Sleep Apnea and Myofunctional Therapy: Treating the Root Cause of Exhaustion
If you’ve ever woken up feeling like you didn’t sleep, you’re not alone. For years, I blamed my own exhaustion on being a working mom with a nursing toddler. I assumed feeling groggy, foggy, and drained was just part of the season of life I was in.
But then I had a sleep study — and everything changed.
What Is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a condition where a person’s breathing repeatedly stops and starts throughout the night. These episodes are measured by something called an AHI, or Apnea-Hypopnea Index.
AHI of 5-14 = Mild Sleep Apnea
AHI of 15-29 = Moderate Sleep Apnea
AHI of 30+ = Severe Sleep Apnea
Here’s the shocking part:
You only need to stop breathing for 10 seconds, five times per hour, to qualify for a diagnosis. Think about that. Your body has to lose oxygen flow multiple times in just one hour to even be considered "mild."
In my case, I found out that most hours of the night, I was stopping breathing at least five times for over 10 seconds each time. It was a wake-up call I didn’t expect.
Myofunctional Therapy and Sleep Apnea
When I started digging into my diagnosis, I kept coming across one term again and again: myofunctional therapy. And the data backs it up:
Myofunctional therapy has been shown to reduce AHI (that apnea score) by up to 50% in adults and 65% in children.
This was huge for me because:
It treats the root cause
It’s non-invasive
It’s affordable
And best of all, it doesn’t require surgery
Even my sleep doctor — a physician’s assistant in Portland — recommended I give myofunctional therapy a try. That encouragement led me to create a nightly routine that included:
Sleep hygiene (limiting screen time, establishing a rhythm)
Nasal hygiene (using a saline rinse and nasal strips)
And myofunctional exercises that took just minutes a day
Within a week, something amazing happened:
✨ I had my first dream in over a decade.
That meant I had reached REM sleep, a deep, restorative stage of sleep I hadn’t truly experienced in years. My body was finally getting the rest it needed — and I didn’t need a CPAP or surgery to get there.
Why Is This Therapy So Effective?
The reason myofunctional therapy helps is because it addresses the way our muscles function — particularly those that influence breathing, airway tone, and tongue posture.
When the tongue doesn’t rest on the roof of the mouth or collapses backward during sleep, it can partially or fully block the airway. This causes the body to snore, gasp, or stop breathing entirely — which is what we call sleep apnea.
Through gentle, customized exercises, myofunctional therapy strengthens the tongue and airway muscles. Over time, this makes it easier to breathe through the nose, keep the airway open, and allow for more oxygen-rich, uninterrupted sleep.
Sleep Apnea Symptoms You Might Be Missing
Sleep apnea isn’t always loud snoring. Some signs are subtle — especially in women and children. Symptoms include:
Waking up tired, even after a full night
Daytime sleepiness or brain fog
TMJ pain or clenching
Dry mouth in the morning
Mouth breathing
ADHD-like behavior in kids
Mood swings or anxiety
Frequent night waking or bedwetting in children
If any of those sound familiar, a sleep study and myofunctional assessment might be your next best step.
You’re Not Crazy, You’re Exhausted — and You Deserve Better Sleep
If you're tired of being tired and you’re ready to explore the why behind your sleep struggles, I’d love to connect. Whether you’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea, suspect you have it, or you’re looking for a surgery-free alternative to support your breathing — I’m here.
Let’s chat. Book a free 30-minute consultation to explore whether myofunctional therapy might be right for you.
