Arousals Revealed

I see that, in apnea-speak, "arousal" has a different meaning from ordinary English and even from medical terminolgy.

An abrupt change from a 'deep' stage of non-REM sleep to a 'lighter' stage, or from REM sleep to awake, with the possibility of awakening as the final outcome; arousal may be accompanied by ↑ tonic EMG activity and heart rate, as well as body movements; the interruption of sleep by continuous alpha activity and ↑ EMG activity of > 3 secs.

Considering only the italicized portion explains why I had never considered that I was being "aroused" by apneas because I was awakened not nearly as often as I had those apneas.

Medical:
arousal /arous·al/ (ah-rou´z'l)
1. a state of responsiveness to sensory stimulation or excitability.
2. the act or state of waking from or as if from sleep.
3. the act of stimulating to readiness or to action.

Ordinary:
arousal - awakening from sleep
wakefulness - a periodic state during which you are conscious and aware of the world; "consciousness during wakefulness in a sane person is pretty well ordered and familiar"

It just means that your body reacts to an apnea event by 'almost' waking up, or awakening so temporarily that you're never aware of it. Not a big deal .

Julie wrote:It just means that your body reacts to an apnea event by 'almost' waking up, or awakening so temporarily that you're never aware of it. Not a big deal .

Au contraire!

The medical and lay definitions include waking up. Since I wake up only once or twice, I did not consider having met the requirement.

Just passing on what the great majority of us here have meant by the word for a very long time.

pikov22 wrote:

Julie wrote:It just means that your body reacts to an apnea event by 'almost' waking up, or awakening so temporarily that you're never aware of it. Not a big deal .

Au contraire!

The medical and lay definitions include waking up. Since I wake up only once or twice, I did not consider having met the requirement.

Yes but - you do not wake up enough to remember it. Technically you wake up but is is of such short duration that the memory storage is not involved.

BlackSpinner wrote: Yes but - you do not wake up enough to remember it. Technically you wake up but is is of such short duration that the memory storage is not involved.

However, the sleep apnea definition does not require that you actually wake up.

Why are you guys fighting me? I discovered something that was important to me. If it's not important to you, how about just letting it go? It seems to me that most of the responders are not reading closely the definitions I posted.

It's also important to realize that even if you really wake up, you may not remember it in the morning if you go right back to sleep.

archangle wrote:It's also important to realize that even if you really wake up, you may not remember it in the morning if you go right back to sleep.

The sleep apnea definition of arousal is:

An abrupt change from a 'deep' stage of non-REM sleep to a 'lighter' stage, or from REM sleep to awake, with the possibility of awakening as the final outcome;

When you go from a deep stage of sleep to a less deep stage, it counts as an arousal. Waking up is not necessary.

On the other hand, the ordinary definition is "a periodic state during which you are conscious and aware of the world". If I were conscious and aware of the world, I would remember it.

Julie wrote:Not a big deal .

Unless you have 249 arousals per HOUR !!

How come you left off the OTHER definition of Arousal, eh? (wink wink, nudge nudge... in a Monty Python manner)

pikov22 wrote:

archangle wrote:It's also important to realize that even if you really wake up, you may not remember it in the morning if you go right back to sleep.

The sleep apnea definition of arousal is:

An abrupt change from a 'deep' stage of non-REM sleep to a 'lighter' stage, or from REM sleep to awake, with the possibility of awakening as the final outcome;

When you go from a deep stage of sleep to a less deep stage, it counts as an arousal. Waking up is not necessary.

On the other hand, the ordinary definition is "a periodic state during which you are conscious and aware of the world". If I were conscious and aware of the world, I would remember it.

To be honest, I don't think that definition is correct. You don't need to be in a deep stage of sleep to arouse. In fact, a lot of people with sleep apnea don't even experience "deep" sleep until they're on treatment.

But I think it's good you've posted the definition up above there Arousals are pretty hard to explain. I think mainly because the word gets interchanged with awakenings. The majority of the time you wouldn't have a clue you're arousing. And arousals aren't just due to sleep apnea. People have spontaneous arousals. Some literature says you can have 20 spontaneous arousals an hour and this is seen as normal.

pikov22 wrote:...or from REM sleep to awake...

That one is just plain wrong. Awakenings are exactly that-- awakenings, not arousals.

pikov22 wrote:The medical and lay definitions include waking up.

No they don't.

pikov22 wrote:When you go from a deep stage of sleep to a less deep stage, it counts as an arousal.

Man, you are 0 for 3! Arousals pertain to abrupt EEG shifts. Stage changes are not required, nor do stage changes automatically equate to arousals.

I think you should change your topic title to "Arousals Unrevealed".