Living alone has many advantages but one of them isn’t learning about your sleeping patterns or whether you have a tendency to snore. However, there are often other indications even if you don’t have another human to listen to you at night. Of course, you could check to see if the cat develops a nervous condition from lack of sleep or ask a neighbor to listen to you sleep but you might only be an occasional snorer and your cat might like the sound.

A sore throat in the morning is a good indication that something is going on in the middle of the night. It might be postnasal drip from a sinus infection or mouth breathing, both of which can cause snoring.

Snoring occurs for many different reasons. One of them is mouth breathing as opposed to breathing through the nose. Inhaling through the mouth isn’t necessarily the cause of snoring if you don’t have enlarged structures in the back of your throat, improper placement of the jaw or flabby oral muscles, but if you do, then you might be snoring your night away while drying the throat and causing a sore tender throat in the morning.

Postnasal drip, sinus infection and a stuffy nose can all be contributors to snoring. If you have a stuffy nose, it can create suction when you inhale and pull the airways closed. If they’re partially blocked, you snore. If they’re completely blocked, you have sleep apnea, a condition where your air passage closes completely for a few seconds and your body no longer receives oxygen.

A sinus infection, stuffy nose and postnasal drip can also cause a sore throat, just like snoring can.

Of course, if you’re melodically spending your sleeping hours buzzing gleefully with no one to listen, it could make your throat dry and irritated too. This is another indication that you might be snoring your night away.

One way to find out what you do during the night is to tape record your sleep. Simply set a timer on the tape to begin recording. You might not catch the snoring the first time if the time you selected isn’t your snoring hour, simply set it for a different time to begin the next evening. You’ll most likely catch it within a few attempts if you snore.

You could visit a doctor whom specializes in sleep disorders and ask him to help investigate your sore throat. He might suggest that you use a humidifier in your room first if you live in an arid location or in the frozen north where the furnace always runs during the winter, causing dry air. He can also look at the structures of your throat and see if any look particularly enlarged or order a sleep study for you.

A sleep study involves someone watching you as you sleep, in addition to the doctors monitoring your brainwaves, heartbeat and breathing. They also record the movement of your legs, eyes and muscle tension. They use sensors placed on your face, chest, legs and head to gather the information.

The information they retrieve shows whether you’re asleep or awake and when you enter REM sleep. REM sleep is the rapid eye movement stage when you dream, but normally don’t snore. If you have sleep apnea, the doctors find that out too by monitoring not only your breathing and the number of times you stop breathing but also how the air flows into your body and changes to your oxygen level.

The sleep study, called a polysomnogram is normally only used if the doctor is concerned you have sleep apnea, violent sleep behavior or breathing disorders. Doctors also use a polysomnogram to see if someone has narcolepsy, when you suddenly nod off to sleep without realizing it. Doctors don’t use the test to simply to find if you snore, that is unless you have other symptoms besides just your sore throat.

You might wake up feeling overly tired, have an increase in your blood pressure, be crankier than usual and a headache in the morning or evening. You might have heartburn or a sour taste in your mouth at night, swollen legs, sweating or chest pain while you sleep. If your legs swell, that’s another symptom.

Loud snoring can be a symptom of sleep apnea, just as waking up several times in the night, tossing and turning in bed and choking or gasping spells. The choking could be the cause of your sore throat in the morning. There also is a link between acid reflux and sleep apnea. Acid reflux can create a sore throat due to the acid backing up your esophagus and burning it. Mention these symptoms to your doctor when you see him about your snoring.

Some people have more of a tendency toward snoring than others do. Those that are over forty, overweight, have large necks, males, have large tongue, tonsils or a small jaw, have a family with a history of sleep apnea, have GERD, acid reflux or have nasal obstruction from either allergies, sinus problems or a deviated septum.

While snoring can raise your blood pressure over time, sleep apnea can do that and cause stroke or heart failure. It can lead to diabetes, depression and make an ADHD patient worse. In most cases, snoring is a one if you charted out sleep related disorders and sleep apnea or other disorders are higher on the chart when it comes to damaging the body.

