How to Stop Snoring

Snoring can be caused by a number of factors:

- Overeating and/or lack of exercise - A build up of fat around the neck can cause the airway to be impaired during sleeping.
- Alcohol and sleeping pills - Alcohol and sleeping pills cause the muscles to relax more than usual during sleeping causing the oropharynx to collapse more readily causing snoring.
- Smoking - Causes irritation of the lining of the nasal cavity causing swelling and catarrh. This impairs breathing during sleeping.
- Sleeping position - While sleeping on your back, your tongue, your chin and any excess fatty tissue under your chin will probably relax back and squash your airway. Sleeping on your side prevents this.
- Allergies - Causes congestion in the nasal airway leading to sleep disordered breathing and snoring.
- Mouth breathing - Sleeping with your mouth open causes the inhaled air to hit the back of the throat 'head on' and can create enormous vibrations in the soft tissue.
- Tongue base snoring - If you are a 'tongue base snorer', this means that your tongue is dropping to the back of your throat causing an obstruction. This will prevent you from breathing properly and very often your bed partner will notice 'pauses' in your breathing. This is due to the tongue blocking the airway, preventing the air from passing into your lungs. In trying to get past the obstruction the air vibrates the tongue or the throat tissues, causing snoring.

There are various remedies available to help with snoring:

Nasal Dilators - these are plastic or metal strips that hold open your nostrils to help you breathe through your nose.
Nasal Strips - used to ease congestion.
Chin Strips - used to hold the mouth closed to encourage breathing through the nose.
Snore Guards - which block breathing through the mouth to encourage breathing through the nose.
Medication - there are various medications available to relieve snoring. Caffeine is often the active ingredient, which ironically may impair sleep.

Another approach is hypnotherapy to stop snoring. The premise behind this approach is that people can be taught to breathe differently when they are asleep. Essentially the person needs to stop breathing their mouth and instead breathe through the nose, so the purpose of the hypnotherapy is re-train the body into breathing this way and therefore curing the snoring. The hypnotherapy may be administered by a trained hypnotherapist or can be self-administered. Hypnotherapy can also help the partners of snorers by training them to ignore the noise of snoring.