Restful sleep is vital to your health. Recent studies in neuroscience have concluded that the single most important factor in maintaining a healthy brain and body, especially as we grow older, is getting enough restful sleep. For most people, 7 hours per night is required to receive the restorative benefits of sleep.

Not getting enough restful sleep has dangerous health consequences, threatening the way our brain, heart, and immune system naturally work. Scientists now understand that the long-term effects of insufficient sleep can cause or worsen numerous diseases, as well as mental illnesses.

How do we know if our sleep health is poor? One way is to monitor and pay attention to our sleep breathing – not just snoring, but particularly gaps in breathing, where we stop breathing for 10 seconds or more at a time.

This condition happens when the soft tissue in the back of your throat collapses and partially or completely closes your airway. The result is you stop breathing for anywhere from 10 to 120 seconds at a time, and this can happen as many as dozens of times per hour or hundreds of times per night. When breathing resumes, OSA sufferers typically make a gasping, choking or loud snorting sound. That’s why snorers are often linked to OSA, but not all those who snore have the disorder. About 80 percent, or 18 to 22 million, of those adults with OSA need treatment but haven’t sought help.

Measuring our sleep breathing can tell us a lot about how restful our sleep is, and how alert or productive we may expect to be the next day.

Regular monitoring of sleep breathing patterns can tell if sleep breathing is stable, getting better or getting worse.