Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)

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kkelseyfrog 5 days ago 164 commentsRead Article on pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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wiredfool•3 days ago

Unfortunately, digeridoo playing is just as disruptive to partner's sleep as snoring is. Perhaps they should try bagpipes?

nzealand•3 days ago

Funny.

The didge forces you to learn circular breathing, it's cheaper, it is easier to learn, and is easier to play well. Plus I think it sounds better. Everyone should learn to play the didgeridoo. Bagpipes are a whole another level, and feel more like a practical joke gone horribly wrong (Sorry Gran.)

pegasus•3 days ago

Use a box didgeridoo instead, it's much quiter than a full-size one.

ncruces•3 days ago

I suspect bagpipes may be the worst wind instrument to learn in this regard, at least if the goal is to train circular breathing?

batisteo•3 days ago

If you're talking about the great highland bagpipes, circular breathing can be really helpful while learning. Because of the "practice chanter," every piper have one or two and use it to learn new tunes or just practice technique.

larodi•3 days ago

I would imagine some basic breathing techniques may help, wonder what the research in anuloma viloma pranayama shows, but beware there's a lot written by random people on the internet about it without scientific evidence.

elric•3 days ago

I don't think circular breathing is the goal. It's just a means to an end. The goal is strengthening the muscles that keep the airway open. The resistance from blowing into the didgeridoo seems to be what does that. I have no idea how that compares to bagpipes, however.

nephihaha•3 days ago

Several varieties of bagpipe I'm aware of don't even require breathing, since they're powered by bellows. The pipes are surprisingly hard to learn by the way. One normally starts on the chanter, which is more like a recorder and is not bag assisted.

mrob•3 days ago

>One normally starts on the chanter, which is more like a recorder

In the case of the Great Highland bagpipes, the most similar traditional instrument is the rauschpfeife (capped double-reed with conical bore and without prominent bell):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauschpfeife

kazinator•3 days ago

Bagpipes can quite easily be blocked out by the brain. With one caveat: the otherwise highly prized vibrato technique must be avoided.

j45•3 days ago

Both can practice in the other room.

andersmurphy•3 days ago

Didge isn't that loud unless you're really going for it. Nothing compared to bagpipes.

hks0•3 days ago

A friend of mine started "blowing air into water with an straw" (making bubbles) very seriously. I was very skeptical to say the least; but after a couple of months the effects have been very eye opening. Not only it has helped sleep apnea and snoring but also helped with reducing their weight. They had an online group and most participants reported the same. The wight loss was reverted when they stopped for some personal reasons. I wonder if making bubbles in the water has the same effect.

LPisGood•3 days ago

I don’t mean to be rude, but what kind of personal reasons might stop a person from breathing into a straw at night

N_Lens•3 days ago

Probably summoning a fish demon.

dmos62•3 days ago

Made me laugh. Thank you.

yuppiepuppie•3 days ago

They objected to the Paper Straw Mandate

Roark66•3 days ago

A very good reason. I refuse to use paper straws. They are disgusting (it feels like sucking on a piece of printer paper).

Don't get me wrong. I try to remove plastics in all areas of my life as well (because of microplastics), but can't they coat the surface in some biodegradable polymer like PHA/PBS?

Or if this is too expensive coat it with some beeswax at the very least...

fuzzy_biscuit•3 days ago

Aluminum straw is the clear and superior alternative

mark_l_watson•3 days ago

My didgeridoo teacher had the class practice at home continuously blowing air through a straw - it still took me almost half a year to reliably be able to do circular breathing.

