Let’s start with the bad news. There are no 100% effective and permanent cures for sleep apnea. Not that we’ve ripped the band aid off, it’s time for the good news. There are some potential cures for sleep apnea that will at least help you either manage the symptoms or treat the underlying source of your sleep apnea so that it stops happening.
And those are exactly the sort of things that we are going to talk about below in this article. So keep reading!
Here are 4 of the best ways to manage and prevent sleep apnea from ruining your sleep:
Being overweight, especially if you are obese, is pretty much the leading cause of sleep apnea. If you get back down to a healthy weight, you might see your sleep apnea completely disappear!
And it’s important to lose that weight in a healthy way. Don’t do any fasting or extreme dieting. Because these will end up stressing your body and causing it to pack on more fat. For consistent results that last for the long term, you need to focus on changing your eating habits and exercising more.
Luckily, both of those things will also help your sleep apnea right now even as they are helping you lose weight!
A sleep apnea diet is one that not only promotes a healthy body weight but also decreases the amount of mucus your respiratory system is producing. Your diet should get rid of the following foods:
Replace those mucus causing foods with the following mucus reducing foods:
Making these changes will decrease the amount of mucus in your system so that you are less likely to experience blockages.
Whether you’re overweight or not, you should be exercising. Exercise strengthens your respiratory system and widens your airways so that they are less likely to become blocked or obstructed.
You should aim to get 30 minutes of exercise at least 4 or 5 days out of the week. To count as exercise, your heart rate should be elevated for the full 30 minutes.
It might sound weird but drinking water may actually be able to help your sleep apnea. This is because dehydration causes the following symptoms (in addition to a lot of other unpleasant ones):
If you think you are drinking enough water already, you are probably wrong. As many as 3 out of 4 Americans are chronically dehydrated. So to treat your sleep apnea, try drinking a gallon (3.5 liters) per day every day. After 30 days, do a personal assessment of how you’re feeling.
Other cures for sleep apnea include various devices that you can wear while you sleep. These home cures for sleep apnea will work while you use them but don’t actually do anything to treat the underlying causes of your sleep apnea.
There are also some natural cures for sleep apnea involving essential oils that can help provide relief and minimize the symptoms of sleep apnea.
We highly recommend doing an equal part blend of lemon, lavender, peppermint, and thyme essential oils to get the benefits of all of them. Here are the best ways to use this blend or any essential oil you choose:
While these can help with the symptoms and preventing sleep apnea episodes from occurring during the night, they are not as effective as the lifestyle changes we recommended in the first section above.
Until science develops new cures for sleep apnea that actually cure it fully and permanently, your best cures for snoring and sleep apnea are definitely going to be the healthy lifestyle changes that you make. This will treat the underlying causes of your sleep apnea and prevent it from recurring. So start taking steps to cure your sleep apnea today!