This Sport Causes Snoring and Sleep Apnea

Sports are supposed to make you healthy. And being overweight and unhealthy is considered one of the main causes of snoring and sleep apnea.

But one type of collage sport drastically increases the risk of sleep apnea. Especially after you stop school and stop playing.

What’s more, it’s true for those who’re considered fit and healthy.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina studied sleep apnea risks in college football players, since they are at an age when sleep apnea is very rare. Their study appeared in the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation.

They recruited 21 lineman and 22 track athletes between the ages 18 and 22, all equally fit and working out equally hard every day.

They put them through medical tests that included measurements of waist circumference, neck circumference, body fat percentage, body mass index, blood pressure, Tonsil Size, and distance between tongue and roof of the mouth (the Mallampati Index). They were also given surveys on sleep quality.

Compared with the track athletes, the lineman reported poor sleep quality and efficiency and disrupted breathing during the night.

In addition, all their medical data placed them well above the clinical predictors of sleep apnea risk, something that was not the case for track athletes.

On average, they had a neck circumference of 45 cm, a waist circumference of 107.07 cm, a body mass index of 36.64 kgm2, and a body fat percentage of 30.19 percent.

Most importantly, those of the study volunteers who reported the worst sleep were also the ones with the highest neck circumference, body fat percent, body mass index, and systolic blood pressure, showing that they may already be on their way to full-blown sleep apnea.

There are two reasons why this is important.

Firstly and most directly, it shows that bulking up with muscle poses the same risks as bulking up with fat, even in young and very fit people.

Secondly, it emphasizes that those who bulk up to play college sport should cut their daily calorie intake when they leave college and exercise less.

Fortunately, you can reverse both snoring and sleep apnea by using simple throat exercises, found here, that open up your breathing passages day and night…