Falling asleep on the job can be due to several factors, but a common one is obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which your throat muscles relax while you sleep and your airway closes to the point where you actually stop breathing momentarily. One of the results of this obstructive breathing problem is that your body doesn't spend much time in deep restorative sleep, so you wind up feeling sleepy during the day. You may be so tired that you fall asleep on the job or even in your car at a stoplight. Exercises aimed at training your throat muscles can help, and exercises that help you lose weight may also be effective, since being overweight and having a large neck circumference are risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea.
Tongue Exercises
The tongue is actually a large muscle, though we only see the small portion that is in our mouths. Like any muscle, it can be trained to be stronger or more flexible. To help train your tongue, try the following exercises: Place the tip of your tongue against the front of your palate and slide back and forth for a total of three minutes a day; suck your tongue up so it presses against the palate for a total of three minutes throughout the day; and force the back of your tongue down against the bottom of your mouth while keeping the tip of your tongue against your lower front teeth.
Breathing Exercices
While seated, force yourself to breathe in through your nose only and exhale through your mouth while making vowel sounds. Get a balloon and using long inhalations through the nose, fill up the balloon with long exhalations through the mouth. Do this five times in a row, pausing only to let the balloon deflate. The idea is to train yourself to breathe in deeply through your nose instead of breathing in through your mouth.
Calorie-Burning Exercises
To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. If you burn 3,500 calories more per week than you consume, you'll lose a pound a week. So a combination of eating healthier foods and exercising more will help you lose weight and may help reduce the severity of your obstructive sleep apnea. The following exercises will burn about 500 calories per hour in a person who is about 160 pounds: high-impact aerobics, backpacking, ice skating, racquetball, rowing, cross-country skiing and swimming laps.
Considerations
These exercises can help some people with obstructive sleep apnea, but they may not be enough for everyone who has the condition. Sleep apnea also raises blood pressure and raises the risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as puts you at risk of losing your job or getting into a car accident if you fall asleep at the wheel. A sleep specialist can do an overnight sleep test and determine the severity of your sleep apnea and recommend a course of action. Devices such as a continuous airway positive airway pressure or CPAP machine helps you breathe while you sleep. Surgical solutions such as a tonsillectomy or removal of some tissue in the throat can also produce positive results.
