Ways Your Weight Can Affect Your Sleep Quality

Predominantly, the amount of work you do during the day tends to make you too tired to exercise after your office hours are done. Furthermore, instead of cooking your own meal, you rely on takeout food and various junk food that will only make you gain weight. It's not too bad if you skip the gym and a healthy meal a few times a month, but if it were to become an everyday routine, this will not be good for your health in the long run. From snoring to sleep apnea, obesity can seriously jeopardize your sleep and your overall health.

Snoring

Disrupted breathing that leads to snoring and sleep apnea is the most common side effect of being overweight. The excess of fat pads insulates your body, preventing you from breathing easily. This is common in people who carry most of their weight around their midriff and face. It’s also noticeable when a person has a prominent buttocks, enhanced lips, a large stomach, and a fuller face. All that combined with crowding along the airway and at the base of the tongue leads to breathing complications that cause excessive snoring. Increased neck size or the stomach reducing lung volume will not necessarily prevent you from having a good night's sleep, but your snoring will cause the others at your home to lose their shut-eye. Don't let your weight come in the way of your sleep, but start breaking a sweat and work on becoming fit to ensure a great bedtime to an entire family.

Sleep Apnea

Turbulent airflow that results in snoring when there's a mild obstruction along the airways further leads to more complicated problems when the airway becomes more crowded. The flow of air can completely cease once the airway becomes more prone to collapse, which will eventually result in a pause in breathing. This is called apnea, and it can be triggered by a partial obstruction—in which case we're talking about hypopnea. This is why it's of great importance that you keep your body weight under control so that the excess of fat doesn't cause major health issues. If you still haven't found the right solution to your weight gain problems, a minimally invasive lap band surgery should be your next attempt at staying fit. An inflatable silicone device placed around the top portion of the stomach will control how much food you eat every day, preventing you from adding extra weight to your body. Excessive daytime sleepiness and problems with mood, memory, and concentration are just some of the problems associated with sleep apnea, that which can worsen with time, even leading to diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure.

Restless Legs

Aside from affecting your breathing, being overweight can also cause restless legs syndrome. Namely, a discomfort that appears in the legs in the evenings, with an urge to move in order to relieve the symptom is precisely how restless legs syndrome is characterized. While iron deficiency and pregnancy are also some of the causes of this syndrome, obesity has been linked to this problem as well. Furthermore, people with restless legs syndrome tend to get out of bed more during the night and reach for the food to relieve some of the symptoms affecting their legs. This can’t be a good combination, considering that the late-night cravings can contribute to weight gain and cause even bigger health issues.

Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome

Snoring and sleep apnea might seem like serious problems, but hypoventilation syndrome is much more dangerous. When you breathe out adequately, the carbon dioxide from your lungs is blown off, but if you're obese, you're not able to expel all the carbon dioxide due to shallow breaths. These breaths prevent the carbon dioxide from leaving the lungs, and the ever-needed oxygen to come in. Eventually, the breathing problem can lead to complete respiratory failure. Therefore, it's essential that you take care of your health and start working on shedding the extra pounds. Better nutrition, regular exercise, and plenty of hydration during the day are just some of the great ways to get rid of the excess fat and solve all the breathing problems that prevent you from having a good night's sleep.

Final Thoughts

Obesity is a serious health problem that can affect more than just your sleeping pattern. While snoring, sleep apnea, hypoventilation, and restless legs syndrome are not small problems, weight gain can lead to more severe health issues such as diabetes, heart failure, and high blood pressure. Therefore, make sure you start living a healthy life, and save yourself from all the health problems that being obese would otherwise cause. Plenty of exercises, healthy food in abundance, and water instead of sugary snacks (or maybe lap band surgery) are just some of the habits that will help you become fit and never have a breathing problem again.