Home > Snoring Articles > How Medications And Alcohol Effect Snoring

How Medications And Alcohol Effect Snoring

Alcohol is the lifestyle drug of the ages. For millennia, people have enjoyed its mind altering effects at the end of a hard day’s work – sake in Japan, palm wine in Zimbabwe, Vodka in Russia, Wine in France and the ubiquitous gin and ale in England.

It’s a pleasure with a dark side, of course, as thousands of studies over the last century (and common sense before that) revealed. Quite aside from its negative effects on the interlinked cardiovascular and neurological systems, its correlation with the increased risk of a variety of cancers, and its negative effects on mental health, Alcohol has also been more recently associated with increased incidences of snoring and sleep disordered breathing.

Snoring has been linked to a gamut of causes, but perhaps most common among them is poor tone in the soft tissues of the palate, as well as in the muscles of the throat. When the afflicted individual falls asleep, their throat collapses, making it very difficult for air to make the passage in and out of their lungs.

Unfortunately, the pleasant effects of alcohol – that relaxed feeling that comes over you after a few drinks – is also responsible for causing this problem in otherwise healthy individuals, and exacerbating it in sufferers. Aside from further relaxing the muscles of the oropharynx (at the back of the throat), it’s also known for the effect of creating congestion in the nasal passages, further obstructing breathing.

A UK study compared the effects of alcohol on men with and without histories of snoring. The study found that while the men were awake there was little indication of increased respiratory resistance, perhaps providing an explanation as to why most people would never guess that they have the problem. During sleep, however, both the snoring men and those who normally didn’t snore exhibited twice as much respiratory resistance.

Snoring has been conclusively linked to increased risk of sleep deprivation and hypoxemia, a condition of blood oxygen deprivation that brings about daytime fatigue and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The vibration that it causes in the carotid artery has also been linked to the most disturbing of snoring effects – the forming of atherosclerotic plaques, which cause stroke.

This is also the case for drugs that cause deep relaxation. Tranquilizers and sleeping pills, intended to give you a better night’s sleep, may ironically wind up keeping your partner awake. According to doctors, the sedatives’ effects, of relaxing the tissues around neck and head, may cause or aggravate snoring. Even antihistamines, often used in medications designed to reduce swelling and occlusion of the nasal passages, can do it.

The best solution is to avoid abuse of alcohol and other depressants – reducing or eliminating their use would be the ideal tactic. Alternatively, avoiding them for four to six hours before bed could help fend off the worst of the effects. If you simply must drink into the wee hours, try to drink beverages with low alcohol content. This might be the one occasion where switching from wine to beer is the healthy choice. Alternatively, eating while you drink helps reduce your level of intoxication.

When it comes to drugs, not all of them are bad. Some antidepressants have been shown to reduce the incidence of snoring. While they have the unfortunate side effect of inhibiting really deep, rejuvenatory sleep, this can sometimes be a worthwhile tradeoff in the quest to eliminate this noisy sleeping disorder.