Snoring and Sleep Apnea In Football Player

Sleep apnea is a very serious sleep disorder that is not always treated as such, sometimes with devastating results.

Snoring is a sign of sleep apnea, because to snore is a reaction to the restriction of nasal airways and restrictions in the throat.

Sadly, snoring, which should lead others to notice a problem, is often ignored. The conclusion, or more often the complaint, that my partner snores is often the only statement made before it is forgotten.

Sleep Apnea Can Kill A Person

Unfortunately, sleep apnea can kill; as it did December 29, 2004, just seven days after national football hero Reggie White forty’s third birthday, he passed away. Final results showed that, at least in part, his death was caused by the sleep disorder called sleep apnea.

Sleep can be very unsafe for people with sleep apnea. It’s caused by a relaxing of the muscles in the air passageways, which can make for episodes of breathing disruptions. Breathing is often restarted by a loud rumbling snore.

These non-breathing events can persist for anywhere from ten to thirty seconds. The frightening part is that in an average night someone can stop breathing as many as one hundred times.

Cause Of Snoring In Football Players

Recent studies on athletes are coming up with some surprising results. In professional football’s push for “bigger is better” players more football players are obese now than ever before.

There are concerns that with nearly four hundred players weighing over three hundred pounds they are setting a dangerous example. Based on the large necks of these men they are destined to have problems.

As the larger tongue drops back during sleep, the windpipe will start to get blocked off. The uvula will block the airway and as the swollen tissues block the throat the athlete will have further difficulties with snoring and potentially develop serious life threatening sleep disorders.

Surprisingly, studies have revealed that fourteen percent of all professional football players are suffering from sleep apnea. While up to thirty four percent of offensive and defensive linemen are likely to be sufferers, Reggie White was one of these.

Loud snoring and daytime sleeping are the prime signals, when looking for signs and symptoms. Though, it can be predicted pretty accurately by using a body mass index and checking neck size.

It’s a difficult thing to be told that what you do for a living, and make extremely good money at, may kill you. But for many of these athletes that is exactly what the studies are showing.

Despite their claims that they’ll lose the excessive weight after their careers are over, too many have found that impossible after years of working hard to put it on. Are the coaches pushing these athletes to get bigger and stay bigger, the answer is absolutely.

The average weight of a player has increased by ten percent since 1985. This higher weight not only risks more complicated injuries, it risks life threatening sleep disorders. The first sign of which is snoring. Let’s hope that next time the signs are recognized.