I was feeling pretty sorry for myself last Saturday night.
As if I don’t have enough things to handle in my life, I’ve recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea accompanied by severe sleep-related oxygen desaturation, which means that the oxygen level of my blood drops to dangerous levels while I am sleeping.
If you don’t know what sleep apnea is—I didn’t until someone told me about it who suspected that I was suffering from it—it’s a condition that causes you to stop breathing when you fall asleep. All night long as your body begins to starve for oxygen, your brain wakes you up to get you to start breathing again, although rarely to the point of full consciousness; you wake up just enough to disturb your otherwise normal sleep patterns.
Sleep apnea can be dangerous. Consider what could happen if just once your brain fails to wake you up when you’ve stopped breathing. The more common result is that people with untreated sleep apnea fail to get adequate levels of Stage 2, Stage 3, and REM sleep, each of which is essential for complete rest of the body and mind. Some experience serious side effects from this sleep deprivation. Long-term effects can include severe heart problems.
In my case, I’m awakened an average of 45.13 times per hour! As a consequence, instead of the optimal 2+ hours of REM sleep each night, I am averaging about 35 minutes. The Stage 2 and Stage 3 sleep results are just as bad.
I know these statistics because I underwent a “sleep study” about four weeks ago to analyze my sleep patterns. During the study, sensors and electrodes were placed on me just about everywhere to record the activity of my heart, lungs, brain, and muscles. Air flow from my nose and mouth was continuously monitored as was the oxygen level in my blood.
The combined report and diagnosis that resulted was both comprehensive and frightening.
The sleep study itself was not pleasant. Strange environment, strange bed, and then I had more wires and sensors glued, taped, strapped, and clipped onto me than I have had cumulatively in a lifetime of medical procedures! Although I slept enough for the technicians to get the data they needed, it was extraordinarily uncomfortable. I found myself needing to crawl into my own bed when I got home the next morning and “sleeping” the entire morning away. Even with that, it took me a couple of days to fully recover from the experience.
Saturday I was back at the same facility for a second night. This time I knew what was coming and I knew it was going to be worse. Having already been diagnosed with sleep apnea, the purpose of this visit was to calibrate the air pressure necessary for the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask I will wear while sleeping to keep my breathing going, most probably for the rest of my life. For this night at least, the face mask was going to be in addition to all the previously mentioned sensors.
Like I said, I was feeling sorry for myself and that feeling was erupting into a combination of frustration and anger—with myself and others—creating a downward spiral.
There was a moment when everything shifted—when I remembered something that changed everything.
It happened while I was returning to the car to get my medical card. I had already given it to the facility receptionist the last time I was there, but they said they needed to photocopy it again. (Can you tell I was annoyed about having to go get it?)
At that moment I remembered what I constantly tell clients and audiences: you can change everything about your circumstances by moving into gratitude. No matter how dire your circumstances, there is always something to be grateful for. Find that thing for which you can experience true gratitude, no matter how small it might be; feel genuine gratitude for it, and everything will start to shift.
I started by hesitantly acknowledging that, no matter how difficult the treatment was going to be for this life-long condition, the diagnosis might very well have saved my life.
At that instant I saw something else: I had left the dome light in my car on when I arrived and was gathering things to bring into the sleep facility. If I hadn’t gone out for that insurance card, I would most likely not have been able to start the car the next morning—after what I was expecting was going to be a very difficult night.
It was a very little thing, but it was all the confirmation I needed.
I immediately started looking for other things to be grateful for. They showed up—in a torrent! Everything from Fred, the technician assigned to me that night who was terrific at explaining things, calming my fears, and making me as comfortable as was possible in the circumstances to waking up the next morning feeling surprisingly well-rested for the first time in years to the realization that I’m in the 1% of people who don’t have significant problems getting accustomed to CPAP therapy.
It’s amazing what focusing on gratitude (and a few extra hours of REM sleep) can do!
Choose to have a great day, Ace!
[Note: I first wrote about using gratitude to harness the power of The Law of Mind Action (now, more commonly, “The Law of Attraction”) in my book, Your Authentic Self: Be Yourself at Work in 2002. That chapter is included as a separate blog here (”Chapter 2: Apply the Law of Attraction”), although I’ve changed the references to The Law of Attraction, since the success of The Secret has made that nomenclature more popular.]
January 24th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Hi, Ric.
Before I respond to your sleep apnea condition, I like to thank you for writing the book as it is helping me deal with a major transition in my life. It was following my instinct that led me to your book “Authentic Self” in the Chicago public library.
I haven’t finished reading the book yet and decided to check your website. Talk about timing as I may have a solution to your problem. It’s possible that improper breathing is the cause, which means that carbon dioxide (CO2) is being exhaled faster than the body can manufacture.
As the body needs a certain amount of CO2 to function, it will do its best to conserve it when it reaches a critical threshold. It will first shutdown non-critical functions. A total shutdwn like sleep apnea occurs when the threshold is life threatening.
First thing you might want to do is ask someone to check if your mouth is open when you’re sleeping. An open mouth indicates breathing is happening through the mouth instead of the nose.
Another is to find a Buteyko practitioner which can train you to the proper way of breathing as an alternative to CPAP therapy.
Below is a link that I found using the keywords “buteyko sleep apnea” that contains a detailed explanation regarding sleep apnea.
http://www.buteykoairways.com.au/apnea.htm
Though I have not experienced sleep apnea, Buteyko helped me with my allergy and I don’t experienced blocked nose when I wake up. There are other conditions Buteyko addresses like asthma, high blood pressure, etc.
Below is the website of a Buteyko practitioner, where I took a class in correcting my breathing.
http://www.buteykoasia.com/english/main-index.html
Take care,
Alex
January 27th, 2008 at 9:07 am
It must be very disheartening to have so much suddenly upon you! What a blessing to find out about your sleep apnea so it can be treated. What an opportunity to find the lesson of gratitude!
Some of my most wonderful lessons came in the form of challenges I thought would kill me, but I survived. There were long days filled with pain, but there were also moments of laughter. In the long run, I’m still not sure of the reason for the things that happen in our lives. Our state of mind, the vibrational tones we set, our attitudes…all these things mix into what we attract. Sometimes (as with my own past darkness) we’re completely unaware of the intention we’re sending off.
Maybe when things seem to be going so well (and all is right with the world), somewhere on a subconscious level we may believe we either don’t deserve so much happiness, or maybe we believe we should suffer too (“everyone else has problems, why should I be any different†kind of thinking). The reasons for suffering are not as important as how you handle those times.
Everyone knows how to be miserable; everyone knows how to cry; everyone knows how to be pitiful and feel sorry for themselves. What makes the difference is in your decision to take those dark times and embrace the lessons they teach; be thankful you are alive to have the experience. Your experiences of pain may help someone else somewhere down the road. Your ability to share with them the fact that you not only survived, but flourished, can be just what they need in order to keep going.
We’re all here to serve, and I believe the times we find most challenging are wonderful opportunities to find that glimmer of hope. There’s always one thread of Light keeping us from falling into the pits of darkness. We all have that Light inside; that thread that connects us to all that is good. Hold onto that thread, and remember who you really are…not the meat bag we appear as on the outside, but the wonderful Light which forever lives inside us all.
Many Blessings of Light and Love!
Melanie = )