Sleeping on your side, losing weight and surgery are alternatives to stop snoring

What causes snoring and what can I do to stop snoring?

People snore when the muscles in the tongue, roof of the mouth, and throat relax, restricting airflow.

“You can’t take a full breath, so things start vibrating to try to make your breathing easier, and the vibration makes the sound of snoring,” said Dallas-based dentist Kent Smith, who specializes in sleep dentistry and former president of American Sleep. and Breathing Academy (American sleep and breathing academy, in Portuguese).

Men are twice as likely to snore than women, and snoring can be caused by a number of factors, including allergies, aging, a cold, or even the particular shape of your throat. Body weight can also contribute to snoring.

“We have a combination of fabrics and over time, as we gain weight, they also gain weight,” Smith said. “And as we get older, the tissues are a little less toned. So they tend to clog the airways.”

Excessively dry or humid air can make snoring worse, and so can people sleeping at high altitudes. Sleeping on your back or drinking alcohol before bed tends to make snoring worse, as it relaxes the muscles even more and allows the tongue to close the throat and restrict the passage of air.

Even so, snoring by itself is not a pathology, no matter what the person who sleeps with you says. Sometimes, though, it can be a sign of sleep apnea, a potentially serious condition that causes breathing to stop and start repeatedly throughout the night, preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep apnea also raises the risk of hypertension and even cardiac arrest.

Therefore, high-volume snoring is often associated with sleep apnea, but many people who snore mildly do not have any health problems. It’s just one part of a spectrum of disordered sleep that ranges from people who snore to people who lose sleep due to snoring triggers, said Dr. Jolie Chang, an otolaryngologist at the University of California at San Francisco in the United States.

“Most people with sleep apnea snore, but just because you snore doesn’t mean you have sleep apnea,” she said.

If you’re not sure whether you snore or not, it’s easy to find out. Download a recording app like SnoreLab on your phone and leave it on while you sleep. The app will start recording when it detects noises, and the next morning you will be able to hear the sounds it made.

For Kent Smith, once you know you snore, even slightly, it might be worth taking a sleep test at a specialist clinic. Most of the time the first test can be done at home in one night and, based on the number of times per hour your snoring interrupts your sleep, will tell you if your snoring is a symptom of a bigger problem like sleep apnea.

What can you do if you snore lightly?

A light snorer may be noisy at night but still get plenty of air; snoring only interrupts your sleep occasionally. Regardless of whether your occasional snoring is linked to bigger problems, there are steps you can take to reduce your nighttime noise.

Sleep aside. About half of the snorers with sleep apnea in an Israeli study stopped snoring when they changed positions. There are pillows that help you sleep on your side and shirts that make sleeping on your back uncomfortable. DIYers can try sewing some tennis balls to the back of the shirt they wear to bed.

Strengthen your tongue. One of the most common causes of snoring is when the tongue slides back down the throat. The simplest way to prevent this from happening is to do a series of tongue exercises daily. But Chang said the exercises can take weeks to kick in and most people don’t continue to do them regularly.

There are also a number of snoring devices and solutions for sale online, most of which are completely useless. Chin bands, nose clips and bands, nostril dilators – Chang recommended caution and said these things don’t work for everyone. A humidifier can help you sleep better by humidifying your nose and throat, she added, but it probably won’t stop you from snoring.

What if you snore moderately?

If your sleep study suggests that you snore moderately — that is, that shortness of breath interrupts your sleep more than 15 times an hour — you should consult a sleep specialist, pulmonologist, or otolaryngologist. They can recommend the following:

CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). This is a device attached to your nose or your nose and mouth to increase the volume of air that passes through your throat.

Mouth guard. A mouthguard helps position the jaw a little forward so the tongue can’t slide down the throat and block it. It’s more convenient than a tube attached to your face, but it requires a skilled dentist and several visits to mold it perfectly to your teeth and jaw. Make sure your insurance company will pay for the protector and avoid cheaper pre-made protectors because they won’t work if they’re not calibrated correctly.

Weight loss. Another way for some people to reduce snoring is to lose weight. Body mass index is linked to snoring and sleep apnea, Chang said, although every throat is different. Losing weight will reduce the pressure on your windpipe, allowing more air to pass through.

What to do if you snore severely?

The chance that people who snore extremely loudly have some form of apnea is very high. If a sleep test indicates that snoring is affecting your sleep more than 30 times an hour, you could be at risk for more serious problems down the road, like heart disease and all the problems that go with insufficient sleep, like depression and anxiety. .

CPAP device. At that point, forget about the mouthguard, Smith said. “With severe levels of apnea, CPAP is a more reliable way to solve your problem,” he said. There are dozens of different shapes of CPAP machines, some of which are not too intrusive. But they all require you to sleep with something covering part of your face that is connected to a machine that gives off a gentle vibration.

Surgery. There are a number of surgical procedures involving implants or changes to the tongue or soft palate that can help a person who snores severely, but only if CPAP does not work. “If you can’t or for some reason don’t want to use CPAP,” Smith said, “surgery should be your last option. Never go straight into surgery.”

Clara Allain Translation