Natural Remedies to Help Stop Snoring

Is your snoring becoming a problem?  There are several natural remedies and tools that you can try before taking that trip to a sleep specialist.

The most simple, but often most challenging methods of helping your snoring involve changing some of your daily habits.  You and your family will likely find relief if you adopt on or more of these changes. 

* Lose Weight.  If you’re overweight, the cause of your snoring may be due to excessive fat deposits in your throat.  Losing some of this weight (about 10%) should significantly reduce the problem.

* Quit Smoking, especially before bed.  Smoking swells up your throat so air can’t pass through as easily.

* Cut back on alcohol, sleeping pills, and other sedatives before bed.  These chemicals cause you, and the muscles in your neck and mouth, to relax.  This creates looseness in these areas and increases the sounds of snoring. There are safer, more natural remedies such as herbs that help sleep problems.

* Elevate your bed, not your head.  It’s been shown that elevating your head can reduce your snoring problem, but if you do it the wrong way, you can actually make it worse.  Instead of propping yourself up with pillows, just prop the head of your bed up a few inches. Try placing a brick under the bed frame legs.

* Inhale steam.  This will moisten your throat and may help keep you from snoring so loudly. 

If these changes aren’t working, or just aren’t for you, there are several products on the market that can help stop snoring.  Many of these products correct different reasons for snoring, so you may have to try different products and therapies before you get results.

* Dental Devices.  If the problem is with your soft palate, the dentist can fit you with a device that reduces movement of the palate and therefore snoring.

* Nasal strips.   Snoring is caused by breathing through the mouth.  If you breathe through your nose, the problem goes away.  If nasal defects or stuffiness cause you to breathe through your mouth, a nasal strip can open passages and allow you to breathe without snoring.

* Sprays.  There are now many all natural “stop snoring” sprays available on the market.  These tighten up your soft palate so it can’t vibrate.

* Throat exercises.  Instead of using devices to keep your throat from vibrating, you may be able to use your own muscles.  There are programs that strengthen the muscles in your throat through singing and other therapies.  Tighter muscles could reduce your snoring.

If you have severe snoring, or none of these treatments work, try a trip to your doctor’s office.  A few people with severe snoring also have a condition called sleep apnea.  This causes them to stop breathing periodically during sleep, which can be potentially dangerous.  Your doctor can effectively diagnose and treat sleep apnea.  Treatment will not only reduce snoring, it will probably make you feel a lot better while you’re awake, and can even save your life.