Are you irritated by your partner's snoring sounds? Or you yourself are a victim of snoring and want to get rid of it. Snoring is common, and around half of all people snore regularly.
Snoring does not affect the health of a person, but it definitely irritates and disturbs the sleep of others. If you snore, it can ruin your good night's sleep. Do not worry. You can obviously stop your snoring by following the methods discussed in this article.
This article has plenty of information for the people who complain about snoring. Let's explore some scientifically proven ways “how to stop snoring” so you and your partner have a sleep full of sweet dreams!
What Is Snoring?
Snoring is a sound that you make during your deep sleep. This noise is produced when your body is not freely passing the air that is moving over the tissues through the mouth and nose. The air gets distracted in some way, which makes you snore.
The irritated sound of snores is the vibrations of the soft palate and tissue in your mouth, nose, or throat, which makes particles in the air create sound waves.
In other words, the natural process of breathing includes the passage of air through the nose, but if the nose is blocked, we breathe from the mouth. Breathing from a partially blocked nose creates vibrations when air passes the nasal passage, producing snoring.
Sometimes, the snoring can be linked to sleep-related disorders such as Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) when it is too loud. However, there are also certain factors that can cause snoring habits. Being aware of these can help to stop snoring.
What Causes Snoring?
Different people snore for different reasons. To know how to stop snoring, it is important to know its causes. The causes of snoring include:
- Blocked Airways: The blockage of airways can be due to allergies or colds, a shifted septum, or enlarged tonsils, which block the air from passing through the nose or throat and increase the tissue vibration, making you snore.
- Overweight: One of the main reasons for snoring is being overweight. Being overweight increases obesity and makes the neck and throat surrounding tissues fatty, contributing to snoring by putting pressure on the throat muscles.
- Sleeping Position: Another cause of snoring is your sleeping position. Sleeping on your back can collapse the airway, called sleep apnea, and shift the tissues into the throat, making you snore.
- Alcohol and Smoking: Another reason for snoring is drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Drinking alcohol relaxes the muscles of the throat, which blocks your airway from passing air. Also, smoking leads to throat inflammation, causing nasal congestion and airway obstruction.
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea: OSA is a common and severe sleeping disorder caused by the collapse of the upper airway in which a person takes long pauses between breaths of around 20 to 30 seconds, interrupting breathing. OSA can lead to heart attack, high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias.
- Nasal Polyps and Sinus: Nasal polyps block your nose and make it stuffy or deviate from the septum due to substantial growths or clusters, which makes you breathe through the mouth, leading to snoring. Similarly, sinusitis can leave your nose congested and prevent you from breathing through the nose.
- Hypothyroidism: It is a health condition when your thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone, which can cause symptoms such as snoring, puffy face, fatigue, depression, slow speech, and slow heart rate.
13 Ways To Stop Snoring
After knowing the causes of snoring now, let's discover some scientific methods on how to stop snoring to maintain your healthy sleep.
Method 1: Maintain Healthy Weight
Maintaining a healthy weight is important and is a win-win condition for solving many health problems, including sleep apnea. If you own extra pounds, losing weight is crucial, especially if you have a double chin.
The extra weight near your throat can block the passage of air, nostrils, or nasal passages and cause you to breathe from your mouth instead of the nose. Extra-weight can also lead to obesity. You can add cardio exercises to your routine to lose weight, eat a balanced and nutritious diet, avoid carbs and sugars, and drink enough water.
Method 2: Cut Off Alcohol and Smoking
Sometimes, our lifestyle habits can lead to snoring, such as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Drinking alcohol before bed can decrease oxygen saturation (LSAT) and increase the chance of snoring. Alcohol relaxes your body's muscles, including throat muscles. Along with the throat muscles, epiglottis is also affected by alcohol. Nasal passages become swollen, which restricts airflow.
Similarly, smoking also increases the chance of snoring by inflaming the tissues (or mucosa) and causing swelling and narrowing of the nasal airway, causing airway congestion. So, try to limit your alcohol or smoking habits.
Method 3: Change the Sleeping Position
Another solution is to change your sleeping position. Sleeping in the supine position or at your back is the most common that leads to snoring because gravity pulls your lower jaw, tongue, and uvula down, blocking your airways.
You can try the lateral position, or sleeping on your side can decrease the chance of snoring. Turning your head to the side has a lesser tendency of snoring than turning your head straight. So, try to avoid this sleeping position and start sleeping on your side to keep your airways open.
Method 4: Use a Nasal Strip or Dilator
These two anti-snoring devices are effective in controlling your night snoring. Nasal strips are flexible, which help keep your nose open all night by lifting the nose sides and widening your nasal passage so you can breathe through the nose and sleep without snoring.
Similarly, dilators can provide stronger relief from nasal congestion due to colds, allergies, or a deviated septum, improve airflow, and reduce the chance of snoring.
Method 5: Anti-Snoring Mouthpiece
Mouthpieces are helpful devices for people who sleep at their back and snore to keep their tongue or jaw in position by pushing their lower jaw a little forward so their tongue does not block the airflow passage. There are two types of mouthpiece devices- mandibular advancement device (MAD) and tongue-retaining device (TRD).
MADs move your lower jaw forward, while TRDs hold the tongue in position and help people decrease the chance of snoring.
Method 6: Try Mouth Exercises
The next step is to try some mouth exercises, which greatly help reduce your snoring. This method can be used with other methods, and to see the results, you need to perform these exercises daily. Some mouth exercises you can include:
- Tongue slide
- Tongue push up and push down
- Tongue aerobics
- Tongue stretch
Regular mouth exercises, clinically called oropharyngeal exercises, strengthen and tone tongue, throat, and palate muscles, effectively reducing snoring. You can perform all or some of these exercises twice to thrice daily from 8 to 30 minutes.