I have read a few references that humming or ‘ohming’ help sinus health and breathing so I guess it makes sense playing the didgeridoo would help also. Blowing bubbles through a straw won’t cause vibration, so probably in itself won’t help.

jcul•3 days ago

Reminds me of that guy who started drinking water upside down to train his swallow muscles and cure his chronic heartburn.

elric•3 days ago

There's some science on training those muscles, even without upside down drinking. "Dry swallowing" while on an incline seems to do the trick just fine.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9550520/

miek•2 days ago

Thank you for posting this! I will give it a shot.

hikarudo•3 days ago

In Japan, I learned to drink water upside down to stop hiccups. Works for me, whereas drinking normally doesn't.

dallen33•3 days ago

How do you get your body to be upside down?

pbronez•3 days ago

Did it work?

ab71e5•3 days ago

Is the weight loss just from sleeping better and therefore making better food choices?

joshspankit•3 days ago

Underrated question

Personally, when I have not slept well and need to be productive in a day, I’m much more likely to want to load up on sugar and unhealthy food

throwaway173738•3 days ago

I’m the same way. Getting good sleep is my best predictor of whether I’ll blow a weight loss attempt or skip exercise.

reylas•2 days ago

My Dr explained to me that proper sleep is important for the body to "reset" chemical balances and metabolism. It is still calories in vs out, but you are more likely to store the calories than burn them due to the "metabolic system" being out of whack due to poor sleep.

n8henrie•3 days ago

Almost certainly plays a role. Also increased activity levels due to better less fatigue.

Certainly is not defeating thermodynamics, assuming calorie absorption is not disrupted somehow it's likely the above.

dloss•3 days ago

My voice teacher had me blow air into water with a straw. Felt good and had some therapeutic effect on my vocal chords. Apparently the technique had been developed by a Finnish speech and voice therapist. Here is some background: https://www.laxvox.com/history/

Traubenfuchs•3 days ago

Can you please expand on that? How many times and minutes a day? Full power?

Got a link?

baddash•3 days ago

same, my fat ass is ultra curious

KellyCriterion•3 days ago

I just made a test with one of the AI: It seems there is some evidence in there, sounds like mainly you are strengthening the muscles around your throat with that technique and this then can reduce sleap apnea a little bit.

Salmoneo•3 days ago

I saw a documentary where a vocal coach used a similar technique to help metal singers sing in a way that didn't destroy their throat and vocal chords

nephihaha•3 days ago

I do death metal growling at karaoke sometimes. It makes a nice change after the umpteenth Abba or Pink Pony Club rendition.

There is a technique to it. You have to sing from the chest not the throat.

hks0•3 days ago

Just learned from comments here it's called "circular breathing"!

sigmoid10•3 days ago

Just read how this works and tried it. A bit tricky at first but actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. And it's kind of a fun exercise. Now I'm wondering if I should get a Didgeridoo too.

jbaber•3 days ago

Yes. Someone who masters circular breathing in a weekend should start playing a wind instrument.

mindok•3 days ago

50mm/2” PVC pipe with a bit of beeswax on the end to protect your lips is a quick way to test out whether you want to spend the time to track down a proper didgeridoo.

mswphd•3 days ago

circular breathing is useful for other instruments as well, though it's not typically a technique that's necessary until you get to fairly high levels.

Ifkaluva•3 days ago

Would you happen to have more information about this online group? Would love to join it!

joshspankit•3 days ago

Someone really needs to properly do the science on this

I (presumably like the majority) assumed that sleep apnea was at least partially caused by weight gain, but if there is weight gain caused by sleep apnea it’s going to give doctors some new tools

elric•3 days ago

There is plenty of proper science on this. Weight gain does not cause obstructive sleep apnea until you get into extremes (e.g. huge necked bodybuilders or people with so much fat on their chest that they physically struggle to move it to breathe). Sleep apnea makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain weight. Having sleep apnea and being heavier can make sleep apnea worse. Losing weight quickly can make sleep apnea worse when you lose muscle mass along side fat (e.g. on ozempic).

