Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

the news to me. My nose has a deviated septum, says Dr. Park. Very deviated, zigzagging this way and that like San Francisco’s Lombard Street. “It’s a really complicated curved septum,” he says. “There’s complex geometry.” He also calls me a mouth breather, which I try to remind myself is a diagnosis, not an insult.

“I can tell you right now, there’s no simple fix,” Dr. Park explained. “For the average snorer, it’s a journey.”

Over the course of the next two weeks, I try no fewer than twenty remedies. A handful of highlights include:

The Tennis Ball Cure

Snoring is most severe when you sleep on your back. The tongue collapses down toward your throat and blocks the air. It’s better to sleep on your side. One classic remedy is to sew a tennis ball into the back of your pajamas. I’m not much with needlework, but I do know how to use duct tape, so I taped a Wilson U.S. Open ball to my T-shirt.

The problem is, I slept on my back despite the ball. Apparently, if I were a damsel in that fairy tale with the pea and the mattress, I’d never be allowed to marry the prince. I’m too comfortable in uncomfortable positions.

The Pillow

I ordered Brookstone’s Anti-Snore memory foam neck pillow for seventy dollars. It keeps my head elevated and my chin out, which helps the airways stay open. It’s like sleeping on a giant Gummi bear.

The neck pillow worked a bit. I’ve been tape-recording myself every night, and listening back in the morning. (Which is kind of creepy. I feel like I’m invading my own privacy.) But Julie’s not lying. I am loud. The good news: I noted about a 10 percent drop in snoring. Progress!

Tongue Exercises

I started a regimen of antisnoring exercises meant to firm up the tongue and throat muscles (though the scientific evidence on them seems flimsy). At night I do ten minutes in front of my computer: pucker-hold-smile-hold, then flick your tongue from corner to corner. Julie spots my tongue-flicking. “What kind of websites are you looking at?” she wants to know.

The Didgeridoo

There are studies by actual accredited scientists, including one published in the British Medical Journal, that say that playing this Australian aboriginal instrument strengthens the throat muscles and helps cure snoring.

I order one over the Internet. My didgeridoo arrives in a skinny cardboard box. It is brown with red stripes.

The didgeridoo, I learn from the instruction manual, is the world’s oldest wind instrument, made when termites hollow out a eucalyptus branch.

It takes me a day to figure out how to position my lips to get the low, droning foghornlike sound. When I do, my kids think it’s hilarious, as it’s vaguely flatulent. I also played a deep version of “Happy Birthday” for one of my friends, which she pretended to appreciate.

Is the didgeridoo helping? Hard to say, but my friend Shannon pointed out that it keeps my neighbors up, preventing them from snoring. So that’s something.

Breathe Right Strip

This is the tape that you strap over your nose to widen the nostrils. I try it that night. “You look angry,” says Julie, pointing to my flared nostrils. But I love the rush of air I get from the strips. It gives me such a boost of energy, I’m worried I won’t be able to fall asleep. But I do. I listen to my digital tape recorder. There’s wheezing, but much less outright snorting. More progress!

The Sleep Clinic

If I want to stop snoring altogether, I have to take more serious measures. Dr. Park suggests I make a visit to New York’s renowned Sleep Disorders Institute for an overnight study.

I show up, and a technician leads me to a room with bare, white walls and a bed. The most colorful things in my sleep chamber are the wires that a staffer spends forty-five minutes taping to my head, chest, and legs. The wires are yellow, green, red, purple, and orange, making me look like a convicted murderer at a festive execution. I also have tubes up my nose and in front of my mouth.

The doctors monitor everything: heart rate, oxygen, brain activity, and nasal exhalations. I toss and turn for two hours before I finally fall asleep, then wake up feeling grimy and do a walk-of-shame-like trip back to my apartment. Dr. Park calls a couple of days later.

I woke up a few times.

“How many?” I ask.

“A hundred eighty-five,” Dr. Park says.

I don’t know how to respond. That’s 180 more than what I would have guessed.

Dr. Park’s voice remains calm. Actually, he says, it’s not too bad. Patients with severe sleep apnea wake hundreds of times. But I do have a “mild case” of sleep apnea.

At one point, I stopped breathing for forty-two seconds, sending my oxygen level down. Which is worrisome, to say the least. Sleep apnea is a big problem, a contributor to heart disease, fatigue, and brain damage.

The best cure for sleep apnea is something called a CPAP machine (short for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure). You put a mask on your face attached to a hose that shoots air down your nose and mouth to keep the airways open.

I return to the institute for another night to get fitted. My technician this time, Alison—a petite but tough former paramedic—straps the mask on my nose and turns on the air hose. I feel like a golden retriever with my head stuck out of a car window.

I’m supposed to sleep like this?

“You’ll get used to it,” she assures me, then turns out the light.

I toss. I turn. Alison comes in. “You’re flip-flopping like a fish,” she says. “You really have to pick a position and stay with it.” I recognize the tone of voice. It’s the one I use on my twins when they’re throwing Play-Doh.

She takes my water away, and moves my iPhone so I can’t check the time.

Finally, I drift off for about three hours of sleep. The results come in the next day: It worked. If