There is nothing worse then having a sleeping partner that snores so loudly that you firstly cannot fall to sleep and secondly when your abruptly awaken from a sound deep sleep.

If you have ever come close to throttling someone’s neck, it is in the middle of the night, and the victim is the snorer.

So what causes snoring?

Well you can feel at the back of your throat at the top a soft smooth fleshy part known as the pallet. When your awake the muscles in and surrounding your pallet are firm holding your pallet up towards the top of your throat.

When you sleep, the pallet muscles relax causing the pallet to drop downwards slightly, but remember the pallet runs down from the roof of your mouth to the back of your throat, so it drops quite some length.

Sleeping relaxes the body muscles and hence the pallet drops downwards.

In the lying position your tongue muscles relax and this causes the tongue to fall downwards into the throat, also ever so slightly.

The coming together of the soft pallet and the tongue causes a narrowing of the airway down your throat and into your bronchi.

If, you can imagine that when we breath we are actually taking in litres of air. As we are asleep our bodies enter the deep breathing phase causing massive amounts of air to enter the body.

Now all this air, litres of it, are all trying to get into the body through a narrow passageway caused by the dropping of the pallet and the resting of the tongue. All this tissue is soft, and the air passing by it causes vibrations.

These vibrations can vary from a fairy wings flatter over a field of rosemary flowers to drowning out the roar of a jumbo jet taking off at full power. We can all relate to that.

Now that we know what causes snoring there is one or two things we can do about it.

If the tongue falls to the back of the throat contributing to the narrowing of the airway, then simply adding an additional pillow to lift the head will naturally position the tongue forward in the mouth.

Just this simple technique will allow the airway to be open and reduce any vibrations that occur.

If you suffer from loud snoring or it is your partner, try adding one extra (fluffy large) pillow to the sleeping arrangements.

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