Hey, I don't know that the diaphragm gets stiff. The hypoxia results as we are not getting enough oxygen while we sleep because our airway is blocked. The heart speeds up, we breathe more irregulary and eventually wake up to roll over, etc. This results in the excessive daytime sleepiness and all the other problems. We are not getting a restful sleep (think ways to kill brain cells), we are tired during the day at our various occupations and we are raising our risk of heart attack. May I add that this is now a recognized risk factor for heart attack and sudden cardiac death! .

I only recently started wondering how the hypoxia was affecting my brain cells. (the ones that I have left).

Although I have never woken up to my snoring, the guys at the firehouse would go into the TV room to sleep.