Snoring Stressors and Solutions

It’s no fun sharing your bed with a serious snorer. As he snorts and gurgles away, and the very walls seem to vibrate, you lie there with an ever-increasing tension and resentment building up in you. What are the snoring stressors and solutions?

It’s just so unfair; night after night you are not getting the sleep you need and it’s beginning to have an effect on your intimate relationship with your partner. This is worse than ‘having a headache’; this is literally not having the energy.

If you are the victim of a snoring scenario such as this, you are not alone. A substantial number of couples are in the same predicament and about 10% of these couples have even decided to separate. According to a study done by the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association, more than 50% of participating couples said that sex had taken a back seat in their lives due to snoring.

Do not forget that often the snorer is missing out on quality sleep and a quality of life as well. Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a condition (that occurs in some heavy snorers) in which the flow of air pauses or decreases during breathing while you are asleep because the airway has become narrowed, blocked, or floppy. In people with OSA, the snoring is interrupted by silent periods of no breathing. The person will awake tired and feel sleepy throughout the day and may in the long term suffer from health related illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Further to this some heavy snorers suffer from a reduction in sex drive and over half of them have erectile dysfunction.

Obviously something has to be done, but what? Many of the anti-snoring devices and remedies on the market are ineffective and the option of sleeping in different bedrooms is not ideal for maintaining intimacy in a relationship and neither is the practice of the one partner going to bed before the snorer so as to fall asleep before the chainsaw starts.

Try the following to ease the problem:

1. Lose weight if necessary. There is a connection between obesity and snoring.
2. Avoid alcohol four hours prior to going to sleep.
3. Tilt your bed up by about 10 cm and use a soft, low pillow.
4. Sew a ping pong ball into the back of your pyjamas to stop you sleeping on your back, the position most conducive to snoring.
5. Stop smoking!
6. Get a check-up for allergies. A possible problem may be  airway  inflammation, which is often diet-related. While sugar is not an allergen it’s pro-inflammatory and incredibly pervasive, so cutting sugar out of the diet often impacts on snoring.
7. Natural remedies may be very effective as they support the body to deal with allergic and inflammatory issues.
8. Manual therapies such as osteopathy or craniosacral may solve snoring issues.
9. A digestive dysfunction could also be causing the problem. Digestion is a finely orchestrated process, and when one thing goes out of whack it can affect everything else. Problems in the gut can cause chronic inflammation or increased mucus, which can lead to snoring.
10. Mandibular devices (special mouthpieces) have been designed to move the lower jaw forward, keeping the airway open and unobstructed. Make sure to get reliable ones.
11. If your husband has a history of prolonged antibiotic use, I would recommend probiotics as well as a change in diet.
12. Some wonderful products available include sprays that can be sprayed either in the nasal passages or in the throat. These work by coating the back of the throat to reduce the vibrations there that cause snoring.

Snoring is not a light matter and needs to be taken seriously. We hope you find the solutions helpful, and please let us know if they work for you!