Do you ever wake to the noise of your own snoring?

Snoring can be a real problem for bedside partners. The louder the snore the bigger the offense. Snoring can affect both the physical and social intimacies of a relationship. The constant sleep disruption and excessive tiredness caused by noisy snoring often creates problems. Sleep partners of heavy snores awaken over twenty times per hour, which severely cuts into the quality and quantity of their sleep. Snoring is a factor frequently cited in divorce proceedings as the lack of sleep, particularly for the non snoring partner, can cause frustration and irritability, inevitably leading to arguments. Not only it makes the partner lose sleep, but also can cause serious breathing problems for the sleeper, because essentially, it indicates that the breathing passage airway is obstructed.

Has your partner complained that your snoring prevents him or her from sleeping? Or have they just moved out of the room completely? Does your snoring problem occur nightly, keeping you from being able to enjoy deep, restful sleep? Do you avoid spending the night at a friend's house or having guests in your own home for fear of keeping them awake with your snoring?

Countless so-called "snoring remedies" have been developed with each claiming to be the cure. There are nose bandages, throat sprays, uncomfortable devices to keep you from sleeping on your back, and even treatments that seek to change your habit with negative stimuli. There are even surgical options, but even these radical procedures do not guarantee a cure. Maybe you've tried a few of these with no results; maybe you've tried them all. But do you still snore?

It's likely you feel hopeless, helpless, restless, and at your wits end. Has it got to the point where going to bed isn't even appealing because you know it will end with your partner storming out of the room or you sleeping on the couch? Every night you promise yourself that you won't snore, but how can you prevent something you're not even aware of until after it's happened? Your search for a cure has provided no end to your suffering up to this point, but that does not mean that one does not exist.

Imagine what it would be like to:

• Share a quiet night of rest with your partner!
• Sleep through an entire night without snoring!
• Feel confident and in control of your breathing!

So, how can hypnosis help the snorer?

Well, first of all let us think about how snoring is caused. During the day the muscles in our airways are taut keeping the airways open and ensuring that there are no obstructions. When we are asleep these muscles relax meaning that the airway becomes smaller. For some people the airways become sufficiently small so as to cause an obstruction. The result of this is that when the air hits the back of the throat the soft tissues vibrate causing the distinctive snoring sound.

Top Reasons for Snoring

Obesity. The fat deposits around the neck and throat of obese people may exert some amount of pressure on the airway, especially while the person is lying down, eventually blocking the free air flow in and out, leading to snoring.

• Alcohol or medications like sleeping pills and anti-histamines causes the muscles in the throat to relax, causing it to block the airway while sleeping. Smoking and sinusitis can also cause snoring, again due to the very same basic reasons.
• Snoring is also found to have a genetic trait, in which case many treatments, with the exception of hypnotherapy, can be less effective.
• The size of the pillow is another factor that could induce snoring. That is, if the pillow size is larger, it increases the angle of the neck, sometimes to the extent of obstructing the air passage, especially while lying on the back.
• Like in the case of sinusitis, certain allergies can cause congestion in the nose and the airway, leading to high decibel snoring. This effect is more apparent when the person already has the habit of snoring.
• To a certain extent, the diet a person follows may also exert a substantial influence on snoring. In this case, the blockage of air passage is caused due to the excessive production of mucus, courtesy fatty food items such as milk and milk products.

What hypnosis can do is to re-train the snorer to tighten up these muscles while they are asleep and thereby increase the size of the airway. The net result of this increase in size of airway is that snoring is reduced or, as is often the case, completely eliminated. You should not expect instant results, however. It takes some time for the muscles to become re-trained in this way.

Hypnosis can also help the non snoring partner. The sound of snoring is particularly irritating because it is not constant, but more often intermittent. Therefore, often more disturbance is caused by the anticipation of the snore as much as the snoring itself. How hypnosis works for the non snorer is that it trains them to filter out the noise of the snoring. This does not mean that they stop hearing it, but more that it stops being something that they focus on when they are trying to sleep. It is not instant of course, but with time non snoring partners should be able to ignore the sound enough to get a good night's sleep.