There are plenty of tools for doctors to treat sleep apnea. The problem is that they refuse to use them. Many people on CPAP would benefit greatly from being on BiPAP instead, but doctors commonly refuse to prescribe it. Some cases of sleep apnea can be treated using positional therapy (typically side sleeping), but there's no prescription for that. Some cases can be solved by exercising throat muscles (with or without a didgeridoo), but there's no prescription for that either, and there are virtually zero speech/physical therapists who focus on that. There are some surgeries that can really benefit some patients, but most sleep labs and ENTs refuse to even to even perform a proper sleep endoscopy.

bobthepanda•3 days ago

At least in the US my understanding is insurers don't generally support BiPAP because it's more expensive. Surgery costs more, has extended recovery time, is more risky, and is less effective at the broader population level; if it works, it may not work forever. For a lot of people, CPAP is good enough, and so it's currently the standard.

elric•3 days ago

Not sure why the other reply got downvoted to death. Commenter is right. The same motor seems to power resmed CPAP and resmed BiPAP. Haven't tried jailbreaking my own yet, but maybe I should give that a go.

kjs3•3 days ago

The idea people aren't doing 'proper science' on this is a spectacular level of oblivious. There's nothing in here that I haven't at some point had a discussion about with my sleep doc in the last 20 years (well, not specifically a didgeridoo, but circular breathing and other types of breath exercises, including 'straw breathing'). Yes, some people do loose weight when they get their apnea under control, among other health benefits. That also is not new, and it's not some sort of miracle insight that noone has considered.

david-gpu•3 days ago

I had textbook symptoms of sleep apnea with a BMI of 19, before I was diagnosed. The sleep tech told me bluntly that plenty of slim people, even children, develop sleep apnea.

Obesity increases the chance of developing sleep apnea, yes. But sleep apnea also increases the chance of becoming obese. It is not just a simple unidirectional cause and effect.

tybstar•3 days ago

Sounds like a semi-occluded vocal tract exercise, something that singers will do to strengthen the vocal folds and reduce tension.

frankest•3 days ago

CPAP machines are essentially a hose that has you breathe into water.

httpsterio•3 days ago

this is incorrect lol. the water is just to help with humidity, to prevent a dry mouth and sinuses. all resumed cpap machines for example can be used without the water tank as long as you have the backplate.

the water in the tank is heated to increase the humidity of the air circulating.

cpap machines work by increasing the air pressure on breath-ins and help open your airways by keeping your genioglossus tensor veli palatini muscles engaged.

elric•3 days ago

Kind of, yeah. When I first got onto CPAP I was worried that it would cause my muscles to atrophy over time because it makes the inhale so much easier. But the pressure is still there on the exhale, which is exactly like breathing out through a straw into water (with 5-20cm water on top of the straw, depending on the CPAP pressure).

barrenko•3 days ago

Seems related to our aquatic mammal past.

Darmani•3 days ago

I started playing didgeridoo 10 years ago for precisely this reason. Sleep apnea already cured by weight loss, but I knew by air pathways were prone to it, and I never wanted it to come back.

It worked

It took me 1-2 years to learn circular breathing, but even just learning to play for 15 seconds on one breath can give the "oxygen high" from breathing so much.

sigmoid10•3 days ago

You can't get "oxygen high" from breathing normal air. The O2 levels will always stay the same unless you stop breathing for a while. What will make you feel weird in the head when breathing too fast is the reduction of CO2 in your blood.

dmos62•3 days ago

So, if you breathe in an intensive manner for a few minutes, oxygen percentage in the blood won't change?

n8henrie•3 days ago

One a friend and I hooked ourselves up to continuous pulse oximetry and had a contest to get the lowest recorded oxygen level. We tried everything we could think of, from just holding our breath to end-expiratory breath holding to hyperventilating to clear O2 (I used to do some recreational free-diving) beforehand to exercising (jumping jacks)...

Neither of us could get it below 98%, and this was at a mile of elevation (UNMH in Albuquerque).

jcul•3 days ago

If you've ever done the wim hof breathing method, it is a very intense experience.

Basically hyperventilation + long breath holds. Probably similar to what free divers do without the mammalian dive reflex due to the cold water. Or like a dangerous game kids used to do when I was in school where you hyperventilate and then have someone press on your chest until you pass out.