If you pursue the quest to find if you snore and come up with a resounding yes, a few things can help you stop your snoring. If you have a sinus problem or allergies, take care of those first. The allergies might be at the root of your snoring. If you’re overweight, by all means, lose weight. Snoring comes from a collapse or closure of the airways.

Excess weight means excess pressure on your air passages and that makes them narrow, thus creating a trumpet of sound. If you drink before going to bed, stop. The relaxation from the alcohol also relaxes the muscles in the mouth and throat and can create snoring.

If you smoke, stop. Cigarettes contain irritants that can cause your throat to swell and close the air passage.

If you drink milk before bed, stop it this minute. Milk can create mucous and mucous can block airways.

Aging causes snoring also. As you age, you lose muscle tone to the throat and mouth. Of course, that alternative to aging isn’t something anyone wants, so don’t worry about that potential.

If you only have a sore throat in the morning and no other symptoms, try a humidifier in your room before going to bed. Take up yoga to tighten the muscles in the throat or learn to breathe through your nostrils. Don’t worry about snoring if you aren’t disturbing anyone and a scratchy throat is your only symptom.

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A snoring mouthguard is effective for many people, however, not all of them. The primary reason for snoring is the deciding factor. Many people snore because their mouth relaxes and the tongue falls to the back of the throat, semi-blocking and in some cases where sleep apnea is present, completely blocking the airway. When this occurs, the forced air causes the soft tissues of the palate to vibrate and your snore.

There are other reasons for air passage to be narrow; the tongue falling to the back of the throat might not be the only cause your snoring. The older you are and flabbier your throat muscles, the more you have a tendency to snore.

This is because the air passage can collapse without the proper muscles to hold it into place. In this case, the mouthguard holds your mouth in and structures in the correct position so they don’t collapse. It can help to prevent snoring of this type.

If you have blocked nasal passages or a sinus problem, you might also be a night rumbler. When your nose is stuffed or there is other blockage in the airway, it causes a vacuum by blocking the airway on inhalation. This leads to snoring. In this case, identifying the problem and clearing the sinuses or keeping the nose unstuffed is the surest cure for snoring.

Your body build also makes a difference. Every person’s throat is different. Some people have excessively large adenoids or tonsils and this can lead to snoring. A narrow throat caused by an enlarged palate or other larger structures in the throat area such as tonsils can lead to snoring.

A large uvula, the little fleshy piece that dangles in the back of the throat, also can lead to snoring. While a mouthguard can help with some types of snoring, only surgery can bring complete relief for this problem.

Carrying too much weight also contributes to snoring. Normally, if your weight is evenly distributed, you can carry more weight and still not snore. However, if you have an exceptional amount of weight around your neck and lack muscle tone, you probably snore.

Men who were body builders at one time and developed their body, including the neck muscles, then ceased working out, may not only notice their abdomen bulging, their spouses may comment on the nightly serenade they provide. This is because the enlarged muscles become flabby and lay on the airway causing snoring and apnea.

Smoking is not only detrimental to your health because of COPD and heart problems, it also make you a snorer. Smoking dries the lining of the throat and causes sinus problems and nasal stuffiness. When your nose stuffs up, it creates the vacuum, which in turn creates snoring.

Excess weight around the throat area, due to genetics, can also cause snoring. It often doesn’t take much weight to cause it. Just a few extra pounds can make a difference. When the person lay on his back, the weight combined with flabby throat muscles constricts the air and the person snores.

That’s why people often snore when they lie on their back and not their side. Relieving the weight by dropping just a few pounds might help stop the snoring more than a mouthguard will.

Alcohol consumption before bedtime relaxes you. Unfortunately, it also relaxes the muscles in the throat and can lead to snoring. This type of snoring is particularly dangerous if you’re prone to sleep apnea. Sleep apnea occurs when the throat completely blocks and no air passes. Those listening to the snorer hear the rhythmic snore and suddenly it ceases for a few seconds followed by a large explosive snort.

This occurs when the air passage blocks and no air enters. The snort is the body awakening the person to gasp a breath of air. When you have too much alcohol in your system, the potential to remain asleep and not rouse to get that air is great. You can suffocate in your sleep. If you snore, don’t drink before bed.

