When you have a bad cough, how does your body stop itself from coughing when you’re sleeping?
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Coughing is a reflex and is routed through the brain: the nerves in the throat detect irritation, send a signal to a certain area of brain, which processes that signal and decides to issue another signal towards the nerves that control the muscles, initiating coughing. That decision-making can be superseded or suppressed if necessary, for example during sleep.
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How do you know you’re not coughing when you’re asleep?
it doesn’t.
For most people eventually the chemicals that cause you to sleep build up to such levels you literally can’t NOT sleep. You still cough, and will likely awaken to a coughing fit.
Many common causes of coughing (pollen allergies, pollution) drop in level at night, relieving symptoms enough to eventually allow normal sleep.
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You do cough in your sleep, you just cough softer and don’t over-cough like a lot of people do when awake
ELI5: How do you sleep when you have a bad cough?
I don’t fall asleep until I can get the cough under control and if it comes back it will wake me up.
Usually coughing is caused by post nasal drip, so if you can take a decongestant and/or tilt your head forwards so it runs out your nose instead of down your throat, the cough will stop.
My experience with covid taught me that you most definitely cough when sleeping. At its worst I couldn’t sleep longer than 10-20 minutes without waking up violently coughing.
Wait, your body just stops coughing when you need sleep? My defective body just keeps me up so I can do more coughing.
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