What Is The Normal Blood Oxygen Level For Adults – There used to be pulse oximeters that you only saw in a doctor’s office or hospital to measure the oxygen saturation in your blood cells (they’re gizmos that clip on your index finger and provide

Apple Watch, Garmin fēnix, and Oura Ring (among others) sensing blood oxygen saturation (also called peripheral capillary oxygen saturation or SpO2) can track a long health metric list of their wearable technologies. These devices use infrared light to take frequent 24/7 blood oxygen readings, collecting data points into graphs that illustrate trends over time.

What Is The Normal Blood Oxygen Level For Adults

Why bother? As it turns out, your blood pressure levels – especially during sleep – can be an early warning system, alerting you to potential or silent health problems such as sleep apnea or chronic breathing problems that may be causing you health problems now and can shorten your health.

Free Blood Oxygen Level Chart For Elderly

Here we explore what SpO2 numbers mean, what normal oxygen levels are during sleep, and what to do if they dip.

According to one study on the Apple Watch, your wearable’s oxygen-sensing capabilities are close to rivaling a typical pulse oximeter that clips to your finger. (1).

“A blood pressure monitor’s sleep oximetry is generally accurate,” says Chris Winter, M.D., a sleep expert who hosts the Sleep Unplugged podcast with Dr. Chris Winter “Technology is not difficult.”

Sp02 tells you how saturated your blood is with oxygen. Healthy people maintain blood oxygen levels of 95 percent or higher, on average. That said, it is normal and healthy for readings to go up or down through several points, both during the day and during the night, in action, breathing, and body position.

Solved: How Do I Interpret The Blood Oxygen Variation Grap…

The first, one or the other tooth may be a low reading. Body position, hand or wrist temperature, and movement can all affect your reading, says Winter.

Another: height. Let’s say you flew from the Jersey Shore to Butte, Colorado (8900 feet above sea level). “The blood oxygen level can cause it to drop below 95 in a few days and become accustomed to it,” says Winter (2).

With these caveats out of the way, let’s get into three red-hot conditions—and what it means for your health if your pain levels dip below normal while you sleep.

Situation #1: Your average normal pain level during sleep is usually above 95+, but recently it has been trending downward.

Daily Health Checks

If you have a nightcap, it can show in your readings. In one study, participants who had a nightcap 30 minutes before bed experienced worsening sleep apnea symptoms (3).

“Alcohol before bed can trigger breathing irregularities, which can result in a decline in blood oxygen levels,” says Winter.

Another possibility: You have an upper respiratory infection. Like alcohol, a stuffy nose can make it harder to breathe at night. Pneumonia can also lower blood levels ( 4 ).

“If your respiratory rate exceeds 23 breaths per minute, seek medical attention,” says Winter.

Should You Really Have A Pulse Oximeter At Home? > News > Yale Medicine

You may have a lung problem, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, says Winter. Be sure to mention something about your doctor.

If your device records some nighttime readings below 92 and others above 95, it may be a red flag for sleep apnea, which some sources estimate is about 34 percent of middle-aged people (5).

People with sleep apnea stop breathing for 10 seconds or more, five, 15, 25, or more per hour. The brain can feel the oxygen levels dropping and often wake up to breathe. In the morning, however, many people with sleep apnea don’t remember a restless night. Why is the pain point so useful, says Winter.

Sleep apnea is most likely if—in addition to dropping lessons—you’re also overly tired during the day, your partner won’t stop complaining about snoring, or you wake up with a headache, says Winter.

Blood Oxygen Levels: What You Need To Know

“In addition to increasing your risk of many deadly diseases, sleep apnea can also accelerate the aging of your body,” says Winter.

To help people understand why sleep apnea is so deadly, Winter wants to use the analogy of two men who set out to explore a sunken wreck. One person is equipped with a scuba tank, the other with snorkeling gear.

Some divers can swim and explore for half an hour or so. A snorkeler, however, must resurface roughly every 45 seconds to absorb more air.

People with sleep apnea wake up repeatedly, which reduces how much time they spend in deep, restful sleep. (6)

What Are Normal Oxygen Levels During Sleep?

