What happens to my breathing when I sleep?

What happens to my breathing when I sleep?

Chris Idzikowski (Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre) gives expert video advice on: What happens to my brain when I sleep?; What happens to my muscles when i sleep?; What happens to my breathing when I sleep? and more...

With breathing, because one is using less oxygen, breathing rates tends to slow down. That's not necessarily true during Rapid Eye Movement dreaming sleep. During that stage the brain is again quite active and in many ways emotionally not as well controlled as it usually is, so one tends to get extremes in those behaviors that are normally automatically controlled, so breathing can become shallow and irregular.