Was it insomnia or suffocation?
Snoring is a warning sign
I Thought I Had Insomnia.
It Turned Out I Was Suffocating.
For years, I couldn’t stay asleep.
I would wake up, get up to pee, and crawl back into bed. Only to find my mind wide awake. Not gently alert. More like ready to ace a final exam.
I tried everything.
Magnesium.
Melatonin.
Hot baths.
Meditation before bed.
Guided relaxations.
Nothing worked.
I’d wake up with a stiff jaw. My teeth hurt. My face felt tight. I was exhausted and in pain.
I didn’t want to take sleeping pills. I know they can impact cognition over time. But not sleeping was impacting my brain too. My focus was off. My mood was brittle. My resilience was thin.
I reorganized my schedule so if I had a rough night, I could sleep later and still get to work. However…you can only rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic for so long, before the ship starts to sink.
Then one night, I woke myself up snoring.
Loudly.
And suddenly it made sense.
I had sleep apnea.
I wasn’t “just a light sleeper.”
I wasn’t anxious.
I wasn’t broken.
I was literally suffocating, over and over again, every night.
No wonder my body was waking me up. It was keeping me from suffocating when my tongue would drop down the back of my throat
Why This Happens After Menopause
Obstructive sleep apnea becomes much more common after menopause.
Estrogen helps maintain muscle tone, including the muscles of the tongue and throat. When estrogen drops, those tissues can lose tone. The tongue can fall back toward the airway. Breathing gets blocked.
The brain doesn’t ignore that.
It jolts you awake.
Often with jaw clenching.
That clenching? It’s protective. It helps reposition the airway.
But it comes with a surge of cortisol.
So even if you fall back asleep, your nervous system has already been hit with a stress response. Deep, restorative sleep becomes harder to access.
And over time, you begin to fear bedtime.
Was the Answer a CPAP?
Possibly.
CPAP machines are effective. They save lives.
But I wasn’t ready to strap a mask to my face and have air forced into my airway all night. I wanted to try a more conservative approach first.
If this was, in part, a muscle tone issue…
Could I train those muscles?
After all, I help women rebalance and strengthen their bodies every day. Why would the tongue and throat be any different?
What I Started Doing
I began practicing exercises drawn from:
Restorative Breathing (Lois Laynee)
Myofunctional therapy
They approach the problem from two different angles.
Restorative breathing works with the cranial nerves, especially those that signal safety through the senses: taste, smell, hearing, touch. When these pathways feel safe, the brainstem (the medulla) downshifts. The fight-or-flight reflex quiets. The HPA axis calms. Cortisol drops.
Myofunctional therapy strengthens the muscles of the tongue, face, and throat.
The goal:
Tongue up. Teeth apart. Lips closed. Breathing through the nose.
That sounds simple.
It wasn’t.
When the therapist and I looked in the mirror, the underside of my tongue was flaccid. The connective tissue (the frenum) wasn’t well defined. I couldn’t get my tongue to suction to the roof of my mouth.
And that tongue position matters. You want it to suction to the roof of your mouth and stay there…all night.
Keeping your lips sealed helps us avoid mouth breathing which can be a co-conspirator in snoring and apnea.
Mouth breathing is also associated with poor oral function and is a known contributor to sleep-disordered breathing.
So I practiced.
A few minutes a day. Nothing heroic. Just consistent.
The Result
The change has been remarkable.
I’m sleeping better.
I wake up rested.
I no longer go to bed bracing for another sleepless night.
Unless I get my knickers in a twist during the day, my nervous system settles more easily at night.
I’m not a rarity
Sleep apnea in women over 50 is common, and often missed. It doesn’t always look like the stereotypical overweight man snoring in a recliner.
In fact approximately 25% to 56% of women over 50 are estimated to have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA),
with the risk increasing significantly post-menopause. Research indicates that among women aged 55–70, the prevalence of OSA can be as high as 75%.
It doesn’t always look like the stereotypical overweight man snoring in a recliner.
Sometimes it looks like a capable, intelligent woman who thinks she has “insomnia.”
I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.