Reader Q&A – How to stop snoring?

Quick update. Tyler, a reader here at 60 in 3, has posted some great information in regards to bulking up. You can find his advice in the comments to yesterday’s post about bulking up. If you have advice of your own to share, please feel free to add it into the comments or send it to me if it doesn’t relate to any of my previous topics. I started this blog in order to share what I learned over the past years, but I’d also like it to become a place where readers share their own experiences and advice.

And with that, let’s get to our last post of the week. Finishing up our reader Q&A week is a question that has a lot of personal meaning to me, and that is, how to stop snoring.

Personal History

I know I haven’t always snored, but I really don’t remember anymore when I started. I think it was sometime after college but I’m not sure of that. I know for a fact that I snored rather loudly in the past ten years. I’ve had various friends and girlfriends comment on it but I never took it very seriously. That all ended about a year and a half ago when my fiance commented on the fact that I not only snored, but actually stopped breathing every few minutes. She asked me to see a doctor, not just because my snoring was keeping her awake, but also because the breathing issues worried her.

I’ve always tried to deal with problems on my own, so I started doing a bit of research on snoring. It seemed like the condition I had was called sleep apnea, a situation in which the airways actually close up during sleep and make it impossible to breath. Now, as much as I like avoiding the doctor’s office, this was clearly something I was unqualified to deal with alone. So I made an appointment with my physician. She referred me to a sleep specialist. This sleep specialist put me through a sleep study and she also provided me with a lot of information about snoring and sleep apnea.

Snoring and Sleep Apnea

Snoring and sleep apnea are related. There are some rare cases where one exists without the other, but usually, if you have problems snoring you will also have sleep apnea. In my case, I snored very loudly, but my apnea was only moderate. Moderate apnea by the way is still a bad thing since even mild apnea can have serious repercussions on your health such as high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, sexual dysfunction and headaches.

Snoring on its own is also bad. You don’t realize it but snoring keeps you from getting the restful deep sleep your body needs. Your body takes an hour or two of light sleep before it can get to the really restful deep sleep it needs. People who snore loudly can end up waking up four to five times a night. So they never get an uninterrupted stretch of time in which their bodies can reach restful deep sleep. Therefore, snoring leads to a variety of issues associated with sleep deprivation even if you think you’re getting a solid 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night.

By the way, both snoring and sleep apnea can lead to weight gain. Sleep is when your body produces the hormone related to the feeling of satiety. So if you don’t get enough good sleep, you won’t have enough of this hormone and this leads to eating too much. Lack of sleep also leads to exhaustion, low level of physical activity and a slow metabolism.

Treatment

After hearing all this about snoring and apnea, I was really worried. Here was a problem that happened when I could least control it, while I slept. It had a variety of adverse medical effects, all of which were serious. It was also a problem for my loved ones, in that my snoring was causing them sleeping problems. So I asked about treatment and she told me the following. 80% of snoring and apnea issues can be solved through weight loss and changing the position you sleep in. Yep, while snoring and apnea are indeed serious problems, they can usually be solved through relatively simple means.

Losing Weight

Lose weight and you remove the fatty build up in your airways. It’s this fatty buildup which is causing your airways to be smaller and thus easier to block.

Changing Positions

When you sleep, your muscles relax. Those are the same muscles that hold your airway open. So during sleep, the airway closes a bit. This is especially bad if you sleep on your back. Sleeping on your side or stomach will make a huge difference.

Other Minor Cures

The following things will also help, but they won’t make as big of a change as weight loss or changing sleep position.

• Stop eating two hours before going to sleep
• Stop eating items that can irritate your throat four hours before going to sleep – This includes things like chocolate, caffeine and various sugars.
• Using a breathrite strip – I use these and they seem to help a bit. Here are the ones I buy: Breathe Right-Large Tan Nasal Strips, 76ct (2 Pack).

Other Resources

If none of this works, there are solutions which involve surgery and/or a CPAP machine. You can read more about them here:

American Sleep Apnea Association
Mayo Clinic on snoring
WebMD on snoring

Summary

My snoring and apnea hasn’t gone away completely, but it has improved dramatically. I’m getting better sleep and so is my fiance. I’m hoping that, if I lose that last 25lbs, it will go away completely.