Snoring is the vibration that is caused in the back of your throat when the airflow causes the tissues to vibrate. This usually occurs when you inhale during your sleep. Snoring is more common in men than in women and can become a common trait with age.
To many people, snoring can be a troubling condition that often hampers the sleep of those that they share a room or bed with. There are various causes of snoring such as drug or alcohol abuse, or even obesity. Certain medications too can cause snoring. It is known that up to half of all American adults snore. Even though the tendency for snoring to bother you would be lower in comparison to your partner, simply ignoring the condition may not be wise. Snoring has been linked to more serious health conditions such as obesity, sleep deprivation and issues with the structure of your mouth, nose or throat.
While surgery is an option to treat snoring, there are some home remedies that you can consider to help resolve the condition. With the increased severity of snoring, you may have to seek medical consultation to diagnose your condition. However, these home remedies are worth considering and attempting.
What Causes Snoring?
There are various causes of snoring including obesity and allergies. If you are obese or have developed an allergic reaction to something, you are more prone to snoring. Pregnancy is another cause of snoring, which though temporary can lead to further snoring after the stages of pregnancy based on several other conditions. For instance, something as simple as your sleep position can cause snoring. People who sleep on their backs are more prone to snoring.
If you consume alcohol, you may have noticed that on nights that you drink, the chances of snoring are greatly higher. In fact, alcohol and other drugs have been associated as causes for snoring.
If you have enlarged tonsils or a long uvula, this could be the reason behind snoring. Nasal deformities such as nasal polyps could be yet another cause of snoring. If you suffer from asthma or congestion from a cold or flu, then the chances of snoring are increased.
With this many causes of snoring, it would be good if you can understand the root cause behind your snoring, this would help you to non-surgically treat your condition. There are various non-surgical treatments to snoring such as behavioural therapy, dental devices and antisnoring devices. We’ll look into the various least intrusive home remedies that you can try to help resolve your condition in the comfort of your home.
Here is our list of 16 home remedies that you can try to help resolve snoring naturally.
Home Remedies to Help Stop Snoring
When it comes to relying on home remedies, it is important to try to understand the cause of snoring. Home remedies work well for benign causes of snoring such as sleep position, however, would not be as effective for those who have nasal deformities. Though there is no harm in trying these home remedies to help resolve your condition, if the condition does persist, we do recommend that you consult a healthcare professional to help diagnose your condition.
The first thing that you should do when trying to resolve snoring is to try to better understand your condition; what causes the issue. There are various causes of snoring as that iterated within this article. Try to pinpoint exactly what could be the cause behind your snoring. This will help you resolve the issue because you would be targeting the root cause.
Try to find out more about your snoring pattern, when and where are you more likely to snore, during what part of your sleep cycle do you start snoring.
The more you understand your condition, the more likely you are to resolve the condition. Hence do all the digging that is necessary and take some time to think about and understand your condition.
1) Elevate Your Head Positioning
When it comes to snoring, head positioning is vital to allow unhampered airflow while you sleep. The more difficult it is for air to be inhaled, the greater the chances of snoring. Hence, the first thing that you can try is to elevate your head a little. Simply prop up your head with an extra pillow.
This will allow you to enable better breathing, preventing the blocking of airways. You don’t have to go through a great deal of trouble in raising the front of your bed, simply use an extra pillow or two and see what the results are. If you are snoring due to benign reasons such as sleep position, this little change can quickly help resolve your condition.
2) Sleep More
When it comes to the importance of sleep, it isn’t something that should be underestimated. In fact, lack of sleep could lead to developing exhaustion, which will cause your throat and tongue muscles to relax. This will cause snoring. Hence, if you are one of those people who sleep only 5 hours a night and do snore in the process, then it is advisable to consider sleeping more.
Look to get between 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. The more you sleep, the less exhausted you will be, which will help you resolve the condition and that too quite fast. However, we do not recommend that you take sleeping pills and sedatives because they too could have the same effect on your throat and tongue muscles, thereby causing you to snore.
If you have trouble sleeping, we do recommend that you read our article on ‘The Importance of Sleep: How to Get Better Sleep?‘
3. Steam Inhalation
This is a great remedy that you can rely on to open up your airways before bed. This is especially good if the cause behind your snoring is congestion due to a cold or flu or simply because of allergies.
Steam inhalation isn’t hard to do, all you need is a large bowl, some hot water and a towel. Simply boil the water until hot and place it in the large bowl. Now cover your head with the towel and inhale the steam that comes from the bowl. You could also add a few drops of your favourite essential oil for greater therapeutic value.
