Snoring Treatment that Works (with a Gym Membership)

Husbands and wives who can't get each other to stop snoring need to worry about a lot more than the mere nuisance value there is in all that snarling in the middle of the night. Three out of four people who snore, regularly suffer from sleep apnea - which is a condition where we stop breathing when we sleep. Not breathing is a dangerous thing, of course - we could die of a stroke or heart disease. No smoking treatment option actually works for most people. People who go so far as to get operated on for snoring, only find the solution isn't as promising as it seems starting out.

There is a regular piece of advice that snorers get about their sleeping position. Conventional wisdom says that if you sleep on your side and not on your back, you won't have a flaccid tongue sliding back to block most of your air passage. A relatively open air passage of the kind you get when you sleep on your side, they say, gets you snoring less. As these go in general, this snoring treatment does work for some people. But it's hardly some kind of universal cure.

The trouble is, snorers come in two kinds (not that it should make any difference to the other person in bed, because both kinds are loud). One kind of snorer snores no matter how he sleeps; the other snores only on his back. Only about 2% of all snorers find that the position they sleep in has anything to do with the rattling at the back of their throats.

Weight seems to have a lot to do with it. Only people who are really skinny benefit from positional sleeping advice. Heavier people are usually non-positional - it doesn't matter how they sleep, they always snore. So the whole positional sleeping idea does make some sense. Except that it doesn't do so directly. The logic that you need to adhere to then is that if you lose weight, you become a positional sleeper. And if you do become a positional sleeper, sleeping on your side is the best snoring treatment you could ask for. And that's the view seconded by the National Sleep Foundation. Not only does losing weight help you find a comfortable non-snoring position, but also in many cases, it drives away sleep apnea.

So there you have it - you'll need to lose weight to stop snoring. Weight-loss seems to just be the gift that keeps on giving.