Snoring happens when you can’t move air freely through your nose and throat during sleep. This makes the surrounding tissues vibrate, which produces the familiar snoring sound. It is believed that people who snore often have too much throat and nasal tissue that is more prone to vibrate. If you monitor your snoring for patterns it will help you pinpoint the reasons why you snore, what makes it worse, and how to go about stopping it. If you regularly snore at night it can disrupt the quality of your sleep leading to daytime sleepiness, moodiness, high blood pressure, and increased health problems.
Below are a few tips to prevent snoring so that you can have undisturbed sleep and can get rid of unwanted health problems as mentioned above.
How Can I Block Out Snoring?
1. Use nasal strips or a nasal dilator
Place the stick-on nasal strips on the bridge of your nose as it helps to increase the space in the nasal passage making your breathing more effective and further reducing your snoring. An external nasal dilator can also be tried, which is a stiffened adhesive strip that’s applied on top of the nose across the nostrils. These strips help to decrease the airflow resistance, making it easier to breathe.
2. Limit or avoid alcohol before bed
Avoid the consumption of alcohol for at least 3 hours leading up to your bedtime. Alcohol tends to relax the throat muscles, causing snoring. Alcohol also disrupts your sleep in other ways. Alcohol consumption is associated with shorter amounts of REM. REM sleep is important partly because memory formation and dreaming occur during this stage.
3. Avoid taking sedatives before bed
If you take sedatives, you need to talk with your doctor to look out for other options. If you stop using sedatives before bed, it will ease your snoring. Like alcohol, sedatives also cause muscles such as throat muscles to relax which leads you to snore while sleeping.
4. Use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for OSA
The CPAP machine is the standard treatment for OSA. You need to wear a pressurized air mask over your nose, mouth, or both when you sleep. This helps to keep your airways open.
There are many different types of masks available, which also include the ones that are more comfortable for people with glasses or who breathe through their mouths during sleep.
5. Maintain a moderate weight
In case you are overweight, weight loss will reduce the amount of tissue in the throat since excess tissues cause your snoring. You can reduce your overall caloric intake by eating smaller portions and more nutrient-rich foods, this will help you to lose weight.
6. Raise the head of your bed
You can try elevating the head of your bed by a few inches as it helps to reduce snoring by keeping your airways open. You can try using products such as bed risers or pillows to get a little extra height.
7. Sleep on your side
If you sleep on your back you need to know that it causes your tongue to move to the back of your throat, which partly blocks airflow through your throat. But sleeping on your side allows the air to flow easily and it will reduce or stop your snoring.
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