I wrote a while ago about how to get up in the morning. But now I am reminded that it’s particularly hard to get up if you didn’t get enough sleep. I’m not talking about the get-to-bed-earlier issue, but rather what if you really don’t sleep when you think you do?

People with sleep apnea stop breathing while they sleep. According to SleepApnea.org, it could be hundreds of times during the night.

And your body, not wanting to DIE, wakes up a little to kick start the breathing.  You might not notice that little up-from-sleep place, but your day time performance could suffer.

My dad had apnea, although we didn’t know it back then. I just remember the stories about his snoring and then … stopping… So my mother would kick him to start breathing again.  Didn’t get her the best sleep either!

All kinds of things in life are worse with out sleep.

According to a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and posted on the website of the National Sleep Foundation,

Less visible consequences of sleep conditions are far more prevalent, and they take a toll on nearly every key indicator of public health: mortality, morbidity, performance, accidents and injuries, functioning and quality of life, family well-being, and health care utilization.

And besides what you’d expect from not enough sleep–stuff like, oh, tiredness,no energy, irritabity and difficutly concentrating–it might also show up in  higher levels of depressed mood, anxiety, behavior problems, alcohol abuse.  And almost all those things might either look like ADHD when it’s not, or make your symptoms of ADHD much worse.

If you sleep with someone, ask if they think you might stop breating in the night.  If you snore, it might be easier to tell, but you might have apnea even if you don’t snore.

Check out the sleepapnea.org for more information. And ask your doctor if it might be a problem for you.