But anyway, I'm not sure if the science would back it up, but Wim Hof describes it as over oxygenating the blood and then stopping and letting CO2 ramp up or something. Whether it is significantly dropping the CO2 or increasing oxygen during the hyperventilation phase, isn't it kind of the same thing? Adjusting the ratio.

Anecdotally, when I was doing it regularly I seemed to not get sick at all.

thfuran•3 days ago

Blood oxygen saturation is always near 100% in a healthy person. 95% is the low end of normal. Dropping to 90% is considered hypoxemia, and 80% is a medical emergency. So there really shouldn’t be any room to increase it significantly.

cenamus•3 days ago

No it would stay at pretty much 100% (as is normal). But co2 goes down, which lessens the ability of oxygen to come out of the blood. That's why you get dizzy when hyperventilating

TylerE•3 days ago

Nope. The blood is already fully saturated with oxygen (in a healthy-ish person) at rest. Even intensely breathing pure o2 can't give you a saturation higher than 100%.

Ringz•3 days ago

I once took a didgeridoo course and played for quite a while after that. One weekend of 2×3 hours of didgeridoo playing, and my nose was incredibly clear. Like never before and never again since.

By the way, you can practice circular breathing very well in the shower. Take water in your mouth and breathe in through your nose while simultaneously spraying the water out through your lips.

carwyn•3 days ago

Double Reed instruments have also been shown to have a positive effect for those suffering from sleep apnoea. It seems due to the higher air pressure needed to play: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_reed

Presumably quadruple reed instruments (that require even more air pressure to play) would be even better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadruple_reed

dartharva•3 days ago

The captcha on this site is irritating.

Original paper: https://www.bmj.com/content/332/7536/266

mastazi•3 days ago

Thank you, I was completely unable to access that page with my current browser settings.

getpost•3 days ago

Yes, it is almost as if the current administration doens't want people to acces medical information.

jph00•3 days ago

I couldn't find a CPAP mask that worked for me, even after 6 months of trying across 4 different masks.

Then I read studies showing oropharyngeal exercises can help treat sleep apnea. Originally I used https://snoregym.com/ for that, but then I switched to simply chewing gum once a day (being careful to chew on both sides of my mouth roughly equally), and also chewing my food a bit longer.

It totally cured my sleep apnea.

ElijahLynn•3 days ago

What was your severity of sleep apnea? Do you mind sharing your AHI?

Lucasoato•2 days ago

Have you tested it with a polysomnography?

mrguyorama•1 day ago

How come none of the masks worked?

I was fully prepared to have to go through the entire gamut of masks to find one that worked, because I snore so surely I would need a mask that covers my mouth at least, right?

But even while sleeping, my brain is keeping my mouth shut so the simplest, nose-only mask works perfectly, with very little leakage.

data-ottawa•3 days ago

I think my favourite part of the study is that the control group is just the class wait list.

Unfortunately this study doesn’t control for luck.

lemonberry•3 days ago

Unrelated to the health aspects, but if you like electronic music and the Didgeridoo check out Aphex Twin's album "Digeridoo". It's so good.

bizzletk•3 days ago

And also the mandatory "Treaty, Yeah!":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPmDLR_M50M

nephihaha•3 days ago

?Yothi Yindi? I listened to this song a bit back in the early nineties but it sounds a bit dated now. (Ironically the traditional instruments sound a lot better than the synths.)

Didgeridoo (when played properly) can sound great. Like the bagpipes there are a lot of people who can barely play, but go out busking.

antfarm•3 days ago

You may like Tribal Need's Genetic Modification Of Sound. Ricardo Moretti is also busking with a Roland Juno synth, looper and didgeridoo. I saw him in Berlin a couple of times in the early 2010s.

https://tribalneed.bandcamp.com/album/genetic-modification-o...

