Tired All the Time - It Could Be Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is common, treatable, and mostly undiagnosed. Left alone, it quietly works on the heart, the brain, and the years ahead.

Most of us know someone who snores like a freight train. We joke about it, buy earplugs, or banish the snorer to the guest room. But behind some of that snoring is something that is no joke at all: a sleeper who stops breathing, sometimes dozens of times an hour, every night, for years, without ever knowing it.

That condition is obstructive sleep apnea. A widely cited 2019 analysis in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine estimated that nearly a billion adults worldwide have it, and that about 425 million of them have a moderate or severe form that generally warrants treatment. In the United States, sleep medicine specialists have long estimated that the large majority of cases remain undiagnosed. The people living with it often feel merely “tired,” and they chalk it up to age, work, or stress.

This article explains what sleep apnea is, how it is diagnosed today (more easily than many people assume), and the options for managing it. Above all, it makes the case that untreated sleep apnea is not a nuisance. It is a serious, cumulative threat to health. Along the way, Iʼll share how I discovered my own—by a route I never would have guessed.