Discovering the Effects of Sleep Incompatibility in Couples

When it comes to sleep, do you think you and your partner are compatible? There are many ways to explain how couples should be comfortable with each other’s sleep habits; for instance, the time that you both go to bed and the activities that you individually do before going to sleep. As people have their own sleep routines and habits, it is just normal that you and your partner may have differences in such things as well. But what’s important to look into here is how you both adjust to those differences and whether they can actually affect your own sleep and your relationship as a whole.

Many Couples Suffer

If you think you are deprived of having good quality sleep because of your partner’s sleep habits, you’re definitely not alone. In one study where 2,000 participated, it was found that more than half of them had interrupted sleep between 1 and 3 times a week. What’s worse is that the effects of being restless in their sleep come out the next day and they interfere with how they perform their regular activities.

So what could be the culprit of this? In most cases, it’s the snoring or the unusual sleep behavior of their bed partners.

According to sleep experts, snoring is among the major conflicts of couples during bedtime. But snoring is definitely not the only issue that many couples have to deal with as there are many other compatibility hurdles that exist. They could be physiological, like differences in their body temperatures and some differences in their personal preferences.

Personal preference issues may include things like the firmness of the mattress they want to sleep in, whether or not they want the windows open, and if one of them prefers to sleep with the lights on. These small differences could lead to discomfort to one of them, just as much as snoring does.

Does It Increase with Age?

Experts explain that sleep incompatibility between couples naturally increases with age. That explains why many older couples eventually express their desire to sleep in separate beds or even bedrooms. Needless to say, the need to have sex passes, and then snoring becomes a problem, which all give the couple reasons for not wanting to share the bed with each other.

Insomnia

A lot of couples continue to struggle in adjusting to each other’s sleep habits even when neither of them has sleep disorders. This could be because one of them has a sleep disorder that they are not aware of, like insomnia. According to statistics, it is common for insomniac people to seek treatment after several years of suffering from it. Thus, it is important for couples to talk about it and agree that necessary treatment should be considered as early as possible.

Sleeping Apart – Is It a Solution?

Surveys indicate that more and more couples, regardless of their age, try to resolve their sleep incompatibility issues by sleeping apart at night. Nevertheless, there remain more couples who prefer to be in each other’s arms every night. This goes to show that aside from sleeping apart, there are certain solutions that could be more effective in dealing with these incompatibilities, and that is the couple’s desire to be intimate and close to each other.

How to Conquer Sleep Apnea

We could all agree that there is nothing worse than having a snoring bed partner. While we all see snoring as a huge annoyance for sleeping, it is seriously linked to various potentially severe disorders, especially sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea causes a person to stop breathing for short periods during sleep. What’s alarming about sleep apnea is that when untreated and ignored, it could increase a person’s risk of having a heart attack, high blood pressure, and stroke.

There are many ways to deal with sleep apnea, but it is important that couples understand that this disorder cannot be eliminated or treated overnight. One device that has been proven effective against sleep apnea is a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device.

A CPAP device comes with tubes, a mask and a fan, and should be worn every night by the person diagnosed with sleep apnea. The fan is what applies air pressure to push the user’s tongue forward. What happens next is that the throat opens up and allows adequate air to pass.

Wearing a CPAP mask is definitely uncomfortable, which makes it necessary for a partner to be supportive enough. In a study which aimed to explore the effects of using a CPAP device among couples, it was found that men who were prescribed to use the device were more unwilling to use it especially when their wives were sleeping with them. It is therefore crucial that the person prescribed to use a CPAP device  feels the support of his or her bed partner as this could help ease the discomfort of using the device as well as the humiliation of having to use it.