There's going to be a lot of variation between people, so I'll just project my experience with this:

* Mild sleep apnea, ~15 events per hour, undiagnosed until after my severe burnout in the spring of 2019
* Breathe Right strips brought me back to life in just a day or two (no affiliation)
* Lightly taping my mouth at night with 1/4" surgical tape (or 1/2 ripped down the center) about 2" long in an X shape (to prevent stretching the philtrum) basically cured me, be sure to do this with a relaxed expression so that the mouth can be opened easily in an emergency to breathe again
* Problem was due to slippage in jaw joint causing misaligned midline, causing my jaw to fall open and tongue to fall towards throat
* Treatment with an Advanced Lightwire Functional (ALF) dental appliance fixed jaw alignment over the course of 9-18 months
* I believe that pre-2000s orthodontics and the quest to flatten faces with headgear at too young an age is largely responsible for the outbreak of sleep apnea
* Oral appliances for sleep apnea advance the jaw forward (the opposite action of headgear) and I would wager probably often would work better than CPAP
* Invisalign and other aligners (no affiliation) are supposedly working on adding clasps to keep the jaw closed during sleep, and I plan to follow up on this but have been too busy
* Sleep apnea coincided with a breakdown of the gut for me, and I developed food sensitivities to nearly everything I was eating, lingering today with dairy, grains, some legumes and nightshades
* My joint pain went away when I quit eating the foods I was sensitive to, so I wonder if sleep apnea -> food sensitivities -> autoimmune diseases like allergies and even arthritis?
* A thick neck increases the odds of getting sleep apnea, If you work out or are overweight, you probably have it (neck is the same size as biceps)
* Adding a 1-2" piece of foam under my pillow inside the pillowcase also helps by keeping the spine in a neutral alignment, since nearly all pillows are too thin for side sleepers
* I'm hoping to be able to sleep on my back after getting a nighttime appliance to hold my jaw and tongue in place
* Tongue posture exercises are key, find an Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy doctor online (they teach remotely) perhaps best to start with a local Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction (TMJ) doctor and get a referral
* Force feeding water by drinking a glass after using the restroom, upon waking and before bed helps greatly as well, perhaps by thinning the blood so the heart and lungs don't have to work so hard

After fixing the physical causes of chronic fatigue, I feel better, but still start from a place of 0 energy and motivation after a lifetime of negative reinforcement and rarely having a win. The only thing that works for me is to stop all internal monologue and observe life passing as sort of a waking meditative practice as I task and adult, to positively reinforce gratitude.

I also discovered that the anxiety from ADHD symptoms (I'm still undiagnosed but check the boxes) feels the same as quitting smoking, and the prolonged agony of it is greatly exacerbated by the increased cortisol load of sleep apnea and work stress. I think about mental health now the same way as weight training, where there is a period of stimulus, deficit, overcompensation, then long slow decline if the stimulus is continued without rest/recovery. Now I consciously monitor my cognitive load, so rather than redlining for 8 hours straight, I sprint for 20 minutes and take a short rest, which is basically the Pomodoro method. I also try to get 20 minutes of downtime in each day, ideally as meditation, and have told everyone that Saturday is my me-day for active recovery, to do inner-child work for my survival. I have started to explore other realities like the kind that come while playing music, and have begun to experience the sensation of motivation again, which feels like a blessing.