Three Factors That Make Snoring Worse

June 4, 2012 - PRLog -- What is snoring?  This seemingly ubiquitous nightly nuisance is more than just the butt of a few exaggerated jokes often seen in cartoons.  While many find snoring to be rather comical, it may actually be a serious red flag that you should pay attention to.  Unbeknownst to many snoring can actually be caused by and made worse by poor health decisions.  Undeniably, as well your mental and physical health are deeply connected and nightly snoring has an effect on both.

Typical culprits of snoring include poor diet, lack of exercise, as well as drug and alcohol abuse.  With a poor diet one is much more likely to become obese.  Just as you may build fat around your waistline, your neck itself can become padded with unwanted fat.  This excess fat places additional weight on your airway and can worsen any preexisting obstruction that you may already have.  The sound you hear when someone snores is actually the sound of a vibration occuring within the airway because the tissue has collapsed in on itself.  The last thing a snorer needs is the addition of excess fat to put greater pressure on the already obstructed airway.

Drug and alcohol abuse, in specific muscle relaxers, benzos, and other drugs in the "downers" category.  Tend to contribute to snoring problems, and can greatly worsen any preexisting conditions.  Snoring is often caused by muscles which are "too relaxed" and therefore do not hold their rigidity when the body is at rest.  In the muscles in your airway were not overly relaxed it would not be possible for them to collapse on top of each other in your sleep and cause a vibration noise.  

A lack of exercise contributes to many health problems, and a regular exercise routine could possibly be the most effective, and most permanent remedy to snoring.  There are many exercise programs out there that don't necessarily focus on pumping iron, but rather rather a different kind of exercise.  Vocal and tongue exercises.  Learning to play an instrument such as the didgeridoo can actually strengthen the muscles in your airway to the point that they remain firm even when the rest of your body is relaxed.  
There are various other exercises used in order to stop snoring that are very similar to vocal warm ups that performers use before a big performance.  If you are serious about exploring your options when it comes to learning how to stop snoring, enrolling in a vocal training class would not be a bad idea what so ever.

If you are what is commonly known as a tongue snorer, then tongue exercises would be much more effective in helping to remedy your problem.  A simple exercises for tongue snorers involves the following.  Push your tongue out as far as possible and hold it in that position for a few seconds.  Then, push your tongue out as far as possible and try to touch your chin.  Hold it in that position for a few seconds.  Next do the same thing, except this time try to touch your nose.  Lastly, hold your facial muscles in an exaggerated smile for up to 10 seconds and release.  This exercise practiced over and over again can help aid you in eliminating the problem once and for all.  

Read more about different solutions to stop snoring at http://www.stopsnoringconsumerreports.com