“Laugh and the world laughs with you; snore
and you sleep alone.” Novelist Anthony
Vergess sums up what, according to
Southern Cross,
half of all adults experience occasionally and 25% live with regularly.
Not only does snoring affect the health of
those who have it, but also their partners who have to deal with it night in,
night out.
I am reminded of days spent at the family
bach in my pre-tween youth where orchestral log sawing between my grandfather
and great grandmother reverberated throughout, starting with afternoon naps
only broken by an evening interval before the second act began at bedtime. Oh how it drove us all crazy!
Dr Frances Pitsilis states that
snoring affects 60% of men and 40% of
women yet less than 5% choose to seek help.
She goes on to say that, “Snoring is defined as
breathing during sleep with hoarse or harsh sounds as caused by the vibrating
of the soft palate,” and can cause health issues such as heart problems,
headaches, depression and impotence to name a few.
How my grandmother survived sleeping next to
her husband night after night for a lifetime is beyond me.
Snoring doesn’t affect only the snorer - it
places strain on relationships with the partner also suffering from constant
lack of sleep sometimes resulting in repeated physical abuse to joust their
slumbering snorer into silent submission.
Everyone has a breaking point though, and often couples need to
separate into different rooms to pull back the reigns of their sanity.
There is hope though for those seeking
silent nights. Little things, such as no
alcohol before bed time and avoiding smoking as both these things cause the
muscles to relax and congest nasal passages.
Sleeping on your side can help and, like most things in life, losing
some weight is definitely a step in the right direction.
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (
C-PAP) as a means of alleviating those more seriously afflicted. It works by preventing closure of the airways
by delivering a positive pressure to the airways via a nose-mask and rather
silent air pump.
Surgery is also an
option if only a last resort.
Snoring is the not so silent killer of
relationships. Lack of sleep can push
those already cracking under stress to bursting point letting loose a torrent
of pent up tension.
The key is not
letting it get this far. Talk about it
with your partner, talk about it with your physician. After all, if the couch really was that
comfortable, we’d all be sleeping on them.