An Overview on Snoring That Keeps Everyone Awake

Almost every is familiar with snoring.

If you doesn’t have the habit of snoring, then might have shared a room or bed with someone who posses the habit of snoring.

Even though snoring is often the butt of many jokes and used for comedic effect on TV and in movies, snoring can in fact be a serious medical condition.

Snoring can take a toll on the quality of you and your sleeping partner’s sleep, as well as your overall health.

Many people view snoring as a harmless nuisance, but in reality, it can indicate underlying health problems.

Snoring is not only a medical concern but also take quite a social toll. A snorer may keep their sleep partner awake, and cause their quality of sleep to decline. The snorer’s sleep partner may also worry about their partner’s health, particularly if they also suffer from sleep apnea.

Both the snorer and their sleeping partner may experience sleep deprivation and insomnia that in turn leads to irritability, daytime fatigue, restlessness, and overall lack of energy and productivity.

In serious cases, a person’s snoring may even drive their sleeping partner out of the bedroom, and into the respite of a quieter room.

Types of Snoring

Mistakenly, many people do not make difference between mild snoring and sleep apnea. Regular, mild snoring occurs when a person experiences some sort of congestion or airway obstruction, leading to loud breathing sounds during sleep.

Most of the time, snoring is a normal phenomenon that occurs when a person is experiencing congestion, enlarged adenoids or tonsils, or when a person abuses of alcohol or sedatives. Avoiding alcohol consumption, the use of sedatives or by sleeping on one’s back can alleviate mild snoring.

Indeed, by turning to sleep on their sides can be a relief for most people who are experiencing mild snoring. If snoring is caused by congestion caused by a cold, flu, or sinus infection, symptoms will usually subside as the illness gradually passes.

Severe snoring can indicate more serious health problems. When a person experiences regular, chronic snoring it results in severe snoring. When a person is experiencing severe snoring, they will snore no matter what sleeping position they take.

Your snoring is more severe than if you tend to awake yourself or your sleeping partner with your snoring. You should consult your doctor if you find yourself experiencing fitful sleep, and wake feeling fatigued even after several hours of sleep.

To find out the degree and possible causes of your snoring you may need to be observed at a sleeping clinic.

Sleep apnea is often confused with snoring since it produces similar sounds. The basic difference is that snoring is simply a sound a person makes while sleeping, while sleep apnea causes a person to stop breathing several times during the night.

Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder that occurs when a person experiences an obstruction in breathing, leads to a pause of up to ten seconds in breathing. During the course of one night’s sleep these pauses of breath can occur up to 30 times.

A sleep apnea sufferer will wake several times a night to regain breath. Many times, people are not aware that they suffer from sleep apnea, and only become aware when their sleep partner observes the symptoms. In rare cases, an untreated sleep apnea left can prove fatal.

The Health Risks of Snoring

Excessive or chronic snoring can be indicative of more serious medical problems. Not only can snoring cause serious sleep deprivation, it has also been related to various health problems.

Snoring has been linked with obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a greater chance of getting a stroke.

Increased daytime fatigue and sleepiness, low energy, inability to think clearly, and a compromised immune system that is more susceptible to getting colds, flu’s, and other illnesses are the most obvious health risks of snoring.

Snoring may also exacerbate a person’s vulnerability to developing adult onset diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and heart disease because snoring reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain.

Once you are cured of snoring, the chances are great that you will also receive significant health-extending benefits such as:

Greater energy, alertness, and productivity

Sleep deprivation caused by snoring can make you feel moody, tired, and mentally impaired. Actually researchers claim that those snorers have more car accidents and sick days than non-snorers have.

Snorers also have poor concentration and impaired memory, and do poorly on psychological testing.

This may be caused by the low levels of oxygen in their blood and by the fragmented sleep. Yet correcting the problem may let you experience a high quality of continuous sleep and rejuvenate your body.

Heightened immune function

Snoring is likely to disrupt your sleep cycle, resulting in less REM sleep. It is during the deepest level of sleep that the body is revitalized and tissue damage repaired. In fact, lack of deep sleep is related with reduced immune function.

Taking care of the snoring will enable you to sleep more soundly through the night, greatly improving your body’s capability to resist disease and infections.

Improved cardiovascular functioning

Your cardiovascular system is being greatly stressed if you snore and also have Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Studies show that habitual snorers have a greater chance of stroke than non-snorers have.

It is not unusual for those with sleep apnea to be mistakenly treated for primary heart disease because abnormal heart rhythms may be more prominent than the breathing disturbances.

Your heart rate changes when breathing stops during the apneas. It may become very fast, very slow, or very irregular. This may result in less blood being pumped out and an increase in blood pressure.

Your heart rate and blood pressure rise, sometimes to very dangerous levels when breathing resumes. These problems are lessened when treatment begins to correct the snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Reduced blood pressure

More than one-third of those with hypertension also have Obstructive Sleep Apnea. The majority of those with severe sleep apnea are hypertensive.

Uncontrolled hypertension can result in serious cardiovascular problems, including increased risk of angina and heart disease. Fortunately, hypertension often improves after treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Steps for Reducing the Chances of Snoring

The best thing you can do to prevent snoring is to make proactive lifestyle adjustments. Maintain a healthy weight, get regular exercise, avoid smoking and overuse of alcohol or sedatives, and avoid dairy products or other difficult to digest foods before bedtime.

Many people can greatly reduce the occurrence of snoring simply by sleeping on their sides, and sleeping without a pillow, or at least a flatter pillow.