By Khalida Sarwari
A trip to Rome some years back turned out to be an enlightening experience for Malhar Singh, but not in the way that most people experience the Eternal City. It wasn’t on the Spanish steps or inside the Colosseum where the 18-year-old found enlightenment, but on a school bus where he spent most of his time traveling through the city–with his eyes closed and head against a window pane.
Singh, who’s now a senior at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, was there for a conference as part of an organization called the League of Creative Minds. When one perceptive teacher asked him if he was getting enough sleep, Singh assured him he was, but that he still found himself tired all the time.
The teacher recommended that he get checked out for sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts, often throughout the night, causing a disruption in sleep. Although he fought it at first–chalking it up to iron deficiency–Singh eventually caved in and sought a sleep doctor upon his return to Saratoga. He found Tony Masri, a doctor in Santa Cruz who specializes in sleep medicine. Masri diagnosed him with sleep apnea at the age of 16.
The visit kicked off a trajectory for Singh, and he began to take steps to better understand the mysteries of sleep and why he was caught in a cycle of waking up feeling groggy and sleep deprived despite logging in at least eight hours of sleep.
“I was exhausted all the time, even though I was getting enough sleep,” Singh said. “Something didn’t add up.”
It wasn’t the first time Singh had tried to investigate his condition. He recalled that when he was in the eighth grade at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, he was enrolled in an entrepreneurship elective where he was given an assignment that required him to design a product for a company that he then had to present to venture capitalists.
Because he hated waking up for school even then, for his project Singh designed a modular alarm clock intended to make waking up “an enjoyable experience.” While that clock still only exists on a conceptual level, Singh has a customer in the CEO of Fry’s, who after the presentation told him if he ever decided to make it, he wouldn’t hesitate to sell it at his store.
Following his diagnosis, Singh began working with Masri, sharing the results of his own research with him and studying other patients and their struggles with the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine. The CPAP device helps patients breathe more easily but must be attached to the face for at least four hours at night for at least 70 percent of the month.
A book by William Dement titled “The Promise of Sleep” further opened his eyes to just how serious and common a problem sleep deprivation is.
“Surprisingly enough, around 25 percent of the population has sleep apnea, but the majority of it goes undiagnosed because insurance isn’t likely to pay for sleep studies,” he said. “And also, it’s hard to tell based on the symptoms.”
While pondering the inequity in the field of sleep solutions and the lack of peer support, Singh created a website to allow others struggling with the disorder to congregate and talk about their frustrations or exchange creative solutions, for example, about how to wear the CPAP machine throughout the night.
“One issue I face when I wake up in the middle of the night is I’ve taken off my mask without realizing it,” he said. “I realized others are going through the same thing.”
As Singh came to find out, that was the least of young sleep apnea patients’ worries. Many of his peers were dealing with feelings of fear, shame and embarrassment associated with the disorder.
This past summer, Singh wrote and published a children’s book about sleep apnea that tries to address this issue. Titled “I Don’t Do Sleep Well,” the story revolves around a boy named Alfie who is diagnosed with sleep apnea, and it follows his journey to overcome the obstacles that come with the disorder until he becomes more comfortable and secure about his CPAP machine. The book is available on Amazon.
As for Singh, keeping the CPAP on consistently while he sleeps still poses a challenge, but it’s a lot more manageable now, he said.
“Pushing myself to help others is helping me as well,” he said. “I still have to use my CPAP machine, but I’m getting a lot better at it.”
And while waking up at 6 a.m. for school is still no fun, he said he doesn’t feel like he’s barely alive when he hears his alarm going off, an outcome to which he credits his improved sleeping habits.
“The way you learn to develop good sleep habits is by realizing the benefits of doing it once or twice,” he said. “Once you try it, it really makes a huge difference. [Now] I’d rather sleep better than watch an episode of something on Netflix.”
To learn more about Singh’s efforts to in the realm of sleep apnea, visit his website atapneadiscussions.com.
