Thoughts about…

Adjusting to a New Reality

I realize that we all have our own problems with which to deal, so I promise not to dive too far down the rabbit hole of discussing all that ails me. I feel compelled, though, to at least briefly share the one big thing that I now know has been adversely affecting me for a long time.

Why? Well, for me, speaking things out loud makes them feel real and that causes me to actually deal with them. Otherwise, I’ll either ignore the problem or push directly through it hoping that it’ll eventually just work itself out. This particular issue, however, doesn’t appear to be going away on its own.

Last month, I was diagnosed with having severe obstructive sleep apnea. Not immediately life-threatening, but if left untreated it’ll significantly decrease my long-term health and quality of life (more than it already has, btw). Beyond simply feeling tired all of the time, obstructive sleep apnea increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, dementia, and it can ultimately lead to a shorter lifespan.

I’m obviously not getting any younger, so I need to deal with it now lest I find myself years down the road lamenting that “had I known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself.” That’s one of my all-time favorite coffee cup slogans, by the way, and a concept that I’ve contemplated over the years.

Due to that slogan, I often consider the long-term effects and associated risks of participating in various activities. Most of these considerations revolve around physical endeavors (martial arts and roller skiing, I’m looking at you!), but this also involves work and social environments, among other things. For example, does the job, activity, or people and culture associated with the endeavor(s) in question inspire me to be a better person or do they bring out negative aspects of my personality? Not that the activities and communities in which I’ve participated are inherently bad, but there are always toxic elements to everything we do. And sometimes it’s challenging for me to refrain or protect myself from those things when I’m fully immersed in them.

The reasons are obvious at this point as to why I need to address my sleep issue. But why am I only now dealing with it when I’ve probably been experiencing sleep apnea for most of my life? I need to thank my new doctor for that because he’s the person who recently recommended that I take a home sleep test.

“How is your sleep,” he asked. A fairly benign question.

“Well, it’s never been great,” I said. And then I went on to explain that for as long as I remember, I’ve gone through these weekly cycles where I won’t sleep well for 3-5 days in a row, and then I’ll get a decent night or two of sleep that’s actually refreshing. My problem has never been with falling asleep. That’s the easy part since I’m always tired. Rather, my issue is that I wake frequently throughout the night, but then I’m unable to fall back asleep. So I just lay there stewing and stressing myself out because I can’t fall back asleep, which then ensures that I definitely won’t fall back asleep. As a result, I’m often more tired in the morning than when I went to bed the night before.

Over the years, I’ve attributed this pattern to anxiety, stress, or having an overactive mind. So I’ve just gotten used to waking up at 3:30-4:30 every morning and then getting to work on some project or another. By midday, though, I’m ready for a power nap to reset my batteries. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many opportunities to take naps at work! So I end up pushing through the exhaustion and hoping for the best later that night.

This clearly isn’t normal or healthy, and it feels like my lack of quality sleep has only gotten worse with age. So I’m grateful for the recommendation to take that sleep test.

In hindsight, I should’ve pushed to take one years ago because my doctors have always asked that same basic question of “how’s your sleep?” Unfortunately, my negative sleep habits have been the norm in my life so I never thought that anything was out of the ordinary.

During the diagnosis process, I learned that a severe case of sleep apnea involves 30 or more events. A sleep event is where your airway becomes obstructed while you sleep. Essentially, you temporarily stop breathing, sometimes upwards of 10 seconds at a time. The results of my home sleep test revealed that I was having around 45(!) of them.

“Wow, I stop breathing 45 times a night? That’s crazy!” I said.

The doctor then corrected me. “No, that’s 45 times per hour.”

What can I say? I’ve always been an overachiever.

Jokes aside, even some of my friends have recently remarked that they don’t recall me ever talking so often about being so tired until these past couple of years. And, at the close of this past winter, I felt about as worn out as I’ve ever felt in my entire life. And this was even after cross-country skiing 100+ days.

Now, you may think that all of the skiing is the reason that I felt so tired. In reality, though, skiing that much in a season used to mean that I was in great shape and always feeling energetic. That’s why I love to cross-country ski so much each winter. That is, it keeps me active and outdoors on a daily basis.

However, this spring felt different than past years and I knew, deep down, that I was experiencing diminishing returns. Whatever was wrong with me wasn’t going to self-correct through denial this time. So, by the end of March, I felt the way Bilbo Baggins described himself in the Lord of the Rings in that “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Essentially, I wasn’t really exhausted from all the skiing and other stuff that I do. Rather, I was wiped out from being unable to recover from those activities due to my lack of quality sleep. We can’t keep pushing if there’s no recovery phase in our process. At some point something’s going to give.

So this diagnosis has been my wakeup call (pun intended).

Now that I know what’s wrong, though, I can effectively deal with the problem. Therefore, I now use a CPAP machine and wear a ridiculous looking head apparatus every night. But even after just a few weeks of its use, my quality of my sleep has increased to the point that I’m actually dreaming again and I’m less tired during the day.

There are other benefits that I’m experiencing and things that I’ve been incorporating into my life to turn around my fitness and recovery, but I’ll share those another time.

For now, suffice it to say that, I’m super motivated by all of the progress I’ve made just in the past month!

Thanks for being a part of my life. Until next time…

-Jared Manninen

Tahoe Trail Guide is an online resource for hiking, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing in the Lake Tahoe region. In addition to trail data, I offer backcountry “how-to” articles and information about the local and natural history of Tahoe. Tahoe Swag is a collection of art and design products I create based on my love of the outdoors and appreciation for Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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