Home Remedies for Snoring

The nearest most people come to murdering their partners or spouses is when they are woken yet again by stentorian snoring from the adjoining pillow. Snoring is no laughing matter; it can wreck relationships, disrupt families and indeed be harmful to health. A heavy snorer suffers from chronic exhaustion and is more prone to heart ailments.

Snoring occurs when the tissues at the back of the throat, in sleep, collapse inwards, so that inspired air has to pass through a very narrow aperture — producing the characteristic grunting sounds. In its most severe form the narrowing at the back of the throat can be so extreme that breathing may stop altogether—a condition known as obstructive sleep apnoea or OSA. A person with OSA is, as it were, suffering from self-strangulation — the oxygen concentration in the blood falls to a point where the breathing centre in the brain is stimulated to make another voluntary intake of breath.

Those with OSA get insufficient restful sleep — they wake with a headache in the morning, are sleepy during the day and fall asleep at the slightest opportunity, whether at work, in church or while driving a car and sometimes in the middle of a meal.

Heavy snoring is thus a potentially serious condition which needs proper medical evaluation, but there are several simple remedies, each working in a different way, that can alleviate or abolish snoring, thus obviating the need for more drastic remedies.

Cut down on alcohol: There is no harm in a couple of glasses of wine in the evening and even a night-cap, but serious drinking in the evening is a major contributory factor to snoring for two reasons: a lot of alcohol in the bloodstream at night reduces the body's movements when asleep while simultaneously suppressing the breathing centre in the brain. Thus the typical position of the hard drinking heavy snorer is of a person flat on his back emitting intermittent snoring grunts.

Lose weight: This is, of course, easier said than done but reducing the amount of body fat all over will also reduce the quantity of tissues at the back of the throat and thus there is less to collapse inwards to obstruct the inflow of breath.

Steam: Nasal stuffiness is a potent cause of snoring by preventing breathing through the nose, forcing all the air that is inhaled and exhaled through the mouth. Hence those with a cold or hay fever tend to be heavy snorers, and it is only sensible to clear and open up the nasal passages at night by placing hot water in a flat pan, throwing a towel over the head and breathing in and out for ten minutes.

Marbles: Dr George McGeary from Oregon describes this interesting snoring cure. 'It was suggested by my mother who sewed a small glass marble into the pyjama top between the shoulder blades under a scrap of cloth. When the snorer rolls on his or her back, he immediately rolls back on his side usually without waking and resumes sleep without snoring. Once a marble is sewn into the pyjamas it can be forgotten about — as they go through the wash without problems.’

Dr Fritz Shmerl, a physician from California, has suggested a variant on this theme. 'I advise the use of half a soft sponge rubber ball six centimetres in diameter. Such a ball is available in any toy shop. Its hemisphere is detached and fastened to the mid part of the back of the pyjama top. I use friction material such as Velcro that when glued to the flat disc of the half ball clings firmly to the pyjamas fitted with a complementary piece.’

Cottonwool: The alternative to treating the snorer is to treat the partner. When the ears are plugged with cottonwool at night, the sounds of snoring become much fainter and sleep is no longer disturbed.