And, your brain wants to keep you alive. So, you wake up, disrupting your sleep and all the important stuff that happens while you sleep.
High blood pressure is known as the silent killer because you have no obvious symptoms until it has done significant damage to your body. Increased blood pressure can cause a heart attack or like in our friend Grose’s case a fatal stroke (one of the BIG 3, mentioned in the previous chapter).
The activation of fight or flight is responsible for increasing your blood pressure. Your body is pumping blood faster because it senses danger. Only in the case of obstructive sleep apnea, it’s not lack of oxygen because of ocean waves on top of you.
The stress hormone cortisol also increases in the fight or flight response. Struggling to breathe every night encourages your body to store fat. See Francis Grose as exhibit 1 of this phenomenon.