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How to Stop Snoring For Good – 5 Tips

Snoring can be a serious cause of tension in any home, but that’s not the only reason to seek help if you’re starting to sound like a Kodiak bear in the sack. Fact is, snoring can be a sign of severe underlying health problems – from neuromuscular disorders to budding obesity. In the case of obstructive sleep apnea, it can cause hypoxemia, a condition characterized by chronically low levels of blood oxygen. Hypoxemia can leave you fatigued and befuddled during your waking hours. In addition, the intense vibrations of the soft tissues of the throat can cause the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, which have been implicated as the cause of strokes.

Below are some of the most valuable tips on how to stop snoring. Most of them won’t just reduce your nighttime noises – they’ll also make for an overall improvement in your physical well-being.

1. Quit Smoking.
   Dropping the cancer sticks is perhaps the most obvious anti-snoring tip out there, and if you’re a smoker you should hardly wonder at having problems of the lungs and respiratory tract. Smoking weakens the tissues of the throat, diminishing their elasticity even as it reduces lung capacity, making it even harder to breathe past obstructions. Stop now and you might stop snoring. Keep on, and you’re a shoe-in for heart disease, lung cancer, and premature aging.
2. Stop or reduce late night drinking.
   There’s been a recent trend in health circles towards talking about the redeeming effects of alcohol – how red wine’s high levels of the antioxidant resveratrol make it a protectant against cancer and cardiovascular disease. While these results are actually of some dispute in the scientific community, one thing isn’t – that alcohol greatly increases snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. Indeed, it has been found that half a bottle of wine or a few shots of vodka increases symptoms by over 200%, often inducing episodes of snoring in people that don’t typically snore at all. The reason behind this is that alcohol serves as a muscle relaxant (that’s why it’s so good for de-stressing after a long day). Unfortunately, when you’re lying flat and unconscious, the relaxation of the muscles of your throat can cause them to collapse in on themselves, reducing their ability to channel air. If you’re a heavy drinker, the ideal tack to stop snoring would be to cease drinking. Failing this, try to decrease your intake of alcohol by swapping beverages. Beer, for instance, will have far less of an intoxicating effect than wine. Try Guinness – it’s relatively high in fiber and low in calories, making it less of a risk weight and cholesterol-wise. Also, try to avoid drink for the three hours before you go to bed. This will give your body time to process the liquid, ensuring that you’re not subject to its muscle-relaxing properties when you doze off.
3. Lay off the fast food.
   Deposits of fat in your neck and chest can be a cause of snoring, as they press down on the throat, narrowing the airways and forcing soft tissues into contact, bringing about the air turbulence and vibration of snoring. Of course, the desire to stop snoring should hardly be your biggest motivator when it comes to weight loss. Being overweight increases your risk of virtually every kind of chronic disease. Shed the pounds, or snoring will be the least of your worries.
4. Change your position.
   This is arguably the first thing you should try to stop snoring, as it doesn’t constitute the life-changing turnaround that points 1 through 3 do. Sleeping on your back puts increased levels of gravitational pressure on your throat, which, if your throat muscles are weak, can result in snoring. Try sleeping on your side. In the event that you just can’t get your head position right, you might want to try sleeping with an anti-snoring pillow. Check out blackstonepillow.com for an affordable model.
5. Suit up.
   If nothing else works, it’s time to go looking after more effective anti-snoring paraphernalia. Devices that promise to stop snoring range from uncomfortable mandibular advancement splints to expensive CPAP machines that regulate the pressure of the air flowing through your nose and throat. One more recent option is vastly less invasive and has a very high level of success when it comes to stopping snoring and treating other symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea. The premise of the chin strap is incredibly simple. For most people, just keeping the mouth closed during sleep will be sufficient to help the throat maintain a proper, open position, preventing or diminishing the occlusion of airways that leads to snoring and poor sleep. The jaw support provided by a chin strap ensures that the mouth remains shut. Visit mysnoringsolution.com for details of the original product.

If none of these methods help you stop snoring, odds are you should visit a sleep clinic and stay for overnight observation (called a ‘sleep study’) to determine the nature of your disorder, and whether you’re a candidate for corrective surgery.