Spouses with sleep apnea are unnecessarily putting their marriage vows to the test.
An estimated one in three Americans is sleeping regularly in a separate bed from their partner — a move dubbed “sleep divorce” — due to snoring and sleep disorders, according to a recent survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
However, new findings presented at the SLEEP 2024 annual meeting could bring bedrooms back together as the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines has been linked with higher levels of relationship satisfaction and lower levels of relationship conflict.
“No one is at their best when they aren’t sleeping,” said lead author Wendy Troxel, a licensed clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at the University of Utah, where a study of 36 couples was conducted. “In an age where we see couples going through ‘sleep divorces,’ and roughly 50% of marriages end in actual divorce, recognizing how healthy sleep can contribute to healthy relationships is imperative.”
Nearly 30 million US adults have obstructive sleep apnea, a chronic disease that involves the repeated collapse of the upper airway during sleep, causing stops and gags in airflow, AKA snoring. A common treatment is PAP therapy, which uses mild air pressure levels, provided through a mask, to keep the throat open during sleep
“We developed a couples-based treatment called ‘We-PAP’ in recognition of the fact that couples’ sleep is a shared experience and to help patients and partners overcome challenges to adhering PAP together,” said Troxel, whose new report will be presented Wednesday, June 5, during SLEEP 2024 in Houston and published in the journal Sleep. A grant from the National Institutes of Health supported their research.
“Recognizing that sleep and sleep disorders have an impact on the quality of a relationship could be a powerful motivator for those affected with sleep apnea to adhere to treatment.”
