breathing stops in sleep

Last week I meet an old friend at another friends house. It was a get together, and he was telling his own health problem. At the age of 60, I did not expect a clean health, but what I heart was something new, he sometime stop breathing while asleep. The longest was 3 minutes.

He is snoring aloud, I was wondering how he managed to time his breathing. Then he explained that he went to a specialist, a sleep analyst.

It reminded me of a successful business man who did not make through his snoring cure operation. However his reason may be slightly different. His wife past away, he married a much younger lady. It was likely, he did it to make his wife happier.

Back to the story of my friend, he wanted to buy a machine that will keep the air flowing in when he sleep.

Then I stumble an article in a paper about this situation. It is known as OSA - Onstructive sleep Apnea. It is a potentially life- threatening disease.

In your sleep, your muscles relax except those related to controlling the air flow to the lung. Unfortunately, a person with this disease has his muscles relax too.

You may have the symptoms but do not know about it, here are symptoms...
- loud snoring
- report by partner about you stopping breathing.