Recently on a show, singer Badshah opened up on his struggle with sleep apnea. The singer known for many hits like Jugnu, Proper Patola also shared his weight loss journey.
Badshah is a popular face in the Hindi music industry. Recently in conversation with actor Shilpa Shetty on her show ‘Shape of You’ he talked about sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that is caused due to obstructed breathing.
What is sleep apnea?
Sleep apnea is a serious disorder when the person’s breathing stops and starts repeatedly while sleeping. People affected from sleep apnea snore loudly while sleeping and often feel tired even after having a full night’s sleep.
Apart from snoring, these people gasp for air during sleep.
Other characteristic symptoms of sleep apnea are: dry mouth while waking up, morning headache, insomnia, sleepiness during daytime, difficulty paying attention while awake and constant irritability due to lack of proper sleep.
Sleep apnea is more commonly seen in men, though its occurrence in women can not be ignored. It usually occurs in people above 50 years of age.
One of the most important causes of sleep apnea is being overweight. Other reasons are: structural abnormalities in neck, nasal obstruction, low hanging soft palate, small jaw, and enlarged tonsils.
There are two types of sleep apnea: obstructive sleep apnea, and central sleep apnea.
In obstructive sleep apnea, the throat muscles intermittently relax and block the airway and disrupt the flow of oxygen. It is the most common type of sleep apnea.
In central sleep apnea, the brain fails to send signals to the muscles that control the breathing thus stopping breathing. It is a serious type of sleep apnea.
Who is at risk?
People who are overweight are more prone to sleep apnea. Apart from this, middle aged and older males also have a higher risk of sleep apnea. People with heart disorders, those using opioid medication are also more susceptible to sleep apnea. A past case of stroke also increases your risk of sleep apnea.
In the show, Badshah also spoke about how his weight was the reason behind sleep apnea disorder. He talked at length about the effect lockdown had on his overall health and weight and how due to lack of activity during the lockdown his health suffered. He revealed that the sleep apnea condition worsened during this period and this forced him to take up the challenge of reducing weight.
Stress eating and starving
While revealing his weight loss journey, Badshah made two important revelations which many of us resort to in the early stage of weight loss: Starving and stress eating.
Badshah revealed that at one time he used to eat a lot to counter stress. Many of us are oblivious to the signs of mental anxiety and resort to various activities to make ourselves feel better.
Speaking about the need of mental fitness as much as physical fitness Badshah talked about going through clinical depression and severe anxiety disorder. He also said that mental health influences the eating habit of an individual to a great extent.
On weight loss, he said, he started starving at the beginning which had the opposite effect on him. When he altered his diet and focused more on the quality than the quantity, it put an impact on his weight. “Eat as much as you want as long as it does not make you feel bad,” he said.
