First off: Dale, sorry in advance if this topic falls under the unacceptable medical posts category. I think as I’m about to present it it’s fine, but no worries here if I’m wrong and it needs to be locked.
Anyway, I work in sleep medicine. More specifically, I work as a registered sleep technologist where I diagnose and treat disorders like sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a condition where a narrowness of the airway causes repeated obstructions, which in turn leads to arousals and desaturations of oxygen in the bloodstream. Morning headaches are common with this.
Now to my thoughts. Ever since I started playing whistle, I’ve had problems developing headaches if I play too long. And I started wondering if playing any mouth blown instrument can mimic sleep apnea, since both involve cessations of airflow followed by sharp intakes of air. I’d love to be able to wear an oximeter while playing to see what happens, but I don’t really have access to a portable one. Has anyone ever heard or read anything that might confirm or deny my thoughts on this?
You should never be out of breath from playing,* any more than you get out of breath from having a polite conversation. Find more places to breathe. As a teacher once said to me, “There’s no such thing as breathing too often, but a lot of people breathe too seldom.” Now this comes with a caveat, that caveat being that you must find musical places to breathe. Find one in every measure of a tune.
*It looks as though you’ve recently taken up the flute – you’ll get out of breath playing it for awhile. This is normal.
My allergies are horrible right now, and I’m having trouble breathing while I’m just walking. I know there’s NO way I could do any justice to whistle playing today. We will actually modify our play list based on the time of year because there is NO way I’m going to sound good in late spring or early fall.
I hadn’t thought of back pressure. My main whistle is a Dixon Trad, which doesn’t have of a back pressure at all.
Also, one thing I forgot to mention is that I used to smoke daily until about a year ago. Now it’s an occasional social thing, and when on holiday. I’m sure that’s got a lot to do with everything.
Apparently, there’s some evidence that playing at least one wind instrument – the didgeridoo – helps people to avoid sleep apnea. Here’s the link to the article published in the British Medical Journal in which this was reported.
Heard or read? No. Experienced? Yes, but only to a point, and possibly not so far as what you had in mind. I have a bad habit of constricting my throat when playing flute or whistle, and on flute particularly it will affect my tone. But I don’t get headaches from it.
Here’s a thought: (requoting) “…wondering if playing any mouth blown instrument can mimic sleep apnea, since both involve cessations of airflow followed by sharp intakes of air.” This statement is a misunderstanding/misinterpreting of the physical playing process, and possibly points to an unconscious, and correctable, windway constriction. First: if you are playing, you are breathing out. This is not a cessation, but an exhalation, and so nothing is really interrupted; exhalation is, however, controlled. Second: I think that a sharp intake indicates either an inhalation long overdue (as previously suggested above), or a habit stemming from the erroneous idea that one is not breathing. If there is any real cessation, it is only brief, and usually during glottal stops.
One must breathe according to one’s capacity. With some exceptions, this capacity can be increased to a point. In all cases, the throat should be kept open. And I hate the words “must” and “should” in principle, by the way, so these obviously are non-negotiables to me. If one’s throat is constricted with the idea of breath control in mind, throw that practice away. NOW. It’s far better to use the diaphragm for that instead.
oboe players it is said, have the highest rate of suicide among musicians.
one can only wonder if that included accidental overdoses associated with rock, blues and jazz players
but back to the oboe. is the back pressure, the o2 deprivatation or the bad reeds?
uilleann pipes anyone?
Indeed. I don’t know about the sex appeal of the GHBs, but experience tells me that uilleann pipes are hardly a chick magnet. Too über-geeky, I suppose.
But our broken hearts are due to our strange and pitiable love affair with the octopus itself, wayward and fickle contraption that it is, so I guess we don’t notice the other thing so much. That’s another world to be addressed on its own time and terms.
This topic really falls under practices and habits, so far, so no worries. Discussion and advice for that sort of thing has been pronounced acceptable from On High.
Back to the headaches: a quick Googling suggests that shallow breathing may have a part in this, but I don’t know about your case, Thomaston. Worth looking into, though.
