Sleep Apnea: Natural Healing with Acupuncture, Tongue Exercise & the Six Healing Sounds
Sleep disorders due to sleep apnea have become a serious health issue in the United States. It has been estimated that 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, with about 16 million of the cases of apnea undiagnosed. Most sufferers of sleep apnea snore when they sleep and tend to be overweight, wake up tired, feel moody, and have trouble focusing during the day due to lack of sufficient deep restorative sleep.
What is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a condition when one stops breathing during sleep and is most commonly caused by obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which is due to mechanical and structural malfunction leading to blockage of the airway. It occurs when the soft palate at the top and back of the mouth and throat collapse and combine with the falling back of the tongue closing the airway during sleep.
Aging is a Big Contributor
In other words, obstructive sleep apnea is an aging phenomenon where the muscles of the mouth and throat weaken as one gets older. A less common type of sleep apnea is the central sleep apnea and is due to a failure of the brain to signal the throat muscles to breathe.
Sleep Apnea is a Silent Killer
Sleep apnea can contribute to serious chronic diseases and impact one’s quality and length of life. Several studies have shown an association between sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes, heart attack, hypertension, stroke, and even a shortened lifespan. One condition that is adversely affected by the lack of oxygen from sleep apnea is cancer.
Cancer appears to feed off oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia as it’s clinically known. Studies show that hypoxia definitively contributes to aggressiveness, resistance to treatment, and metastatic dissemination of cancer.
Hypoxia Causes Cancer Metastasis
When hypoxia occurs, the body throws off free radicals and increases tissue inflammation. During this, cancer cells actively seek oxygen and energy by forming new blood vessels and invading surrounding tissues. Researchers have found that intermittent hypoxia is one of the causes of metastasis in triple-negative breast cancer. It is implicated in metastatic prostate cancer in men which is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths.
Sleep apnea occurs in about three percent of normal-weight individuals but affects over 20 percent of obese people. In general, sleep apnea affects more men than women. However, sleep apnea rates increase dramatically in women after menopause which may explain the weight gain and increased breast cancer rates for the two decades following menopause. For men, lack of oxygen related to sleep apnea is one of the causes of skyrocketing prostate cancer occurrence at midlife and beyond.
Surgery
Surgical options for sleep apnea include uvulopalatopharyngoplasty or UPPP which was developed to remove excess tissue from the soft palate and pharynx. The tonsils are also removed if present. Other procedures involve sinus surgery, soft palate implant, and tongue base reduction to name a few. Surgery is the last option as there are potential side effects associated with it that’s irreversible.
Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) Therapy
Currently, in sleep medicine, nonsurgical treatments for the most common type of sleep apnea, the obstructive sleep apnea type involves C-PAP therapy, which stands for Continuous positive airway pressure therapy. A CPAP machine uses a hose and mask or nosepiece to deliver constant and steady air pressure. Common problems with CPAP include a leaky mask, trouble falling asleep, stuffy nose, and a dry mouth leading to many patients removing the device at night and therefore, a low patient compliance rate.
There are also two other types of PAP machines—APAP or automatic positive airway pressure that adjusts automatically to meet each specific person's changing sleep stages and breathing needs; and VPAP or variable machine that uses two different pressures, one for inhalation and the other for exhalation. Despite these other two options, CPAP is still by far the most commonly prescribed machine therapy.
Dental Appliance
Other non-invasive treatments include custom dental appliances built by dentists specializing in sleep medicine that patients wear at night to keep their lower jaw and chin forward and tongue depressed in order to keep the airways open. Some patients have experienced positive benefits with this although TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder has been reported by some users of dental splints.
Chinese Medicine Approach to Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is not a new problem and was recognized and recorded as far back as 5,000 years ago in the Yellow Emperor’s Classic on Medicine. It was determined to be a syndrome related to digestive, respiratory, and kidney function decline. Treatment objectives involved diet and nutrition to reduce mucus production and accumulation in the sinuses as well as promote weight wellness, acupuncture to improve muscle functions around the jaws, throat, and mouth to open the airway and improve sleep and tongue exercise and healing sound meditation to maintain muscle tone of the tongue and prevent soft palate collapse.
Diet & Nutrition
Certain foods have been determined to provoke the production of mucus which may cause an obstruction in the sinus passage and throat airways, interfering with proper and healthy breathing. These foods tend to contain either high levels or provoke the body to produce histamine and include all fermented foods like alcohol, cheese, bread, yogurt, cured meat, pickles, kinds of vinegar, etc. Ask your Tao of Wellness practitioner for a complete list of foods to avoid in order to reduce your histamine and therefore mucus in your body.
Acupuncture
Clinically acupuncture has been found to be effective to improve muscle function including improving tone while relaxing tight muscles. In sleep apnea, acupuncture along with electro-stimulation has been used successfully to strengthen muscles of the soft palate, tongue, and throat while opening the airway in the sinus and trachea.
Tongue Exercise
There’s a saying in Chinese: diseases enter through the mouth and troubles emerge from a loose tongue. In sleep apnea, literally, a loose tongue is a big contributing factor. Below, I’ve outlined three simple tongue exercise:
Turn your head back to look up, stick the tongue out, and try to touch your nose and hold it for 10 seconds, swallowing at least once during the tongue hold. Repeat five times
Turn your head back to look up, stick the tongue out, and try to touch your chin and hold it for 10 seconds, swallowing at least once during the tongue hold. Repeat five times
Tuck your chin against your chest, suck and retract your tongue backwards against the upper palate, hold for 10 seconds, and swallow at least once during the tongue hold. Repeat five times
Six Healing Sounds
The ancient Taoist tradition gave the world Chinese medicine, binary language underlying modern computing and feng shui, among many other arts and sciences also passed down the Six Healing Sounds meditation for health and healing. Each sound corresponds and balances an organ system. They are, shu… for liver, haa… for heart, hoo… for stomach, si…for lungs, foo…for kidneys and hee…for the three—chest, abdominal and pelvic cavities. These sounds engage different muscles of your throat, mouth and tongue. It would seem, as you practice these healing sounds and experience their benefits that it was designed by ancient Taoist physicians specifically to prevent sleep apnea!
Sit comfortably on the edge of a chair with your spine erect and your head held upright. Place your feet flat on the floor with the knees slightly apart and rest the palms of your hands on your thighs. There are two parts to this practice.
Making Sound While Exhaling
First, make all your inhalations through the nose into the lower abdomen. Expand the lower abdomen while inhaling and contract it when exhaling, so that the breath completely leaves the body. The exhalation should be much longer than the inhalation. When exhaling each of the healing sounds, do so from the lower abdomen first, then at the end of the exhale, from the throat. Repeat each sound five times.
Making Sound While Inhaling
Second, inhale through your mouth while making the same sound, first with the throat then at the end of the inhalation, the abdomen. Contract your abdomen while inhaling. Exhale through your nose and inflate your abdomen when you do so. Repeat each sound five times.
Shu…as if shushing someone
Haa…as if laughing out loud
Hoo…like the owl
Si…like the snake
Foo..as if blowing against the upper incisors (front teeth)
Hee..like the monkey
For step-by-step instruction on the Six Healing Sounds Meditation for health and healing, you can purchase a download of the Six Healing Sounds program here.
If you want to improve your sleep apnea naturally, I encourage you to try our program to slow down and reverse your aging. Chinese medicine has enjoyed a long tradition of age-management therapies that, besides acupuncture, nutrition, and Chinese herbal medicine also includes tai chi, qi gong, and meditation for prevention and health maintenance.