Best natural way to stop snoring

According to Discovery Health It’s best to try natural alternatives that can control and even stop snoring altogether. As a person’s odds for snoring begin to increase with age — one-third of people between ages 55 and 84 snore — treating this condition early can prevent the onset of sleep apnea and potentially other health illnesses affiliated with snoring.

What is snoring anyway? Snoring is due to the lack of freely moving air through the nose and throat during sleep. When this happens, the surrounding tissues vibrate, which produces the annoying snoring sound.

People who snore often probably have more throat and nasal tissue or “floppy” tissue, also known as uvala, that’s prone to vibrate more than others. Not only that, but the position of your tongue can also get in the way of smooth breathing.

Snoring also occurs when the throat muscles are relaxed. During sleep, the tongue falls backward toward the throat, and the walls of the throat may vibrate, which causes those snoring sounds you long to get out of your bedroom.

While we all need a good night’s sleep, including the non-snoring partner, if you can’t sleep due to snoring, it can lead to some serious health problems, such as weight gain, depression, brain damage, hormonal issues, risk of heart disease and stroke, increased blood pressure, increased risk of diabetes, and accelerated aging, to name a few.

Here’s how to stop snoring naturally.
STAY WELL HYDRATED
Drink plenty of fluids. "Secretions in your nose and soft palate become stickier when you're dehydrated". This can create more snoring. According to the Institute of Medicine, healthy women should have about 11 cups of total water (from all drinks and food) a day; men require about 16 cups.

Overall, get enough sleep, sleep on your side, avoid alcohol before bedtime and take a hot shower if nasal passages are clogged. "These simple practices can make a huge difference in reducing snoring."

MAINTAIN A HEALTHY WEIGHT AND DIET
Being overweight by just a few kilograms can lead to snoring. Fatty tissue around your neck squeezes the airway and prevents air from flowing in and out freely.

The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS),     suggests losing 10 lbs., especially if you are overweight, in order to reduce snoring.

The extra weight that may linger around your neck can cause your throat to narrow when you lie down and produce snoring when you sleep.

Hence, snoring improves as you shed some weight. Losing 10 percent of your body weight can help by easing constriction of the upper airway.

GET ENOUGH HOURS OF SLEEP
People snore when they sleep but not while awake because when we sleep, the muscles in our body relax. 

This muscle relaxation allows the muscles, especially the soft palate (back of the roof of the mouth), to vibrate and produce the sounds of snoring.  Deep sleep has more muscle relaxation than light sleep, making deep sleep a time of worsening in snoring. 

While we all need deep sleep to feel well-rested, not getting enough hours of sleep pushes our body to want more deep sleep than we might have otherwise.  The result is that the snoring can be much worse. 

The general health recommendations are for people to get 7-7.5 hours of sleep per night, and this is a good rule of thumb for people who snore as well.

KEEP A SLEEP DIARY
There are plenty of factors that can contribute to snoring, and one way to pinpoint what makes your snoring better—or worse—is to look for patterns. Keep a notebook by the bed and ask your partner for help tracking when you snore more or less than usual. Then add details like what you ate (or drank) for dinner and when, what time you went to sleep, and what position you were sleeping in when the snoring started. 

KEEP YOUR NASAL PASSAGES CLEAR
Keep your nasal passages clear, so that you breathe in through your nose rather than your mouth. If an allergy is blocking your nose, try antihistamine tablets or a nasal spray.

You can also clear the nasal lining by gargling with a peppermint mouthwash to shrink the lining of your nose and throat.

This is especially effective if your snoring is a temporary condition caused by a head cold or an allergy. To mix up the herbal gargle, add one drop of peppermint oil to a glass of cold water. Gargling with moderate salt and water is also effective.

ELEVATE YOUR HEAD
Propping up the head of your mattress with small blocks can help to take pressure off your airway so that it’s easier to breathe while you sleep. Just make sure to prop up your whole upper body since lifting just your head can actually have the opposite effect.

TAKE VITAMIN C SUPPLEMENTS
The sinuses can obstruct the airways, causing the mouth to open and the uvula, the fleshy extension at the back of the soft palate that hangs above the throat, to vibrate and create the annoy of an all-night snore.

Vitamin C may help prevent this because we know it helps promote a healthy immune system. That healthy immune system can clear the sinuses.

Papaya, pineapple, which also contains sinus-fighting bromelain, broccoli and red bell pepper, to name a few, are the some of the best vitamin C foods.

TRY REGULAR THROAT AND TONGUE EXERCISES
A stronger throat and tongue may help avoid over-relaxation of the throat area. Try putting your upper and lower molars gently together.

Open your mouth, focusing on pressing your molars wide apart but not to the point of overstretching. Repeat this 10–15 times, and you will start to feel the back of your mouth opening up.

According to doctor cortes "you can chew sugar free gum because as we get older, the tissues lining the throat become flaccid, especially if we are predisposed to sleep apnea,"  She advises her patients with narrow airways to chew gum especially gum made in Turkey and Greece for 20 minutes a day, twice a day, in order to exercise the mouth, tongue, jaw and facial muscles.

According to 2015 Study " Doing mouth or tongue exercises helped reduce the frequency of snoring by 36% in patients suffering from a mild form of sleep apnea".

One workout that researchers found to be effective was pushing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth and sliding the tongue backward.

A second: Sucking the tongue upward against the roof of the mouth and pressing the entire tongue against the roof of the mouth. Mouth exercise is quite effective to reduce snoring.

