"Honey, are you going to sleep all weekend?"... A husband fused to the sofa is now 'suffocating' [Off the Record: The Body]

[The Financial News] 2 p.m. on Saturday. In the living room, 46-year-old Lee is, as always, lying on the sofa.
His love affair with the sofa begins right after he gets off work on Friday and lasts through the entire weekend. Watching her husband snore without moving an inch, his wife clicks her tongue and says, "He stays out late for company dinners on weekdays, and on weekends he’s practically a boarder." Lee feels wronged too. "I work myself to the bone all week and just want to rest a little on the weekend. Do I have to worry about what people think?" he fires back. But he knows the truth as well: no matter how much he sleeps, the fatigue never lifts, and his body still feels like lead.
The weekend scene for many Korean couples in their 40s and 50s looks strangely similar. The husband becomes one with the sofa, while the wife looks at him with exasperation. Yet behind that sharp gaze lies one painful truth that is often overlooked.
These husbands are not enjoying sweet rest. They are in a state of collapse after struggling to survive.


Men in their 40s and 50s who cannot seem to wake up from sleep all weekend should not simply be dismissed as lazy or physically weak. The real issue is sleep apnea, which is almost always accompanied by snoring.
According to statistics from the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA), the number of sleep apnea patients has more than tripled over the past five years, soaring to well over 150,000.
Even more troubling, 80.5% of all patients are men, and men in their 40s make up the largest share by far. It is medical evidence that many heads of households in their 40s and 50s, worn down by stress, frequent drinking sessions, and belly fat that narrows the airway, are facing the harshest form of suffocation every night on the sofa.
Obesity, frequent drinking, and aging cause the muscles around the airway to lose elasticity and sag, making it difficult to breathe during sleep.
Middle-aged men like Lee, who cannot leave the sofa on weekends, are highly likely to be suffering from a severe sleep disorder every night without realizing it, then repaying their accumulated sleep debt by collapsing on the weekend.


Specialists warn that this is not just a bad sleeping habit, but a life-threatening state of suffocation in which oxygen supply to the brain is cut off for more than 10 seconds during sleep. When breathing is blocked and the brain runs short of oxygen, the brain briefly shifts into an awakened state in order to survive.
From the outside, it may look like the husband is sleeping soundly for eight hours. In reality, his brain and heart were fighting desperately all night just to keep him breathing.
The sympathetic nervous system stays hyperactive all night, and the body remains in a state of extreme tension, as if it had run a marathon. No matter how much he sleeps, he never feels refreshed. So when daytime or the weekend comes, it is only natural for his head to feel foggy and for him to collapse onto the sofa.


Even more shocking is the secondary damage caused by this chronic lack of oxygen. Blood vessels strained by oxygen deprivation all night are damaged, and blood pressure surges.
That is why sleep apnea is considered one of the leading causes of sudden death during sleep, including heart attacks and strokes. Worse still, the failure to enter deep sleep causes testosterone secretion to plummet, quietly eroding middle-aged men’s vitality and sexual function.
Nevertheless, many middle-aged men dismiss it as nothing more than "snoring because I’m tired."
This coming weekend, loud snoring will once again echo across countless living room sofas nationwide. Amid the cold stares and sighs of their families, the sad sleep of men in their 40s and 50s will continue, as they collapse without even realizing that their breathing is being squeezed shut.
jsi@fnnews.com Jeon Sang-il Reporter