Exercise and AHI...

[joeljjk11]

Has anyone noticed a correlation between moderate to vigorous exercise like weight lifting or running and reduced AHI? I have lifted weights for many years but not really on a consistent enough basis and I want to start doing it every other day and more vigorously. I was wondering if anyone had personal experience that their AHI was lower when they exercised and they felt better.

Thanks,
Joel

[RogerSC]

Wow, this really sucks, if I switch to a different tab while I'm writing a reply and come back, the reply is GONE.

Rewriting for the third time (I'm a slow learner), no, exercise helps me feel healthier and more energetic, lowers my blood pressure and resting pulse, but no discernible effect on my sleep apnea. Feeling better is enough to keep me doing it, though.

It is said that if you work out with a didgeridoo, that might help your sleep apnea. Although I haven't seen any studies that conclusively prove that *smile*.

[mesenteria]

I have competed in running and snowshoeing all my adult life. I am an avid cyclist. I do SUP (stand-up paddleboarding). I have been well toned in upper body, and until recent years never exceeded 160 pounds. I still slipped into (age-related?) apnea described as serious. However, a person who has other risk factors, including too much weight and too much sitting, could at least hope to improve many lurking deleterious conditions/disorders by cutting some weight and improving heart health and capacity. Only you can tell yourself soberly and honestly if you have been letting yourself go. If the answer must be in the affirmative..........................................................................................................

[Julie]

If nothing else, you're opening up your body to more 02 which is always a good thing, and presumably the effect carries over to when you sleep.

[Mogy]

There are a number of studies that have been done that have concluded that exercise will reduce your AHI.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4216726/
Most of the studies use cardio exercise, but some use cardio and weight training.

[Woody]

Funny I was about to post about this. I started getting some regular exercise
about 17 years ago by walking 30 min to an hr most days. But the last year I
was only walking 2 or at most 3 times a week. Then 3 months ago my treadmill
died and the next week I fell and broke a rib ! So I skipped exercise for about
10 weeks and although I haven't gained any weight my Dreamstation Auto tells
me my 95% pressure is now about 18 cm which is about 4cm higher than it was
before my little break in my exercise pattern. Well I started back exercising
2 weeks ago and it may be starting to work but it's hard to be sure yet.

By the way I saw one small study where the people involved exercised 3 days a week
for 12 weeks only losing a total of 1 1/2 lbs during this time and on average there
AHI was about 32% better. But that was an average with one poor fellow actually
getting very slightly worse but at the other extreme one fellow who started with
an AHI of about 40 ended up with an AHI less than 5 !

[greatunclebill]

Wow, this really sucks, if I switch to a different tab while I'm writing a reply and come back, the reply is GONE.

Rewriting for the third time (I'm a slow learner), no, exercise helps me feel healthier and more energetic, lowers my blood pressure and resting pulse, but no discernible effect on my sleep apnea. Feeling better is enough to keep me doing it, though.

It is said that if you work out with a didgeridoo, that might help your sleep apnea. Although I haven't seen any studies that conclusively prove that *smile*.

It's always better to write posts and replies in notepad. then simply copy and paste it. i hate re-writing posts.

[RogerSC]

Wow, this really sucks, if I switch to a different tab while I'm writing a reply and come back, the reply is GONE.

It's always better to write posts and replies in notepad. then simply copy and paste it. i hate re-writing posts.

Yes, I'm seeing new cpaptalk.com tabs appearing at certain points, haven't figured out when or why they appear yet. Never used to happen with the old forum software, so I'm not sure if it's bugs, or just new behavior that don't understand yet.

Update: Ah, I see what's happening. Typically, I click on the subject of a thread on the index page, and that now creates a new tab. Then, after reading that thread, to go back and look at the current threads, I'll click on "Home" which essentially reloads the same index page tab.

With the new behavior, I go to read a thread, and get a new tab for that. Then when I'm done with that, I'm on the new tab, and click on "Home" again, and that's in the new tab that I got when I went to read the thread. So now I have two cpaptalk.com tabs, and if I click on a thread in the second tab, I get a third tab, and so on. I guess that I have to delete the new tab that I get when I go to read a thread for the moment. Or at least delete the extras at some point *sigh*.

Haven't read the "Bugs" thread yet, 11 pages looks like a lot of reading, but I do think that creating a new tab this way is a bug...reported or not. No forums that I've used have this behavior, for reasons now obvious to me *smile*.

[carbonman]

Has anyone noticed a correlation between moderate to vigorous exercise like weight lifting or running and reduced AHI? I have lifted weights for many years but not really on a consistent enough basis and I want to start doing it every other day and more vigorously. I was wondering if anyone had personal experience that their AHI was lower when they exercised and they felt better.

Thanks,
Joel

I am a cyclist. Skinny tire.......long before apnea Rx. Really struggled, just rode through
the pain and fatigue. After cpap, just got better. In the past 10yrs, the only thing that has
affected my AHI has been my machine. Lived for first 6yrs at 2-5 AHI w/S8. When I fired up the
S9 it dropped.....different algorithm. I live at present at .4 AHI. A few brakes from cycling due to
injuries and being sick. Anywhere from a week, sick, to 3mths, accident. AHI never changes.
I can see that exercise could affect your AHI by weight loss.

[dadbar1]

Over the past year I've been getting more aggressive at weightlifting, bike riding and cardio (I do 5 days of something per week). Since Christmas alone I've dropped 14 pounds.

My AHI has dropped from about 2.5 ish several years ago to about 0.5-1.0 now.

When I had my last sleep-doc visit, she suggested that she would consider redoing my sleep study when I get to a goal weight of 190. I'm already past that and will probably redo it when I am more like 180 or so.

I had discussed the possibility of getting a mouth guard to use while doing overnight trips rather than schlepping a CPAP and did wind up getting a ZQuiet on her recommendation. Haven't tried it yet since I have gotten so used to the CPAP.