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How to fix sleep apnea without CPAP
Let's talk about how to fix sleep apnea without CPAP. Three exercises that actually work. Over a billion people have sleep apnea and many of them don't know what I'm about to show you. Simple exercises to fix sleep apnea. After this video, I want you to walk into your bathroom where you have your mirror and say, "Ah," and look back into your throat to see how much space you actually have.
Sleep apnea explained
With sleep apnea, the airway is narrow and the muscles in the back of the throat are a little too relaxed, and they can collapse at night and cut off your oxygen. There's definitely a connection between a good night's rest and having enough oxygen. And if you don't have enough, that's going to keep you up. Of course, a lot of people with sleep apnea are on the CPAP machine, blowing air into their mouth, trying to overcompensate for this obstruction in the back of their throat.
Another common thing that we're taught is that you need to lose weight to get rid of sleep apnea. Apparently, that only actually helps in about a third of the cases. There are a lot of people who are thin and have sleep apnea.
Your airway, this tube in your throat, is made from about 20 different muscles. If those muscles lose tone, they become lax, they actually increase in volume, and they can obstruct the airway, especially if you're sleeping on your back, where gravity pulls the back of the tongue into the airway.
So, today I'm going to show you three very simple exercises to strengthen those muscles so you will no longer have this obstruction in the back of your throat when you sleep. These exercises will also help you stop snoring if that's also a problem. You really only need to do these exercises once a day, for seven minutes.
Sleep apnea treatment
Before we do these exercises, I want you to check something right now. We want to check where your tongue is inside your mouth. If it's resting on the floor of your mouth, that could be part of the problem, especially if you are a mouth breather.
In this video, I'm not going to get into the various theories of why the tongue muscles and the related muscles lose their tone. It could be because we're consuming a lot of soft food. It could be because we eat meat that doesn't have collagen anymore and is very, very tender. So, we can just speculate. But in the meantime, let's actually get you to breathe through the night.
I am also going to highly recommend that you start training yourself to breathe through your nose, especially at night. There's even mouth tape you can get to help build that habit.
Nasal breathing for better sleep
When you start breathing through the nose, this creates a back pressure that actually helps reduce sleep apnea. I know that with a lot of people, when they breathe through the nose, there's more of a restriction, and they might feel that they're not getting enough oxygen, but that's actually not true. That restriction helps balance out oxygen and CO2, increasing the absorption of CO2.
If you think about a panic attack, usually the person is hyperventilating. They actually have too much oxygen without enough CO2. So what do we do for a panic attack? We breathe into a paper bag, increasing CO2, which then allows us to get more oxygen. So nose breathing, despite the feeling that you're not getting enough air, actually helps you get more oxygen into the lungs.
So, let's dive right in.
Tongue exercises for sleep apnea
Exercise number one is called tongue root press. What you're going to do is place the tip of your tongue behind the top of your front teeth. From there, you're going to flatten the rest of your tongue up against the roof of your mouth, creating like a suction cup, pressing hard from the tip all the way back to the base of the tongue in the back part. Hold this pressure for just five seconds. Then relax for two seconds. Repeat this 15 times.
When you drive the base of your tongue upward, place your thumb underneath your chin. You're going to feel some soft tissue going upwards. That's the main muscle being activated. Doing this exercise over time is going to start to increase the opening in the back part of the throat.
Out of these three, this is going to be the most important exercise to do, because when you're sleeping and the back of the tongue is not toned, it'll kind of choke the back of the throat and cause you to wake up. People with sleep apnea wake up many, many times through the night.
Sleep apnea exercise #2
Exercise number two is the palate lift. Imagine the very beginning moment of a very giant yawn, that upward suction in the back part of your throat. I think the best way to do this is to look into a mirror with your mouth open, wide enough to see that thing in the back of the throat called the uvula. Without any noise or sound, you're going to actively lift that soft roof of the back part of your mouth upward and downward, exactly as if you were trying to stifle a yawn or prepare to sing a high note. Hold that lift at the top for about three seconds, then let it down. Repeat that 20 times.
When you look in the mirror, you're going to actively see that uvula retract upward and downward. The whole back upper part of your throat is going to open up. This specific exercise is the one that really helps snoring, especially when you hear your spouse snoring with that deep vibration. That's the top part of the palate vibrating.
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Sleep apnea exercise #3
Exercise number three is called the cheek suction and hold exercise. Think about this exercise as having a fish face for about five seconds, or as if you're about to play the trumpet for about five seconds. Inhale slowly through your nose while you suck your cheeks inward tightly between your teeth, and do this for about five seconds. Then, after five seconds, immediately blow air into the cheeks, puffing them out as far as they will go while you keep your lips sealed tightly. Repeat this for five cycles. That's simple.
I also highly recommend you start training yourself to breathe through your nose. The combination of these three simple exercises with nasal breathing is going to be huge.
Better sleep tips
There are a couple of things I want to mention. You want to do this for a couple of months, at least two months, because it's not going to happen overnight, even though you're probably going to see results within the first week.
Regarding alcohol, a lot of people drink wine before bed. The alcohol in wine and other alcoholic beverages actually affects the nerve that goes to these muscles. Remember, you have about 20 muscles in the back of your throat. People who drink alcohol tend to snore more and tend to have more problems with sleep apnea.
There's another interesting piece of this puzzle related to vitamin D. A high percentage of people with sleep apnea do not have enough vitamin D. I'd highly recommend that you increase it, because there are many different mechanisms involved with having sufficient vitamin D, including allowing the muscles to work better and having less inflammation. Either get more sun when you're outside, or at least take between 6,000 and 10,000 IU of vitamin D3. When you take it, also make sure it's paired with vitamin K2 and magnesium.
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And because so many people have a habit of drinking alcohol before bed, I created a video on this topic to help you transition off alcohol. For that information, watch the video right here.