14 DAY TRIAL // Snoring ruins relationships, destroys sex life and can have serious health consequences.
15 million people in the UK are the victims of a snoring partner, who steals them an average of two hours of sleep per night (and two years of sleep during lifetime!). Practically, more than 40 % of middle-aged people in this country, and twice as many men as women, snore.
Snoring not only destroys passion, but can also lead to breaking up a relationship: 10 % of cohabiting couples were thinking of splitting up.
A 2000 survey found that 80 % of the subjects said their relationships would improve if their partner stopped snoring, and over half said it had affected their sex lives.
Many felt irritable, frustrated and upset with their partner and complained about making mistakes at work after nights in which their sleep was disturbed. "Lack of sleep can have a negative consequence on your physical, mental and emotional health. Poor sleep is linked with poor academic performance, increased risk of obesity and type two diabetes, divorce, suicide - the list goes on and on", said Marianne Davey, one of the founders of the British Snoring and Sleep Apnea Association.
Obesity, drinking, smoking and increasing levels of allergy grow incidence of snoring in younger people of both sexes. Snoring is provoked by the vibrations of the soft palate and other tissues in the nose, mouth and throat, triggered by turbulence when air is drawn into the lungs. This occurs as the soft palate, the area at the back and top of the mouth, is too relaxed.
Now the choir director Alise Ojay has invented a program, "Singing for Snorers", available on CD, for daily vocal "muscle toning" that promises miraculous results. The clinical trial was made at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and, so far, it looks promising. Ojay realized a set of vocal exercises, to be performed daily over three months, to tighten the lax muscles of the soft palate, tongue, nasal passages and palatopharyngeal Arch (at the back of the mouth, where the uvula is located). "When we sing, we use certain muscles to make different sounds, tunes and pitches. It's like going to the gym and lifting a weight again and again: repeating these sounds tightens these muscles, so they no longer vibrate so much" Ojay said.
"Over-the-counter "cures" such as nose strips, clips and sprays are very hit and miss", said Malcolm Hilton, an ear, nose and throat specialist and director of the "Singing for Snorers" clinical trial. Even in the case of laser surgery "there is only about a 50 % success rate in the long term and it is a miserable operation", Hilton said.
A more severe condition is obstructive sleep apnea, where the throat can get completely closed at night, the sufferer having to wake up in order to breathe. A common treatment for apnea is CPAP (continuous positive airways pressure) therapy: at night a mask blows a steady stream of air to keep the throat open. "This is 100 % effective for those who can tolerate it, but only 70 to 80 % of people will. Current treatments [for both snoring and sleep apnea] tend to be either pretty invasive or not very successful", Hilton said.
"It not only cured my snoring, but my apnea as well," said Charles Hupp, an eighty years old man suffering from sleep apnea for years before he started Singing for Snorers. "There are sound physiological reasons why the exercises might work," says Hilton.
Another research made by the BSSAA developed an anti-snore bedroom. Instead of a traditional mattress, the bed has "body suspension system", every part of which is washable to ease the life of those affected by dust or nasal congestion.