             INHALE STEAM
Before you go to bed, place your head over a steam bowl, covering it with a towel to clear out and reduce swelling in your nasal passages. You can add a few drops of essential oil to open up your nostrils and relieve nasal congestion.

  USE MOUTH GUARD IF NECESSARY
You can visit your dentist or doctor to prescribe you an anti-snoring mouth guard. These mouth guards can hold your teeth together and keep your jaw muscles in place so they do not become too loose.

AVOID DAIRY PRODUCTS AND BIG MEALS LATE AT NIGHT
Drinking milk or having other dairy products can make snoring much worse because it leaves a layer of mucus in your mouth and throat. This mucous adds to the blockage of the airways.

Also, try to avoid eating a big meal just before bedtime. When your stomach is full, it can push up against your diaphragm and affect your rhythmic breathing.

CHANGE YOUR PILLOWS
Allergens in your bedroom and in your pillow may contribute to snoring. When did you last dust the overhead ceiling fan? Replace your pillows?

Dust mites accumulate in pillows and can cause allergic reactions that can lead to snoring. Allowing pets to sleep on the bed causes you to breathe in animal dander, another common irritant.

If you feel fine during the day but obstructed at night, these things may be contributing to your snoring.

Put your pillows in the air fluff cycle once every couple weeks and replace them every six months to keep dust mites and allergens to a minimum. And keep pets out of the bedroom.

Beware before spending money on special pillows designed to prevent snoring. They may work if it props up your head, which fixes nasal issues, but can cause neck pain.

THINGS TO AVOID BECAUSE THEY WORSEN SNORING
1- Smoking irritates the insides of the nose and throat, and this can worsen snoring in a couple of ways.  The most obvious is that swelling inside the nose can cause trouble breathing through the nose.  Smoking causes so many health problems, but snoring is one that should improve just a few weeks after you quit smoking.

  2- Alcohol within 3-4 hours of going to bed. Alcohol causes muscles in your body to relax, and it can worsen your snoring and also disrupt your sleep.  Alcohol in moderation is not harmful, so most people do not need to avoid alcohol completely.  For people who snore, my general recommendation is to finish drinking at least 3 hours before going to bed so that alcohol has a chance to clear out of your system.

  3- Sleeping pills. Many sleeping pills, including those that can be purchased over-the-counter, have a similar effect as alcohol.  It is always best to avoid them, if possible.  Benadryl (diphenyhydramine) often also worsens the quality of your sleep, so it is especially unhelpful.

4- Pillows that prop up your head too much to tilt it forward. A pillow that is very large or multiple pillows can tilt your head forward.  This can worsen snoring.  A soft pillow for your head is usually a good idea, but too much of a good thing can create problems.

5- Dehydration thickens the mucus in your throat and can lead to more snoring.  While you do not want to drink too much because that can force you to wake up to go to the bathroom, you also want to avoid drinking too little.  You will also want to avoid liquids that actually worsen dehydration, such as alcohol or caffeinated drinks.

Help For Partners or Married Couples and others

1. Block out the noise – the noise of snoring can disturb sleep and therefore blocking it out by using ear plugs can be helpful. Many different types exist today and the key is finding one that works best for you. If you don’t like wearing ear plugs, white noise can also be played to drown out the noise of snoring.

2. Notice the noise – when we listen to noise we tend do so with judgment such as whether it is good or bad. Snoring is typically judged as bad and therefore promotes stress and wakefulness. It can therefore be helpful to describe the sound of the noise objectively as you hear it such as “I can hear a rattle, a snort, a whisper, a wheeze” or “It starts soft and gets loud”. Describing it in this objective and non judgmental way releases you from its emotional grip and increases the chance of actually sleeping.

3. Let go of the worries – whilst loud snoring can be sleep disturbing, often it can be our reaction to the noise that keeps us awake. Thoughts such as “I know he is going to start snoring soon!” or “I’m never going to be able to sleep with this noise!” can race around our minds and keep us awake even before any noise has been produced.

Learning to notice and let go of such unhelpful thoughts when they arrive, can help us to break free from such stressful thinking patterns. To do this try pre-fixing the thoughts in your mind with “I am having the thought that…” or welcoming them when they arrive such as “Hello, snoring thoughts” and then gently returning to going back to sleep.

Choosing to mindfully notice and describe the exact sounds you hear, rather than buying into your minds judgments of the noise can also help. For example, the next time you hear snoring, aim to describe the pitch, volume, tempo, crescendo, and other objective characteristics. Overtime, responding to snoring in this way can help to lessen its negative impact on your own sleep.

4. A white-noise machine can make nights with a snorer more bearable. These electronic devices produce a consistent sound that muffles other noises.

5. Turn in well before your snoring spouse. That way, at least, you have a head start on a good night’s sleep.

WHEN TO SEE THE DOCTOR ABOUT SNORING
Loud, excessive snoring can signal sleep apnea, a potentially dangerous condition that requires treatment. Contact your doctor if you’re a loud snorer who stops breathing for short periods when you’re asleep. You should also notify the doctor if you sometimes wake up gasping for breath, if you wake up with headaches, or if you’re sleepy during the day.

Sleep apnea can reduce levels of oxygen in the blood, eventually leading to elevated blood pressure and an enlarged heart. In addition to lifestyle modifications (losing weight or changing your sleeping position), some doctors sometimes recommend a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device for nightly use. Surgery is also possible.