“This sleep disruption can reduce the brain’s ability to flush toxins during sleep, increasing the risk for memory problems,” says Winter. “On top of that, when you stop breathing for 10 seconds or longer, pressure builds in your chest, raising your risk for heart problems. Ultimately, cells throughout your body are intermittently deprived of oxygen.”

All of these things make harmful alcohol, your risk for it is almost everything that can cut your life short (8).

“Sleep apnea can raise your risk for many diseases and life-threatening accidents, such as atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, stroke, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, and even car accidents due to fatigue,” says Winter.

In a study of 622 adults, for each standard deviation increase in the apnea-hypopnea index (a diagnostic tool to determine the presence and severity of sleep apnea), the cells of the people aged about 215 days (8).

How To Use Your Fitbit To Monitor Your Blood Oxygen Levels

The protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, telomeres, are heavily involved in cell division. When cells divide, telomeres shorten. Once telomeres are too short, cells cannot divide at all. No one gets through life without some telomere. (9) “Sleep apnea seems to accelerate the process,” says Winter.

The power plant of the cells, the mitochondria, can lose its effectiveness with age, starving the cells of energy and creating productions that damage the tissues. One study found that in subjects under 50 years of age, sleep apnea was associated with an increase in certain characteristics of aging, such as dysfunctional mitochondria (10).

As you Although many other treatments exist — from devices to dental surgery — CPAP machines remain the gold standard for treating sleep apnea.

Short for “continuous positive airway pressure,” CPAPs blow air into your nose and/or mouth to open your airways while you sleep. They may help you reverse some of the aforementioned accelerated aging, research suggests (11, 12).

Pulse Fingertip Oximeter Blood Oxygen Spo2 Monitor Battery Included

That said, not everyone with sleep apnea needs CPAP, says Winter, who compares mild sleep apnea (defined as fewer than 15 apneas per hour) to someone who smokes one cigarette a month.

“Of course it’s better if they don’t smoke at all,” he said, “but someone who smokes four packs a day has a much higher risk of disease than someone who has one cigarette a month.”

Apnea, he says, is similar. In fact, if you stop breathing fewer than five times per hour, sleep experts put it in the “normal” category. One exception: If you feel like hell and fall asleep while driving, a CPAP machine can be switched on, regardless of how many apneas you experience per hour, Winters says.

1. L. Zumerkorn Pipek (2021): Comparison of Sp02 and Heart Rate Values ​​in Apple Watch and Conventional Commercial Oximeter Devices in Patients with Lung Disease. 2. Rojas-Camayo, J., et al. (2018). Values ​​of relation to oxygen saturation from sea level to the highest human habitation in the Andes in acclimatised individuals. 3. Izumi, I., et al. (2005). Effects of moderate alcohol intake on nocturnal sleep breathing parameters in healthy middle-aged men. 4. Chatterjee, N. A., et al. (2021). Admission respiratory status predicts mortality in COVID-19. 5. Yeghiazarians, Y., et al. (2021). Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Cardiovascular Disease: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. 6. Roy, B., et al. (2022). Impaired Glymphatic System Activities in Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Adults. 7. Diamond, J. A., & Ismail, H. (2021). Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Cardiovascular Disease. 8. Li, X., et al (2019). Association between sleep-disordered breathing and epigenetic age acceleration: From the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. 9. Carroll, J.E., et al. (2019). Sleep apnea, nocturnal arousal, and leukocyte telomere length: the Multi-Ethnic Atherosclerosis Study. 10. Pinilla, L., et al. (2021). Association of Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Agent Processing. 11. Cortese, R., et al. (2022). Pigenetic age-related acceleration in obstructive sleep apnea reverses with adherence to treatment. 12. R. Cortese et al (2022) DNA Methylation Clocks Reveal Epigenetic Age Acceleration in Obstructive Sleep Apnea That Is Reversible with Adherent Treatment

Blood Oxygen Levels: What Are Normal Spo2 Levels By Age?

Edge is an editorial operation of Hone Health. Hone is an online clinic that helps people optimize their hormones. As part of your prescription and as medically indicated, doctors prescribe medications and recommend supplements that are delivered to you from the comfort of your home.

Hone-affiliated physician practices are independently owned and operated by licensed physicians who provide services using the Hone telehealth platform. For more information on the relationship between Hone and medical practices, click here.

Any medical information published on this site is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any