Method 7: Use a CPAP Machine
A CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine commonly treats obstructive and OSA or sleep apnea. This device is used while sleeping as a face mask over your nose and tubing connected to a machine.
There are different types of CPAS machines, including:
- Bi-level PAP.
- Auto CPAP.
- Adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV)
A CPAP machine works in a way that first collects the room air, filters it, and then delivers pressurized air through your nose and mouth to keep your airway open so you can sleep well. So, to improve and stabilize your breathing quality, you can try the CPAS machine.
Method 8: UPPP Surgery
UPPP (uvulopharyngopalatoplasty) is done through traditional surgical techniques or laser-assisted (LAUP) and is recommended only in case of severe snoring when less invasive treatments do not help. UPPP is the process of removing extra tissues (uvula, tonsils, and some of your soft palate) from your throat to make more space for airway passage, hence reducing snoring and sleep apnea.
UPPP widens the airway by removing certain tissues in the throat, including:
- Uvula: UPPP removes some part of the uvula, a piece of tissue hanging from the roof of the mouth back of the throat. If you have a long uvula, it vibrates while you sleep and makes you snore.
- Soft palate: UPPP removes some of your soft palate, a soft flesh at the back of the roof of your mouth, to widen the airway behind the soft palate.
- Tonsils: Next, UPPP removes the tonsils on both sides of your throat and the adenoids at the top if swelling frequently. Large tonsils make the passage of air difficult.
Method 9: Drink More Water
We all know that drinking enough water can help you maintain overall health. But do you know it is also a solution to how to stop snoring? Dehydration causes thickened mucus in the mouth and throat, making it harder to breathe, which causes you to snore.
Dehydration can also lead to headaches, depression, or weight problems. Also, we lose about 1 liter of water while sleeping, which can cause the surfaces inside those areas to stick together, causing blockage. So before sleeping, drink plenty of water to reduce the chances of snoring.
Method 10: Change Your Pillows
Did you know allergens in your bedroom and your pillow may increase the chance of snoring? So, it's time to replace your pillow because it accumulates tiny dust mites over time, causing bedroom allergies that can congest your nasal passages. When your airway is blocked, it can worsen snoring.
So, change your pillow covers every week and replace your pillow every six months to keep dust mites and allergens to a minimum. Also, if you have pets in your house, and they sleep on the same bed, it can also create bedroom allergies. So, to prevent animal dander, keep them out of the room and take a hot shower at night to avoid allergens.
Method 11: Improve Your Sleep Hygiene
People with bad sleep habits have a higher tendency to snore. So, reconsidering your sleep hygiene and maintaining a proper sleep timetable is essential. According to research, revamping your bedtime routine by getting enough sleep can decrease the chances of snoring.
Proper sleep contributes to overall health. To improve your sleep hygiene, consider the following tips:
- Get at least seven hours of sleep at night.
- Limit your daytime naps.
- Disconnect devices in the hour before bed.
Try these tips to see some positive effects on your sleep. It will also impact your snoring habit.
Method 12: Use Chin Straps
Chin straps are anti-snoring devices placed on the chin to hold your mouth to stop snoring. It is made of a flexible fabric designed to hold the chin up with adjustable straps over your head.
This device effectively keeps your mouth closed during sleep, preventing snoring by realigning the jaw so as to pass the air. They are affordable and could eliminate the need for more expensive and complicated treatments. Using a chin strap with airway pressure therapy can be beneficial to lower the risk of OSA.
Method 13: Medicines for Snoring
The next option is to consider some medicines to stop your snoring. However, no specific medicine is available for snoring, but to clear your nasal passage or congestion in your nose, you can consider decongestants and nasal corticosteroid sprays.
- Steroid Nasal Sprays or Antihistamine Tablets: If your nasal passage is blocked due to some allergy, like home dust or hay fever, they effectively control your snoring. They help to reduce your nose inflammation. You can consider antihistamine tablets like azelastine or olopatadine and steroid nasal sprays like Flonase or Nasacort.
- Decongestant Nasal Spray or Tablets: These tablets cure the congestion of the nose caused by the expansion of blood vessels. This medicine helps prevent extra mucus from blocking your nose by narrowing these blood vessels to widen your nasal passages. Decongestant tablets include allegra, claritin, or zyrtec.
Conclusion
Snoring is something one can not rule over. It is a common condition faced by most people. A wide range of factors can cause you to snore, such as being overweight, age, lifestyle habits, sleeping position, and much more.
Thankfully, there are various solutions to prevent snoring, including changing your lifestyle, such as quitting smoking, avoiding drinking alcohol before bed instead of drinking enough water, or changing your sleeping position. From the above article, you now have many solutions for how to stop snoring. Try them out; one will definitely work for you, and you'll be on your way to better sleep.
FAQs
1. Why do I snore so loud every night?
Ans: Many factors make you produce noisy snoring, such as alcohol consumption, allergies, your excess weight, or the anatomy of your mouth and sinuses.
2. Are there any home remedies for snoring?
Ans: Snoring can be prevented using some home remedies like sleeping on your side, using nasal strips, or avoiding alcohol before bed.
3. What foods stop snoring?
Ans: Try the foods below to stop snoring:
- Honey.
- Fish.
- Olive Oil.
- Tea.
- Soy milk.
4. What can I drink before bed to stop snoring?
Ans: To prevent snoring, add a teaspoon of honey in hot water or ginger tea. Drink enough water before sleeping and avoid dairy products.
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