If this is too much of a hassle, a hot wash or bath right before bed works to resolve congestion too. However, we do not recommend that you wet your head at night, as this could lead to worsening of your cold and flu symptoms.
4. Don’t Eat Inflammatory Food
This will most certainly require more work as you would have to examine your diet and make changes to it. However inflammatory food isn’t hard to stop. In fact, dairy and gluten-based products are your first culprits. These types of food cause the tissues in your nose and throat to become inflamed, thereby causing snoring.
What is important when you consider inflammatory food is to ensure that you don’t consume them close to bedtime. Unless you are able to cut these foods out completely, which would be beneficial, you should work not to consume them at night.
The process of resolving snoring through diet as such can take some time, hence don’t expect immediate results.
5. Strengthen Your Tongue and Throat Muscles
The primary reason why you snore at night is due to the fact that your tongue and throat muscles relax at night. When these muscles are too relaxed, they cause snoring. This is why when you consume alcohol or other drugs, you are more prone to snoring because both alcohol and other drugs work to relax muscles.
When it comes to strengthening your tongue and throat muscles, there are a few things that you can consider. There are some simple exercises that you can adopt to help strengthen these muscles. Singing for instance can help you strengthen your throat muscles, so go wild in the shower. Even if you are a horrible singer, I’m sure, you will make less noise than you usually do at night, snoring.
In order to work out your tongue muscles, simply place your tongue on the top of your teeth and apply a gentle sliding motion, back and forth. Continue this for a couple of minutes every day.
Strengthening your throat and tongue muscles will help you to resolve your condition for the long term. Though you can’t really expect results immediately, the stronger these muscles get, the less prone you will be snoring.
6. Try Sipping Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Simply sipping some extra virgin olive oil could help you resolve your condition. The olive oil works to smoothen your airways.
By preventing the throat muscles from blocking the airways, you will sleep better and have less likelihood of snoring. Unlike other remedies which could take longer to notice results, this remedy may produce immediate results, hence do try this out.
7. Switch to Soy Milk
This is an addition to avoiding inflammatory food that we mentioned above. If you are accustomed to drinking milk before bed, you should consider switching to soy milk as opposed to cow milk.
This is because cow milk contains certain proteins which can lead to allergic reactions that promote the congestion and closing of nasal passages. If you are accustomed to drinking milk at night, switch over to soy milk and observe the results. You may notice that you stop snoring due to the fact that your nasal passages are more open.
You don’t have to restrict yourself to soy milk, try using any non-dairy milk that you can get your hands on.
8. Eat Melatonin Rich Food Before Bed
The quality and amount of sleep as mentioned above is important in resolving snoring. The better you sleep, the less likely you are to snore.
One way to ensure that you get better quality sleep at night is to consume melatonin rich food right before bed. Melatonin is the hormone that is responsible for making you sleepy. It is responsible for the quality and amount of sleep. The more melatonin you have in your body, the better your sleep will be.
Hence try to eat melatonin rich food before bed. Pineapples, bananas and oranges are great sources of natural melatonin, hence if you are looking to stop snoring, try eating these fruits before bed. Just eat a banana right before bed and notice the results. For all you know, it could completely resolve your condition. Nonetheless, no harm in trying it, for you are sure to have a better night’s rest.
9. Eat Strong Aromatic Foods
Strong aromatic foods work to help prevent the drying of your nose thereby reducing congestion. It is also known that strong aromatic food can help reduce the swelling of tonsils, thereby preventing sleep apnea. If you are snoring due to swollen tonsils, then this could work to help resolve the condition.
Strong aromatic foods include garlic, onion and horseradish. Simply chew some of these foods before bed to gains the benefits of them. If the smell bothers you, you could even include them with dinner.
Simply eating more strong aromatic foods as mentioned herewith could help resolve congestion, which will inevitably resolve snoring caused by congestion.
10. Reduce Alcohol Intake and Smoking
As listed above, alcohol is one of the major causes of snoring. If you consume alcohol before bed, then the chances are you will snore. Snoring is linked to alcohol consumption and you should try to resolve the issue at the root of the cause.
Drinking before bed causes your throat muscles to become relaxed, which as stated causes snoring. Hence try to reduce the consumption of alcohol, especially closer to bedtime, this may help alleviate your condition.