A more recent live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9LHiL2ETh0

thesuperbigfrog•3 days ago

If you like psy electronic music, there is 'The Mystic Didgeridoo':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbhhLhb3zc8

nephihaha•3 days ago

The carnyx is the nearest traditional western European equivalent. There is a guy who plays it called John Kenny who I don't rate. Abraham Cupeiro, on the other hand, is amazing. See here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhwWihyylPg

antfarm•3 days ago

This is more Trance than Techno, but Highlight Tribe use the Didge in a very aggressive way as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcvAwqi4krE

Cockbrand•1 day ago

Parent is the only correct answer in this thread.

swingboy•3 days ago

Always my first thought when reading/hearing the word.

idiocrat•3 days ago

There seems to be a typing mistake. The embouchure should have diameter of 2.8-3.2 centimeters, not millimeters. Perhaps that can be done DIY from an PVC pipe with an hot air gun or a gas burner to soften and shape the end.

"Participants received a standardised acrylic plastic didgeridoo that was developed by the instructor in collaboration with Creacryl GmbH (Ebmatingen, Zurich, Switzerland, and costs €80 (£43; $94), fig 1). The didgeridoo is 130 cm long with a diameter of 4 cm and an elliptical embouchure with a diameter of 2.8-3.2 mm. Acrylic didgeridoos are easier for beginners to learn on than conventional wooden didgeridoos."

roel_v•3 days ago

"Perhaps that can be done DIY from an PVC pipe with an hot air gun or a gas burner to soften and shape the end."

When I used to make my own PVC didgeridoos, I would melt candle wax and then dip one end repeatedly into the wax to build up wax layers until it had the desired thickness and shape.

mark_l_watson•3 days ago

Twenty years ago my neighbor, a retired surgeon, made me a PVC didgeridoo and did the wax buildup thing - I still mostly play that didgeridoo. Years later my wife bought me a traditional heavy didgeridoo from Australia, but it doesn’t play as well; still, when I played at a friend’s wedding I used the Australian one because it looks better :-)

eth0up•3 days ago

I had excellent results using a large section of black bamboo, though I forget the exact taxonomy (lako?). I meticulously beat out the segment walls, then with a rasp fastened to a long stick, filed down the ridges. After sanding, I finished it with oil based stain, which necessitated it living outdoors for a while. In the end it proved a fine primitive instrument. I gifted it to someone and miss it. I can attest to the therapeutic effects of mastering the didge.

PVC works, but the acoustics do seem superior with actual plant material. Certainly the feel.

Update: I used beeswax for the gob hole.

smartial_arts•3 days ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiqEhJJqtbc

FatherOfCurses•2 days ago

Someone mixed up their oboe and didgeridoo instructions

andersmurphy•3 days ago

Yeah that should be 2.8-3.3cm for sure.

defrost•3 days ago

For added fun, two tubes of roughly that size that air seal fit one inside the other makes for a slide didgeribone.

addendum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1d7Eztj7Eg

sam-cop-vimes•3 days ago

Unrelated to the content of this submission, but trying to visit this link in Firefox takes me into an endless recaptcha loop, whereas visiting in Chrome took me to the site without any captcha.

sph•3 days ago

Sorry to hear that! You must be using an unapproved browser.

Please contact your nearest Cloudflare ChildProtect™ agency to request a one year license to browse the internet. You will be asked to provide a government ID card or equivalent.

StilesCrisis•3 days ago

Wondering what sort of plugins you've got on the Firefox side. If they're stripping out headers, for instance, it's a good way to make yourself look like a bot.

sam-cop-vimes•3 days ago

I've only got "Firefox Multi-Account Containers" and "Privacy Badger". I tried reloading with Privacy Badger disabled, still the same behaviour. Works in Safari and Chrome with no issues at all!

sam-cop-vimes•3 days ago

So I fired up Developer Tools to see what was happening...and the site just loaded. I am so confused.

galangalalgol•3 days ago

Firefox on android with ublock origin didn't hit any captchas. I wonder what triggers them?

georgemcbay•3 days ago

There are also various simple tongue and throat exercises that can improve your sleep apnea that would generally be better tolerated by your neighbors than playing a Didgeridoo, see for example...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNscQ3bGxNk

...along with various other videos on that person's youtube channel (he's an NHS Sleep and Ear Surgeon).

