We all snore, more or less, but for some people, this can be an embarrassing problem. Yes, I am talking about the problem whose snores are so loud it is almost impossible to sleep beside them, or even in the adjacent room. They often become the source of embarrassing family jokes or dinner anecdotes, and many times, the reason a couple splits up.
Apart from inconveniences, in more than 75% of the cases, snoring actually means that you have obstructive sleep apnea, a condition where your sleep is actually disrupting normal breathing. It can be quite risky for your health and increases the chances of heart diseases.
In short, embarrassing or not, if you snore loudly enough to cause concern in others, you need to start looking for solutions.
Natural Techniques to Stop Snoring
The different proven natural techniques of snoring are the best ones to try. They are completely natural and doesn’t have any side effects; most of them are related to healthy lifestyle changes or changes in your sleeping conditions.
- Changes in your sleeping position
In most cases, snoring occurs because you are sleeping in the wrong position. Changing your position if you are sleeping can make you stop; sleeping on your front instead of your back can also help stop snoring. If you need help keeping your position, a full-body pillow can help you sleep on your side.
- Keep your Head Elevated
Your head needs to be elevated by a good pillow by at least four inches above the rest of your body. This helps keep your airways open and you can breathe more freely.
- Use an Humidifier
You might snore more if the air in your bedroom is humid and/or moist. Using a humidifier will clear the air and your snoring might decrease.
- Quit Smoking
If you are a smoker, this may be the reason behind your loud snoring. Smoking can block your airways and cause you to snore; if you are looking for a reason to quit, this might be the one.
- Avoid Dairy Before Bed
Anything made from dairy or soymilk before bedtime also causes you to snore. Even eating a large meal immediately before bed makes it worse.
- Avoid Drinking Alcohol Before Bed
Stop any kind of alcohol consumption right before bedtime. They relax your muscles and this can interfere with your breathing during sleep. The same logic is also true for any kind of sedatives, sleeping pills and muscle relaxants. These kind of medicines can all contribute to your snoring.
- Lose Weight
Usually, overweight people have the tendency to snore more than people with ideal weight. If your body weight is over the ideal limit, losing a few pounds may decrease your severity of snoring.
Scientific Techniques to Stop Snoring
When the natural and lifestyles don’t work, there are still some more scientific techniques that you can follow. None of these require you to have major surgeries; the scientific ways are more inclined to giving you certain treatments and implants for your nose.
- Treat your Allergies
If you have dust allergies, they might be the reason behind all your snoring. Your allergy may be responsible for the reduced airflow inside your nose because of dust, which causes snoring. Talk to your doctor for some over-the-counter drugs that can help reduce your allergic symptoms.
- Look for Structural Problems in your Nose
Snoring is possible if you have a deviated septum inside your nose. This is a birth defect where the inside walls of a person’s nose are misaligned. This might be cured with minor surgery or even medicine.
- Use Nasal Strips
Nasal strips, when placed on the bridge of the nose, can increase space between your nasal passages and help airflow in better. When you sleep, your airways will remain open and air can pass through your nose freely without any obstruction, reducing snoring.
- Use an External Nasal Dilator
Like a nasal strip, an external nasal dilator is also an adhesive strip that you can stick on the outside of your nose. This strip will stiffen on the top of your nose and keep your nostrils stiff and straight, letting air flow freely through your nose. Both the nasal strip and the nasal dilator are extremely safe and effective, and the most common treatments of snoring recommended by doctors.
- Use Palatal Implants
Palatal implants are actually injection that are injected into the soft palates of your mouth. They contain not medicine, but braided miniature strands of polyester. Once injected, these braided polyesters keep your muscles stiff and this reduces snoring significantly. Although this procedure involves an injection, it is quite safe and effective.
- Get an Oral Appliance
Instead of nasal appliances, sometimes a mouth appliance can help reduce snoring. These are dental mouthpieces that will keep your air passages open during sleep so that you can breathe freely. These devices have to be made especially for each person, on the recommendation of a doctor or a sleep consultant.
- Get a Dental Jaw-Positioner Made
Specialized dentists can make custom dental devices for you which need to fitted into your lower jaw before sleep. These jaw-positioners will keep your tongue or lower jaw slightly forward during sleep, which will keep your airways free. You can breathe freely and without any obstructions when sleeping.
- Get a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) Machine
This is something doctors recommend only when all other treatments and appliances fail to work. These machines come with a pressurized air mask that you wear over your nose when sleeping, and it can control and keep your airways open. This machine is most commonly used in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.
- Get a Laser-Assisted Uvulopalatoplasty (LAUP) Procedure
This procedure uses laser to shorten the soft tissue we have hanging at the back of our throat, i.e. the uvula; it also makes a few small cuts in the soft tissue palates of either side of the uvula. The cuts heal natural in a few days and stiffens, which prevents certain vibrations inside our mouth that are responsible for snoring.
- Have a Somnoplasty
The final solution for snoring is to get a Somnoplasty, or a Radiofrequency Tissue Ablation procedure. This is a relatively new procedure where radiologists use a series of low-intensity radio waves to shrink the extended soft palate tissues inside your nose. This will free your airways and help you sleep without snoring. Somnoplasty is fast becoming a popular procedure as it is effective without undergoing an actual surgery.
If everything else fails, there are also some completely effective Surgical Procedures that are known to be about 99% effective, including Thermal Ablation Palatoplasty (TAP) Procedure, Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP), Adenoidectomy or Tonsillectomy. But these are major surgeries that should be considered when your snoring is extremely harmful to your overall health and not just an inconvenience. There are surgeries that should be the last resort.
When the natural and lifestyles don’t work, there are still some more scientific techniques that you can follow. None of these require you to have major surgeries; the scientific ways are more inclined to giving you certain treatments and implants for your nose.
Even for all the non-surgical procedures, it is always better to consult a doctor or a sleep specialist. Apart from the changes in your lifestyle and sleeping condition that you can make yourself, every other procedure and treatment has to be recommended and confirmed by a trained and practicing physician.
Getting Help with Your Snoring Problems
If you are not too sure about surgical procedures and if these lifestyle changes don’t seem to work, there are a few exercises that you can try. This website, the Blue Heron Health News has come up with some easy exercises that you can do anywhere, anytime, and get rid of your snoring in a matter of minutes.
These are not exercises that has been mindlessly created for the mass public, effective for some and completely useless for others. If anything, subscribing to this website will require you to give extremely detailed answers regarding your snoring type, and multiple exercises will be recommended based on your problems. Each exercise is probably going to take a few minutes to try and when you can find the one(s) that helps you, your snoring can be cured in a matter of minutes.
It’s just that simple, yes! It’s all about pinpointing your particular problem regarding snoring, and you can stop your problem without any kind of medicines or surgeries.
A good night’s sleep is paramount for our physical and mental health, as well as for our overall well-being. If we can’t sleep because of our own snoring, or when it is bothering the person sleeping next to us, the best thing would be to advance the situation as soon as possible.
There are a lot of options for everyone when it comes to the treatment or control of our snoring habits, both natural and surgical. At least some of them would come in handy for you!
