Ways to cut down on snoring

If there’s one thing that causes my husband and I more friction than anything else, it’s snoring.

It ruins my night’s sleep and I often get so frustrated I end up waking Paul just to tell him how annoyed I am!

This week is National Stop Snoring Week so I guess it’s high time I looked into banishing this awful bedroom problem for good.

One of the main causes of snoring is obesity, according to Marianne Davey, director of the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association.

Being overweight is definitely an issue, although Mrs Davey claims that Truncal obesity, also known as ‘beer belly’ is the worst cause.

Paul definitely has a little bit of a beer belly, so perhaps this is something we could look to tackle together? Maybe with a few evening walks during the lighter nights?

Other things to avoid if you or your partner suffers from snoring are alcohol and cigarettes, as she claims “drinking alcohol acts like a sedative causing reduced tone and relaxed muscle in the upper airway causing snoring”.

Meanwhile “cigarette smoke acts as an irritant causing the lining of the nose and throat to swell making nocturnal breathing difficult”.

This is something I definitely noticed with my dad, whenever he was stressed he smoked and the more he had the worse his snoring was – the whole house would wake up!

Aside from living a healthier lifestyle there are other treatments snorers can try, such as hypnosis or a specialist nose clip, and if Paul’s exercise boost doesn’t seem to help then I’ll definitely accompany him to the doctors to see if we can get him started on a new solution.

Have you stopped snoring? How did you do it?

Posted by Margo Hunter