and strains the cardiovascular system, this will lead to high blood pressure. These variations of oxygen levels can be especially dangerous to people already suffering from heart disease. It is proven that people with untreated sleep apnea and heart disease have a higher rate of death from heart disease compared with people who treat their sleep apnea.

Having less oxygen in your body can be dangerous because it will increase carbon dioxide levels. This will cause pressure to the chest and increase inflammations. All of these changes will thicken the walls of the heart making it harder for it to work and pump out less-oxygenated blood leading to impaired heart function. By using a CPAP machine, you will protect your heart from irregular heartbeats, keep the blood pressure under control, prevent congestive heart failure, thus minimizing your chances of dying from heart failure.

Preventing and Controlling Diabetes

Hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation, is a result of sleep apnea. This deprivation will increase glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and inflammation directly affecting glucose metabolism. These are factors that can cause type 2 diabetes. That’s why using a CPAP machine will help in improving insulin sensitivity and prevent or decrease high insulin levels. Recent studies have shown that people undergoing sleep apnea treatments are easily managing their type 2 diabetes.

Improve Your Psychological State

Studies have shown that sleep apnea is related to depression, irritability and anxiety. Waking up without a good night’s sleep will leave you feeling fatigued, tired, nervous and unwilling to do anything. These same studies show that 73% of their participants had depression, and after treating their sleep apnea for 3 months with CPAP machines only 4% continued to have depression symptoms.

Without enough sleep, you will feel sluggish and unwilling to do anything. When a CPAP machine is in the game, you’ll feel great improvements in your productivity, focus and concentration because of the uninterrupted sleep. 

When your consistent and restful sleep is controlled by a CPAP machine you will be able to think better, make good decisions, yawn less and prevent mood swings. It may be hard to get used to it at the beginning, but trust us, when you feel the quality of your life gets better, you’ll be happy to have the CPAP machine.  

Beauty Benefits

We all need our beauty sleep, right? Without rest, a stress hormone is released and can break down collagen. This is not good for your skin because collagen is keeping your skin firm and smooth, and we all like to keep it that way for as long as possible. With the use of a CPAP machine, a notable reduction of redness, puffiness and lines has been registered among users. This shows that if you use the CPAP machine regularly your beauty routine is getting some boost.

No More Headaches

Having morning headaches is probably the most annoying symptom of sleep apnea. This happens because the low oxygen levels cause the blood vessels to widen to improve circulation. But, because there is a lack of oxygen, carbon dioxide is recycled in the bloodstream and causes irritation. This leads to horrible headaches and migraines almost every morning making the start of the day one big disaster. When you start using the CPAP machine, you’ll notice that the headaches are starting to reduce and after a while, they are gone. This is the case because now the brain is getting enough oxygen and can function normally.

Stronger Immune System

Do you know how doctors always say that getting enough sleep will improve your immune system? Well, guess what? This is absolutely true. During sleep, our body releases T-cells that fight diseases and illnesses by telling the immune system how to respond. People who have sleep apnea and leave it untreated will lose the normal number of T-cells and will be prone to inflammations. So don’t let sleep apnea get in your way and be sure to use your CPAP machine to keep your immune system running.

To Summarize

From everything we’ve discussed so far, we can say that sleep apnea is a serious condition, and, if left untreated, it can have major consequences to our health. Using a CPAP machine is one of the best treatment choices that has become a favourite among patients. But before you go out and buy one, make sure you consult your doctor and they can help you choose the best CPAP machine for you.