Smoking is another cause of snoring. If you are a smoker, you would already know that smoke tends to irritate your throat tissues. This irritation can lead to inflammation, which can also cause snoring. Hence if you are a smoker, try reducing smoking or if possible cut it out completely.
Resolving these habits may help you resolve your snoring.
11. Alter Your Sleeping Position
As stated within the list of causes, one of the benign reasons behind snoring could be as simple as sleeping on your back. This is because when you sleep on your back, the airways in your body become narrow, thereby blocked.
If you have noticed that you snore when you are asleep on your back, then it is high time that you alter your sleeping position. This could be the simplest means to resolve snoring. If you notice that you snore when you are asleep on your back, try sleeping on your side. However, this may be harder to do with you probably coming back to your accustomed position once you’ve fallen asleep. If that is the case, we recommend that you invest in a body pillow that will help you hold your sleeping position on your side.
12. Drink Ginger and Honey Tea
This simple remedy could help you resolve your condition with the least amount of effort. Ginger has been praised for its superfood properties with its ability to cure various illness from an upset stomach to heart problems.
Ginger has various anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties that work to increase saliva secretion. This helps to soothe the throat which thereby helps resolve snoring.
By simply drinking two cups of ginger and honey tea every day, you could help to resolve your condition naturally. This isn’t hard to do which definitely comes as a merit with regards to resolving snoring.
13. Lose Weight
Obesity is one of the primary causes of snoring with obese people twice as more likely to be susceptible to snoring. This is because overweight people tend to have excessive amounts of fat deposits around their neck. This resultantly causes the airways to become narrow thereby causing you to snore.
Hence if you are obese, try to work towards lowering your body weight. This could help you resolve the condition. You could try incorporating more exercise into your lifestyle or change your diet.
14. Change Your Pillows
There may be allergens in your pillows that could cause you to snore at night. When you consider it, when was the last time you actually changed your pillows?
Over time, your pillows get infested with dust mites which can cause allergic reactions while you sleep. As mentioned, allergies have been identified as a cause behind snoring. Hence changing your pillows might help you get a better night’s sleep. You can also try drying your pillows under direct sunlight to rid the pillows of dust mites.
If you ever feel fine during the day but congested by night, this could be due to dust mites in your pillows. It is advisable to dry your pillows at least once a month, or air fluff cycle your pillows every couple of weeks. Try replacing your pillows every six months to minimise the allergies caused by dust mites.
15. Try Using Nasal Strips
Much like steam inhalation that was mentioned above, nasal strips work to loosen up the mucus thereby working to clear your nasal passages.
Simply try placing a nasal strip on the outside of your nose. They work to open up your nostrils and enable increased airflow.
If you prefer, you could also use nasal vents to open up your nostrils.
16. Humidify Your Room
Lastly, if you are sleeping in a dry room, this could be the cause behind why you snore at night. Though dry air is not a stand-alone cause behind snoring, it could most certainly work to aggravate the condition.
Getting yourself a humidifier for your room could help you resolve the condition. Though it may not work to completely rid you of snoring, it would work to help reduce the severity of snoring.
The added moisture in the room will help to lubricate your throat while you sleep, making it easier for air to move in and out of your body. The moisture will prevent your throat from drying, which will inevitably reduce the severity of snoring.
Try an Anti-Snoring Mouthpiece
An anti-snoring mouthpiece could work to help you resolve snoring and is considered one the most accessible non-surgical means of resolving the condition.
Anti-snoring mouthpieces help to improve your breathing, thereby treating snorers who have tried everything with no results. If you would like to consider an anti-snoring mouthpiece, we do recommend VitalSleep, which is an FDA approved, doctor-recommended anti-snoring mouthpiece.
They have served thousands of happy customers that have provided their testimonials towards the effectiveness of VitalSleep. If you would more information, please click here.
If Nothing Works
If none of the remedies that we have mentioned within this article works to help alleviate your condition, then your snoring could be a symptom of a more serious health condition.
After trying everything on the list, your condition does not go away, we do recommend that you consult a healthcare professional for guidance and advice on treating snoring. Remember, though you would like to dismiss snoring as not something you should be worried about, it could be linked to a more serious health condition, which is why it is important that you resolve it.
If nothing on this list works for you, we do recommend that you consult a doctor who would be able to diagnose you for sleep apnea or refer you to a sleep clinic for further analysis.
We hope that you found this article useful and that reading this word to word has provided you with some helpful remedies that could help you resolve snoring.
Happy Sleeping!
