To study the clinical effect and mechanism of auricular acupoint pressing (AAP) in treating sleep apnea syndrome (SAS).Forty-five patients with SAS were randomly divided in to the AAP group (30 patients) and the control group (15 patients) to observe the changes of clinical symptoms, apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), apnea index (AI), hypopnea index (HI) and minimum blood oxygen saturation (mSaO2) in night before and after treatment by multiple channel polysomnography (PSG).Clinical symptoms were significantly alleviated in the AAP group after treatment, with improvement in various parameters monitored by PSG (P 0.05). Comparison between the two groups showed significant difference (P < 0.01).AAP is an effective treatment of SAS, it provides a facilitate, economic and safe therapy for early prevention and treatment to SAS.