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Sunday, December 21, 2014

Self-Monitoring Sleep Apnea

I have a few friends who have sleep apnea. Getting tested for it is an expensive and awkward process, involving either going in to a sleep lab or going home with a pack of uncomfortable gear that monitors your sleep at home (which often apparently fails despite the price).

It would be legally irresponsible of me to suggest that anyone in the United States attempt to monitor their own health, but if you are looking for purely supplementary information, for your own curiosity, to add to that provided at great expense by your legally sanctioned physicians, I just empirically verified that you can tie one of these under your nose (with a string looped over your ears and behind your head) and record a full night's breathing (or many) for a one-time investment of under ten dollars. Any decent audio playback software (e.g., audacity) will show you a nice strip chart of your night's sleep and let you listen to spots of interest.

It won't measure your heart patterns or blood oxygen like the fancy take home apnea kits, but it gives you a pretty clear picture of your breathing.

Also good for monitoring alien abductions.

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