Of course, there are lots of underlying causes of sleep apnea that vary between people, so what helps one person may or may not be relevant for others. Seeing a doctor in the field should be your first step if you suspect you are suffering from sleep apnea.

defrost•3 days ago

If your neighbour plays the banjo, invite them over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr3iI8gg2fo

Two wrongs can make a right.

_puk•3 days ago

45 seconds of didge, and then be puts it down!

Hope he sleeps well tonight!

defrost•3 days ago

Blame the song structure.

You'll hear Charlie McMahon going at it with continuous circular breathing for five to eight minutes or so on the early Gondwanaland albums (along with sliding length didgeridoo effects and 'singing' down tube).

philiplu•3 days ago

Thx for linking that. Just … wow

gramie•3 days ago

Not really related, but worth repeating: there's an old saying, "A gentleman is one who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn't".

darylteo•3 days ago

Some might, in fact, call it the Didgeridon't

worthless-trash•3 days ago

Jokes on you, my neighbours already play the digeriedoo.

asdff•3 days ago

Last thing I need for my sleep through my thin walls is a neighbor with a didgeridoo.

latexr•3 days ago

I don’t think they’re suggesting you do it like a sleeping pill and play some didgeridoo right before bed. Rather, it’s about regular practice like with any other instrument.

dgellow•3 days ago

Might help fall asleep, like a white noise machine :)

DTrejo•3 days ago

30% of Americans have reflux, which is associated with obstructive sleep apnea.

Check out the papers on Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) and bridge swallowing.

nopurpose•3 days ago

These two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXBGZoBYaLY must be best dorm neighbours ever then.

ChrisMarshallNY•3 days ago

That's fairly cool.

I probably couldn't listen to that on a regular, but I enjoyed it.

Thanks!

ElijahLynn•3 days ago

I'm actually trying this right now for my moderate sleep apnea.

I had an AHI of 17 a few years ago and then I had deviated septum surgery and taught myself how to breathe through my mouth using mouth tape.

And had a love-hate relationship with CPAP and finally got consistent with it in the past year.

And now I found a new sleep medicine doctor who agreed to help me try out this claim in the study. (Previous sleep doctor had no interest in helping me with that).

So we took another sleep test and AHI is still about 17. I'm doing the didgeridoo for 3 months for 15 minutes a day, using the air didge, which is adjustable but I'm using it in the lowest tone which is A.

And we are going to test again after the 3 months is up!

aucisson_masque•3 days ago

Your CPAP should already be able to tell you how many AHI you have.

It costs less and you get more data, every night, instead of just 2 samples.

bjoli•2 days ago

I remember a violin player back in my youth Orchestra days who always wanted to sleep in the same room as woodwond players (3 people in every room) because "string players snore".

analog8374•3 days ago

It sounds like an attention thing.

Attention is magic stuff. Putting it on part of your body can make it better. Withdrawing it can make it worse. I suspect that much disease stems from such neglect.

I used to have a chronically stuffed nose. Then I started doing a kind of meditation where I put my attention upon my nose. My nose opened up and I almost never get a stuffed nose anymore.

sdenton4•3 days ago

Are you saying that, in fact, attention is all you need?

jimmcslim•3 days ago

Didgeridoo specifically?, or any instrument that requires circular breathing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_breathing

pegasus•3 days ago

Circular breathing is easiest to accomplish on the didgeridoo. This is because of several reasons: optimal back-pressure (hits the sweet spot between lack of resistance on a flute and too much of it on an oboe, for example), loose embouchure (relaxed lips make it easier to puff up the cheeks) and single drone focus (no distracting fingerings required).

