Can a bra stuffed with tennis balls beat snoring?

CHRONIC lack of sleep doesn’t just leave you feeling groggy and possibly bad-tempered: it may have a lasting impact on your memory — specifically if you have a very common sleep disorder, obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).

OSA commonly occurs when you’re asleep on your back, and your tongue falls back and blocks your airways. Because your oxygen levels then start to fall dangerously low, your brain wakes you up. This can happen more than 20 times a night — symptoms include snorting, gasping and breathing pauses — though you may not even notice it. But you will feel shattered the next morning and may experience morning headaches and have trouble focusing at work.

Around 25 per cent of middle-aged Britons are affected but less than 5 per cent of people with OSA have been diagnosed, let alone treated (worrying, as it’s linked to type 2 diabetes and heart disease).

Now research from Boston Medical Centre in the U.S. has shown it’s linked to memory or thinking problems. Researchers asked more than 4,000 people to fill in a questionnaire about sleep quality and brain function (such as periods of confusion, or problems with decision making) — the people with apnoea symptoms were 50 per cent more likely to report memory or thinking problems.

This follows a review of studies, published in 2022 in the Journal of

Sleep Research, which found that people with OSA were 28 per cent more likely to have dementia. Lack of oxygen seems to be mainly to blame — OSA may also interfere with our brain’s ability to forge new connections during sleep, which is so vital for laying down new memories.

If your partner says you stop breathing at night, or if you wake repeatedly, it might be a good idea to see your doctor. With mild sleep apnoea losing weight can help, as can sewing a tennis ball into the back of your pyjamas to stop you rolling on to your back. One reader told me he sleeps wearing his wife’s bra on backwards, a tennis ball in each cup. He said it felt a bit peculiar to start with, but it’s effective. No word yet on what his wife thinks.