Mouthguards may or may not help this type of snoring, depending on other underlying problems, but limiting your alcohol consumption does and you don’t have to go to the dentist or doctor to do this.

Your sleep posture also affects whether you snore or not. However, this still has to do with other underlying problems. If you sleep on your back and have a flabby palate, are overweight or your tongue falls to the back of your throat, you’ll snore. Gravity pulls the excess flesh over the air passage. Even if you sleep on your side, the underlying problem still exists but your position prevents it from closing off breathing.

The best way to find if a mouthguard will be effective is to visit either your dentist or a sleep specialist. However, you can create your own snore reduction mouthguard on the cheap if you can’t afford to have one specially fitted.

You do this by purchasing a boil and bite mouthguard created for snoring and sold online. These are made of a thermoplastic material that softens when you boil it. Once boiled, you simply bite on the plastic and it forms to the shape of your mouth.

The primary difference between this type of mouthguard and those the dentist makes is the level of comfort. Normally those created by the dentists are often smaller and while they do the same job, can create discomfort. However, if you find this type of mouthpiece helps relieve snoring, you can then go to a dentist and have him fit you for one made especially for your mouth.

If you have sleep apnea, it’s very dangerous and you should seek the advice of a dentist or sleep specialist. While a mouthguard often helps, you may have other issues occurring in your breathing passage that a mouthguard won’t correct. It pays to visit a dentist or sleep specialist in this case.

Some people with multiple issues find that not only the sleep guard to hold their jaw and tongue in place, but also surgical removal of tissue, weight loss and ceasing smoking or alcohol consumption is the only way to stop their snoring and sleep apnea.

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Love can last through most things but somehow snoring can make a huge dent in it. It’s as though the vibration of the person snoring shakes the love right out of their partner. While the ideal situation is when no one snores, even when both parties snore it creates problems.

Snoring deprives the non-snorer of sleep and even though logically they know the snorer isn’t doing it intentionally, they get angry. In addition, snoring often deprives couples of important moments together that are necessary for a good relationship.

If you’re either part of a snore fest when the lights go down, as a participant or part of the audience, you’ll understand how frustrating the snoring becomes. After months of attempting to tolerate the snorer, you find yourself sleep-deprived and glassy-eyed when you finally give up and ask the offending party to sleep on the couch or you take shelter in a room down the hall. You might not be angry but simply desperate for a good night’s sleep.

The first few nights are the most difficult. You feel like a traitor to your melodic partner but survival instincts are often stronger than romance and so off you go to another room or you finally nudge the snorer in the ribs hard enough to wake them and ask them to depart so you can finally sleep.

One night turns into two, two into four and eventually the nudge in the ribs is easier to do or the journey down the hall is less traumatic. In fact, it becomes so easy; the audio injured partner simply goes directly to the other room or points the noisy counterpart in that direction before the symphony begins.

The resentment over the snoring isn’t logical but it does exist. It’s builds like the irritation from the toilet seat remaining in an up position making the trip to the bathroom in the dark a dangerous journey where one receives a thorough backside washing if you sit without checking the position.

It’s the resentment couples build after years of arguing over where to squeeze the toothpaste tube or how to put the toilet paper to roll in the holder. It’ not always subtle but does drive another small wedge in a relationship.

Snoring does more than just irritate the non-snorer; it deprives the couple of important time together. Once the tradition of separate beds begins, the cuddling and bedroom conversations cease. Some of most important and intimate conversations take place in the bedroom. They aren’t necessarily sexual in nature but the little incidences throughout the day, pushed to the back of the mind during the rush hours.

This type of intimate communication is necessary for a complete bond of the two people.  It’s the intimacy of laughing together over silly things that happened or sharing outrage over the bad treatment at the office.

Cuddling is another factor important to a strong marriage or relationship and it often leaves when the nightly serenade begins. Physical bonding doesn’t come from sexual intercourse, although that’s part of it.  If it did, some people would bond to several different people at one time. It comes from closeness and touching in small ways.

