If you are waking up tired, snoring, feeling sleepy during the day, or wondering whether your sleep may be affecting your health, a sleep test can be an important first step. Many sleep tests can now be completed in your own home, making evaluation more convenient and comfortable.
Traditional in-home sleep tests are often designed to look mainly for signs of obstructive sleep apnea. This is a condition in which breathing repeatedly narrows or stops during sleep. They also typically look at a single night of data. The Empower Sleep Discovery Sleep Test uses an FDA-approved sleep ring over multiple nights. This provides a broader view of your usual sleep patterns. Priority Physicians is excited to now offer this testing in our LONGEVITY PLUS program.
Why Sleep?
Sleep is not simply “downtime.” It is an essential part of physical health, mental well-being, and daily functioning. During sleep, your body and brain perform important work that supports memory, concentration, mood, immune function, hormone regulation, metabolism, and cardiovascular health.
Most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep on a regular basis, but quality matters as much as the number of hours spent in bed. A person can spend enough time in bed but still have disrupted, unrefreshing sleep.
Poor or interrupted sleep can affect how you feel during the day. It may contribute to the following:
- Daytime fatigue or sleepiness
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, or making decisions
- Mood changes, irritability, anxiety, or low mood
- Reduced energy and motivation
- Headaches or dry mouth upon waking
- Reduced work, school, or exercise performance
- Increased risk of drowsy-driving and other accidents
Over time, unhealthy sleep patterns and untreated sleep disorders can also be associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, weight concerns, and reduced quality of life.
Why Test Your Sleep?
Many sleep problems happen when you are not aware of them. For example, people with obstructive sleep apnea may briefly stop or restrict breathing many times during the night without remembering these events in the morning.
Sleep testing can help identify whether symptoms such as snoring, gasping, frequent awakening, or daytime sleepiness are related to sleep-disordered breathing. Testing provides objective information that symptoms and questionnaires alone cannot provide.
Understanding what is happening during sleep can help guide next steps. Depending on the results, this may include sleep-habit changes, treatment for sleep apnea, additional testing, or evaluation for another cause of poor sleep.
Testing is especially important because untreated sleep apnea can affect more than nighttime rest. It can interfere with attention, energy, mood, blood pressure, metabolic health, and safety during activities such as driving.
Why One Night May Not Tell the Whole Story
Sleep can vary from one night to the next. Stress, alcohol, exercise, congestion, sleep position, medications, and changes in your bedtime routine can all affect sleep quality and breathing.
A traditional home sleep test is often completed over one night. If that night is unusual for you, the results may not fully reflect your typical sleep.
The Empower Sleep Discovery Sleep Test gathers information over multiple nights. Looking at several nights can help identify patterns that may be missed during a single-night test. This can be especially helpful if your symptoms come and go or seem worse in certain sleep positions.
A More Complete Picture of Sleep
Traditional home sleep tests generally focus on breathing events, oxygen levels, heart rate, and airflow. These are important measurements when evaluating sleep apnea.
A multi-night test can help show whether breathing concerns and disrupted sleep are consistent over time. Rather than relying on one night alone, the goal is to better understand what your sleep is usually like and to support a more personalized conversation about your symptoms.
More Opportunity to Identify Breathing Concerns
Obstructive sleep apnea does not always look the same every night. It can be more noticeable when you sleep on your back, have nasal congestion, drink alcohol, or spend more time in certain stages of sleep.
Because a multi-night test captures more than one night, it may be more likely to identify recurring breathing concerns that could be missed during a single-night test. Sleep apnea severity can vary from night to night, so collecting several nights of information may help provide a clearer overall picture.
Who Should Consider Sleep Testing?
Sleep testing may be worth considering if you have one or more of the following:
- Loud, frequent, or bothersome snoring
- Pauses in breathing that someone else has noticed while you sleep
- Waking up gasping, choking, or short of breath
- Morning headaches or dry mouth
- Feeling unrefreshed after a full night in bed
- Daytime sleepiness, low energy, irritability, or trouble concentrating
- Difficulty staying awake while reading, watching television, or driving
- High blood pressure, especially if it has been difficult to control
- A history of heart rhythm problems, heart disease, stroke, or type 2 diabetes along with sleep-related symptoms
Sleep apnea can affect people of all body sizes, genders, and ages. Not everyone with sleep apnea snores loudly, and not everyone who snores has sleep apnea. Testing helps clarify what may be happening.
What Can I Expect?
You will receive your Empower sleep ring at our office. There is an app you will download to your phone that links to your sleep ring. Wear your sleep ring for 30 nights and interact with the app daily.
After you have completed your 30 days, return the ring to our office. Your study will be reviewed by the board-certified sleep physicians at Empower Sleep. Your physician at Priority will then review the official sleep study report with you along with discussing next steps to get you sleeping better. The cost for this test is $500.
The Bottom Line
The Empower Sleep Discovery Sleep Test may offer important advantages over a traditional single-night home sleep test:
- Multiple nights of data may provide a more dependable view of your typical sleep.
- Home-based testing can be more comfortable and convenient.
- A broader look at sleep patterns can support a more personalized discussion about sleep concerns.
- More opportunities to identify recurring breathing problems may reduce the chance that one unusual night defines the result.
Sleep is a core part of overall health, alongside nutrition and physical activity. If you are not waking rested, have persistent daytime sleepiness, snore, gasp, or have witnessed breathing pauses, sleep testing can be an important step toward understanding your symptoms and improving your health, energy, and quality of life.
