Snoring: why it happens and how to reduce it
Partilhar
The person sleeping next to you doesn't always "snore". Sometimes they stop breathing, dozens of times a night, right next to you — and you've both gotten used to calling it snoring.
I'm going to be frank, because almost no one is: loud, chronic snoring is not funny at all. It's one of the most overlooked ways to harm your heart during sleep.
There are two victims every night
The snorer is sleeping poorly without knowing it — their sleep is broken into pieces, and their body never truly rests. And the person sleeping next to them wakes up 10, 20 times a night and spends years blaming stress, age, work, when the cause is just 30 cm away.
We treat this as a charming flaw, "a man thing", instead of the warning it often is.
Why we snore
Snoring happens when air passes through an airway that has narrowed during sleep. The throat muscles relax, the tongue falls backward, and the air vibrates as it passes through. Several things worsen this: sleeping on your back, alcohol at night, being overweight, nasal congestion, and the wrong pillow that bends the neck and closes the airway.
What helps (and what doesn't solve it)
A lot improves with the basics:
- Sleeping on your side instead of your back — keeps the airway more open. It's the only free change that eliminates snoring for many couples.
- A pillow that aligns the neck. If you sleep on your side, you need a pillow high enough to fill the space between your shoulder and head, without bending your neck. I usually suggest the Nobi pillow, made of viscoelastic memory foam, high, designed for side sleepers.
- Avoiding alcohol in the hours before bed — it relaxes the throat muscles too much.
What doesn't solve it: elbow jabs at 3 AM and jokes at dinner.
When the next step is a doctor
If snoring is loud, constant, and there are breathing pauses during sleep, this could be sleep apnea — linked to hypertension and heart problems. In this case, the pillow helps with comfort, but it's not a treatment. The next step is not resignation; it's talking to a doctor.
If you don't know which pillow is right for your sleeping position, the pillow quiz will solve it in 2 minutes.
See also