The hug before work, the nightly kiss, spooning during sleep and warming your feet on your partner’s legs all create the bond.  This bonding goes AWOL when the two sleep apart. It plays an important part in foreplay and spontaneity, which keeps a relationship interesting.   

The social time couples spend together right before falling asleep is crucial to a relationship, according to Paul Rosenblatt, social science professor at the University of Minnesota and author of “Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing, published by State University of New York in 2006.

Dr. Laura Berman, a Chicago sex and relationship therapist agrees. She calls snoring a “big relationship divider” and advises couples with one member snoring to “Keep in the same bedroom at all costs, and if not, take time to cuddle and interact before going to separate bedrooms.”

Berman also notes that using separate rooms for sleep should not be a lifestyle but rather a temporary solution for the problem of snoring.  The couple should work on a solution where the separate rooms aren’t mandatory to maintain the relationship.

Those types of solutions vary. Some of the solutions can be as simple as lifestyle changes. One of the bigger contributors to snoring is excess weight. Snoring comes from the soft palate or tongue partially blocking the air passage. The blockage creates pressure on the area and causes vibration as the snorer breathes out. The excess weight adds extra pressure against the air passage and may even be the reason for snoring in the first place.

The potential to lose weight and eliminate snoring can become a reality for many people through diet and exercise.

Eliminating that nightcap can also put a dent in the nightly symphony. Alcohol before bedtime can relax a person but it can relax the muscles in the throat and neck as well, allowing them to press or obstruct the passageway for airflow.  Even quitting smoking can cause a positive effect in the partners snore pattern.

Some experts believe smoking irritates the throat and causes slight swelling that ultimately leads to snoring. Others believe that the prolonged ingestion of nicotine causes nerve damage that ultimately affects the throat and leads to snoring. Regardless of the reason, there’s a direct correlation between smokers and snoring. Even those who experience chronic second hand smoke tend to snore.

However, not all solutions are this easy. Sometimes surgery or more radical solutions are necessary to stop the snoring. While it might seem drastic to have surgery when earplugs for the partner are far cheaper, snoring can also lead to sleep apnea. Sleep apnea occurs when the snorer actually stops breathing for a few seconds.

The sounds from sleep apnea are far more irritating than regular snoring because unlike regular snoring where the bed partner can actually get into the rhythm of the snorer, sleep apnea interrupts that rhythm. The snorer might have a consistent rhythm to their breathing and then, there’s silence for as long as 10 to 15 seconds.

The lack of oxygen awakens the snorer enough to take a deep breath and the routine continues through the night. Sleep apnea is dangerous and found to be the cause of many other health problems such as coronaries and even high blood pressure.

Snoring can create a split in the relationship through lack of intimacy but sleep apnea can create the split through illness and death. Even if the snoring partner doesn’t get physically ill, the lack of sleep can cause crankiness and depression. So if your partner snores, or if you’re the melodic one of the family, solve the problem for a better relationship, healthier lifestyle and a longer time together.

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If your family actually goes to the trouble of recording your nightly snoring serenade, you probably have a problem with snoring. If you live alone, you might realize your problem by snorting yourself awake occasionally. We’ve all had that embarrassing moment of falling asleep in a lecture or meeting only to hear ourselves snort and awaken to glaring stares from the rest of the group. Snoring is a problem often caused by lifestyle and because of that, you could also dismiss it by changing your lifestyle.

What are some of the things that cause snoring? Overweight and overeating, lack of exercise, too much hooch, alcoholic beverage for those not familiar with the vernacular of the 20′s and 30′s, pharmaceutical sleep inducers such as Nytol, Sominex or prescription drugs, heavy smoking and improper sleep positions.

Sometimes those annoying sinus problems that keep you supplied with plenty of post-nasal drip also can create a problem with snoring, as do other types of congestion.  Either way, snoring has been going on since time began. I would imagine the first cave wife turned her husband over because he was snoring and the noise might alert a predator.

While some snoring comes from old age. The aging process causes muscular weakness and the weakness causes the snoring.  Unless there’s a new pill that stops aging, you’re pretty well stuck with that type of snoring unless you do exercises to develop your throat and facial muscles.  

