Sleep apnea can increase your susceptibility to atrial fibrillation (AFib) through several factors like prolonged low levels of oxygen in your blood, increased pressure in your blood vessels, inflammations in your blood vessels, oxidative stress, etc.
Under normal circumstances, your heart responds to heartbeats by contracting and relaxing consistently. This changes when you have AFib because it causes the upper chambers of your heart, known as ‘atria,’ to beat irregularly.
So, what exactly causes AFib? Can sleep apnea cause AFib? In this article, we will answer these questions and tell you why you should consider the Dylan Petkus, MD sleep apnea solution book.
How Sleep Apnea Causes AFib
Here are the main ways sleep apnea can result in AFib.:
Low Levels of Blood Oxygen
When you have irregular heartbeats, the amount of blood pumped out of the upper chambers of your heart decreases, leaving pools of blood in the area. This can lead to serious heart problems, like heart failure and stroke.
Sleep apnea also causes repeated episodes of upper airway obstruction, resulting in recurring incidents of low blood oxygen. This triggers oxidative stress and increases the risk of damage in your heart.
This condition also causes your nervous system to respond with a flight-or-fight reaction, which increases your heart rate and blood pressure. The continuous stress on your heart can cause electrical inconsistencies and arrhythmias like AFib.
Imbalanced Nervous System Responses
As noted above, sleep apnea leads to an overactive nervous system due to frequent awakenings from sleep after oxygen deprivation. This leads to erratic heartbeats and an increased breathing rate, pushing your blood pressure and heart rate through the roof.
It can also cause parasympathetic withdrawal in your nervous system, which normally helps to tame and calm your heart rhythm. The resulting imbalance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic systems leaves your heart susceptible to AFib. The sympathetic or “fight-or-flight” system in overdrive can leave you feeling anxious during AFib episodes and even fearful. Needless to say, this unpleasant state interferes with sleep as well as your ability to be at peace during the day.
Related Conditions
Many other medical conditions can coexist with sleep apnea, including depression and obesity, which increases the risk of AFib. Hypertension is another common condition that makes sleep apnea patients more vulnerable to AFib.
The question is, what leads to what? That’s a big question for another article, but what’s important to know now is that as sleep worsens, many systems in the body start to have issues, such as metabolism, cardiovascular, and the nervous system, among others. So addressing sleep is very important, regardless of the combination of diagnoses one has.
Stretched Upper Chambers of Your Heart
For those with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), when you experience frequent sleep disruptions, attempting to breathe through your obstructed airways causes a negative pressure between your neck and abdomen, increasing the return of blood to your heart. This leaves the atrial walls in your heart stretched more than they would otherwise.
Over time, this excess pressure and stretching of the atrial walls will cause structural changes in the upper chambers of your heart (atrial remodeling). These changes in the atrial wall structure interrupt the normal electrical pathways and increase your risk of developing AFib.
Imbalance Between Free Radicals and Antioxidants
Sleep apnea causes your nervous system to produce inflammatory mediators, which can increase your susceptibility to AFib. This leads to an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants, causing oxidative stress and systemic inflammation.
Recurring incidents of low oxygen in your blood and reoxygenation may increase oxidative stress. Increased heart inflammation can damage your heart tissues with time. Aside from heart damage from inflammation, normal heart function becomes more challenging and increases your risk of developing AFib.
And can sleep apnea cause headaches? Yes–with reduced levels of oxygen, increased inflammation in the brain, and increased amounts of carbon dioxide in your blood, you may wake up with a headache.
Disrupted Sleep and Exhaustion
Sleep apnea causes frequent awakenings and patchy sleep that lead to chronic exhaustion and deteriorating health of your heart. Prolonged fatigue and poor sleep can also result in other AFib risk factors‒like high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. Even just one night of poor sleep can worsen metabolic markers like blood sugar, triglycerides, and more the next day. So over time, poor sleep makes a healthy heart an uphill battle. This is one reason why supporting quality sleep and nighttime breathing is so important.
Closing Thoughts
By supporting sleep apnea through natural methods such as lifestyle changes, breathing routines, and training the nervous system, you can shift risk factors for AFib. Many people report shifts in their AFib episodes along with their sleep and breathing patterns as they integrate supportive breathing routines and more.
You can learn more in the Sleep Apnea Solution book by Dylan Petkus, MD where you can learn methods to support breathing and sleep naturally – a nightly breathing routine, dietary tips, and ideas on setting your nervous system up for restful sleep!
