Is my snoring bothering you?
Sleep is essential for our wellbeing, and a few nights of interrupted sleep can leave you with frayed nerves and short tempers. Not a very good ingredient for happy relationships! Yet it is really nice to be able to sleep next to the one you love and cuddle up on an autumn night. Separate bedrooms is not very romantic is it?
What causes Snoring?
The sound of snoring is generated when air does not flow smoothly through the air passages. If the area of the pharynx, or throat has become soft and lost its muscular tone, these tissues may vibrate as the air passes through. These tissues tend to relax as you fall into a deep sleep, causing the throat to sag. The sagging tissues narrow your airway, which then flutters or vibrates as the air passes through. The narrower this passage becomes, the more the vibration increases and the louder your snoring!
45% of the population snores at certain times, with 25% being habitual snorers. There are numerous reasons that can cause snoring.
• Age can be a factor, as this generally leads to weaker throat muscles, more prone to sagging
• Being overweight leads to the throat being less firm and more likely to vibrate
• A low or thick set soft palate or enlarged tonsils or adenoids can cause a narrowing of the airway
• If the uvula (the triangular piece of skin that points down from the soft palate) is unusually large this can interrupt the airflow
• Allergies or a crooked nose can cause nasal blockages, forcing you to breathe through your mouth, which makes snoring more likely
• Alcohol, tranquilisers or other depressant style drugs may affect the central nervous system, causing extreme relaxation of the muscles including those in the throat and pharynx
• Sleeping on your back can mean that your tongue will fall back into your throat, reducing the available airway
Overall the causes are two fold:
1. Lack of muscular tone
2. Inefficient performance of the autonomic nervous system. This is the body’s regulatory structure that helps people adapt to changes in their environment. It adjusts or modifies some functions including blood pressure, the heart’s electrical activity and the air flow through the bronchial system, as well as the work of the intestine and salivary glands, the secretion of insulin and the urinary and sexual functions.
Occasionally snoring may indicate a more serious problem called "sleep apnoea." This condition means that there are periods when you actually stop breathing, and is caused by the muscles in your soft palate, uvula, tongue and tonsils becoming too relaxed. These pauses may last for 10 seconds or longer, and this can be a very serious condition. It is a more extreme version of snoring, where the airway becomes so relaxed that it closes off completely. A partner or family member may notice that you sometimes stop breathing and alert you to this condition. If your breathing stops, cutting off the flow of oxygen to your body, this also reduces the elimination of carbon dioxide (CO2) from your blood. The brain then recognizes this rise in CO2 and wakes you up, so your breathing will suddenly restart. This process may be repeated several times during the night and is disturbing, preventing you from getting a good nights sleep. This can lead to extreme fatigue and reduced quality of life.
Sleep apnoea may also lead to more serious problems such as heart failure. This is because when the heart is deprived of oxygen it is forced to work harder than normal.
There are various treatments that can help both snoring and sleep apnoea.
The throat muscles may be toned by improving the diet and losing weight, or by exercises such as yoga which tone up the throat area. The functioning of the nervous system may be enhanced also by a good balance of supplementation and by meditation and stress reduction techniques.
One method found to have benefits for snoring and sleep apnoea is Sound Therapy, a portable home based listening program developed by Rafaele Joudry, which not only strengthens the musculature in the throat area by activating the ear muscles, but also directly stimulates the nervous system through its action on many of the cranial nerves. Another, simple mechanical method that can be used to treat the symptoms is a mouth guard, which holds open the breathing passages. Those with a more serious condition may have to use a breathing machine. To avoid reaching this stage, snorers may benefit from trying some of the preventative measures mentioned above.
For more information on Sound Therapy phone 1300 55 77 96 or visit www.soundtherapyinternational.com
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