The first exercise involves sticking your tongue out.  Because these look rather odd, you might want to practice them while you’re alone. They aren’t something you can do on your way to work while on the subway.

The facial exercises are relatively easy. There are four of them. First push out your tongue as far as it can go, hold that position for ten seconds and then pull it back into a relaxed position in your mouth. Follow with the second exercise where you attempt to touch your tongue to your nose. Hold it as far up as you can for ten seconds and then relax.

Finally, the last of the “stick your tongue out” exercises involves trying to touch your tongue to your chin. Push it out and down, hold for 10 seconds and relax. Follow these three with a huge, quite exaggerated smile. Smile until it hurts for 10 seconds. Relax your face and begin the group of four again. Do these exercises as many times as you can until you work up to at least 10 sets.

You can strengthen your throat with voice exercises. Start with Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka, going up and down the scale at top volume. Then follow it with la-la-la-la-la and finally ma-ma-ma-ma-ma. Do it loudly enough that you feel the workout on your vocal chords but don’t over exercise so that it hurts. You don’t want to be hoarse the next day.

Lose weight

Since you’re more prone to snoring if you’re overweight, that brings to mind a second set of exercises that could help you. These, however, are the traditional ones that help you burn any fat that you might have developed. Fat presses against your throat, narrows the air passage and causes you to snore.  Not only will you want to exercise, shedding a few pounds through a sensible diet can also help.

When you eat, consume smaller meals more frequently. Don’t eat right before bedtime. The pressure of the food against your diaphragm can cause snoring. Eat lighter foods that digest more easily and chew your food well. Food that sits undigested for a longer period, have the same effect as eating late at night. Avoid milk products and milk, particularly right before bedtime. Milk and milk products can cause mucus that can stuff you up and create a snoring machine.

Don’t drink at night. While a little nip early in the day may not make you snore, that same nip you take to relax you might keep your spouse up all night when you do imbibe in the evening. Alcohol, just like some medications to help you sleep, causes the muscles to relax too much. It also can cause a dry irritated throat.

There also is a danger that snoring may come from sleep apnea. Sleep apnea comes from an obstruction. It involves loud snores followed by ten seconds or more of silence when there’s no air coming in or going out. The lack of oxygen signals the brain to inhale. If you’re drinking or taking prescription medication, it can dull your senses and slow the reaction to breathe again.  Avoiding alcohol can help not only your spouse sleep, but also can prevent serious consequences if sleep apnea is present.

Stop smoking

One last vice to remove is smoking. Now that you’re exercising, not drinking, eating better and smaller meals, throw away those smokes too.  There are many different chemicals in cigarettes that can irritate the lining of the throat and increase the likelihood of snoring. The same holds true for medications that dry the nasal passage or cause irritation. Anything you take, which increases irritation also can narrow the passage through minor swelling and cause snoring.

Avoid allergens if you can. Allergies create the same problem as medications and cigarette smoking. They create mucus and swelling and increase the possibility of snoring. People with nasal polyps, colds and allergies tend to snore more than the general population. However, its tough to avoid these problems and simply taking care to avoid allergens or people with colds might be the best you can do.

Mouth breathing is one cause of snoring. Keeping your nasal passages open can help reduce the chance of snoring. One method is to practice a yoga technique for breathing. Press the side of one nostril and breathe slowing in through the other nostril. Breathe out through your mouth. Do this ten times then switch the nostril you’re holding closed. Finally, inhale through both nostrils at once and breathe out through your mouth. Exhaling through the mouth doesn’t cause snoring but inhaling does. Practicing that breathing exercise can help develop a pattern of breathing that may extend to your sleep.

Switching sleeping positions is an old trick that often works quite well. If you sleep flat on your back, the potential to snore is far more prominent than if you sleep on your side. You can attach a ball to the back of your pajamas and as you roll onto your back, it causes you to roll back onto your side and precludes snoring. There are simple devices you can purchase that do the same thing. It’s one simple lifestyle change that doesn’t cause deprivation.

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