I also suspect the intense vibrations have a similar effect (probably stronger) to humming, which is known to dramatically (15-20x) increase the release of beneficial nitrous oxide in the nasal passages.

joshspankit•3 days ago

> I also suspect the intense vibrations have a similar effect…

My gut says that there are some interesting discoveries waiting around the intersections of frequency of vibration, individual resonant frequency, and duration

yks•3 days ago

would oboe be more effective then, albeit harder to will-power yourself into mastering?

pegasus•3 days ago

Possibly yes when it comes to air pressure, but the learning curve will be steeper. But not when it comes to the generated vibrations, and my bet is the latter are more important.

scrumbledober•3 days ago

the study was conducted using a didgeridoo but the circular breathing seems to be the important mechanism. No studies have been conducted on other instruments that require or benefit from it.

jojobas•3 days ago

I doubt many of them actually figured out how to circular breathe after one lesson. Source: have been playing sax for 20 years, tried learning it many times, still no good.

marginalia_nu•3 days ago

Aulos it is then!

nubinetwork•3 days ago

Yeah I dunno if I believe this, I played trombone when I was a kid... I didn't get sleep apnea until like 10 years ago. Unless it somehow takes like 30 years to develop, it seems implausible.

elric•3 days ago

What are you saying? That you expected your childhood trombone playing would somehow protect you from sleep apnea forever? "Use it or lose it." Sleep apnea can certainly take 30 years to develop. Old age increases the chances of getting it. Menopause does too. Muscles get weaker.

y-curious•3 days ago

n=25, self report AND only players with partners. I think there’s merit to using muscular musculature to improve your sleep apnea but this doesn’t answer the question of why playing the instrument wasn’t preventative in the first place.

mariusor•3 days ago

Because anatomy not consistently used declines in fitness?

masfuerte•3 days ago

And unused muscles start to significantly decline in your mid-forties. Maybe thirty years after playing trombone as a kid.

lazyasciiart•3 days ago

Because they didn’t play until the study began? The population was people who had signed up to learn how to play.

Ngraph•3 days ago

CPAP user here, and "have you tried taking up the didgeridoo" is comfortably the best sentence I've ever read in a medical journal. The mask works fine — it's just that I go to bed every night looking like a minor Star Wars character, so I'm very open to alternatives. And from the other comments, the didgeridoo sounds like the boring tongue exercises in a trenchcoat: same throat muscles, except you might actually keep doing it. Which is the entire problem with the tongue exercises. Study was moderate apnea so I'm keeping the machine. But I am absolutely buying a didgeridoo and becoming insufferable about it. My household has been notified.

ElijahLynn•3 days ago

There is another active study with a device called the DidgeriTU. Which is a mouth breathing appliance that you blow in. But fits in the palm of your hand. I'm interested to see the results of that one!

damnitbuilds•3 days ago

I played with my didgeridoo 3 times a day for ten years and it cured my snoring. But I went blind.

dhon_•2 days ago

What did-ger-eyes-doo?

damnitbuilds•2 days ago

Looking, just looking.

nephihaha•1 day ago

What's the worst thing to say to a didgeridoo busker?

A: Do you do requests?

jojobas•3 days ago

Looks like there was no placebo group? Don't know what that could be, something silly like otamatone lessons.

RobotToaster•3 days ago

A placebo didgeridoo, otherwise known as a didgeridon't

askvictor•3 days ago

RTFA? "Participants in the control group remained on the waiting list for lessons"

gblargg•3 days ago

That's not a placebo. A placebo would be learning to play some other instrument like a piano, that doesn't involve breath. I also RTFA and saw no mention of any meaningful control group. For all they know the effects would come from learning any instrument, or just going to regular classes, or...

nephihaha•3 days ago

Now I want to hear about the possible effects of ukulele playing on scoliosis.

vasco•3 days ago

> The randomisation list was concealed from the recruiting physicians and the didgeridoo instructor in an administrative office otherwise not involved in the study. We used a central telephone service, which the didgeridoo instructor used to obtain group allocation.

Oh, did you make use of the central telephone service did you? You didn't send the list by carrier pigeons?