Snoring is an extremely common phenomenon but whenever someone learns that they snore, many questions spring to mind – Is snoring healthy? Is snoring dangerous? Is snoring a disease? It is normal to be concerned and it should be a relief that occasional snoring due to a cold or flu is inherently harmless.
However, snoring can be the indicator of an underlying, serious sleep disorder such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). While snoring occurs when air flows through an obstructed or restricted airway, causing the soft tissues in the mouth to vibrate and create the rattling snoring sound, obstructive sleep apnea is characterized as momentary lapses in breathing during sleep when your air supply is completely cut off.
Louder and more frequent snoring is the hallmark sign of OSA, which if left untreated can have damaging effects on health.
Side Effects Of Snoring
Obstructive Sleep Apnea is not the only condition in which you snore. People with nasal congestion due to a cold or allergies, overweight people, diabetics, habitual smokers, and many other demographics snore and while snoring is not dangerous, it can still have some unpleasant side effects.
For starters, snoring is bad for your and your partner’s sleep habits. Not only does the sound disrupt your bed sharer’s sleep, but you wake up multiple times during the night. This disturbs the normal sleeping pattern and forces you to have an excess of light sleep, rather than deep REM sleep.
As you toss and turn at night, your body’s sleep needs are not met and you might feel tired and drowsy the following day. Waking up with a sore throat, irritability, difficulty focusing, and frequent morning headaches are other common snoring symptoms.
However, none of these symptoms mean snoring is really bad. These are all common features in snorers and can be treated with simple lifestyle changes like losing weight, trying certain sleeping positions, and using anti-snoring mouthguards.
Snoring Due To Sleep Apnea
If your partner informs you that your snoring is accompanied by moments where you completely stop breathing and then gasp for air, it is time to be alarmed. If it is being caused by sleep apnea, snoring is bad for your breath and something should be done about it promptly. While these may vary from person to person, sleep apnea can have the following effects on your body.
Decrease in Blood Oxygen Saturation
At any instant, 94 to 98% of the hemoglobin in your blood is saturated with oxygen, but when each apnea (complete loss of airflow) lasts for around 30 seconds and happens from a few to a hundred times a night, the amount of oxygen in your blood is reduced to as low as 80%. While this is temporary, having this happen for a long time, coupled with minimal time spent in deep REM sleep, sleep apnea can harm your muscle repair.
Therefore, snoring is a good sign that something like this is happening and your overall muscle strength is reducing.
Cardiovascular Problems
Cardiovascular concerns like high blood pressure (hypertension), irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias), coronary artery disease, and heart attacks are the most well-researched risks of sleep apnea. They do not happen in every individual with sleep apnea but are a widely accepted long-term effect.
This is linked to momentary lapses in airflow as well because that increases the strain on your heart, increasing its size over a long period which makes it susceptible to all the problems discussed.
Mental Health Concerns
Snoring is bad for your sleep quality and adding sleep apnea to the mix has a disastrous effect on the quality of your life and mental health. As discussed above, crankiness, mood swings, and being sleepy all the time are well-known snoring symptoms but sustaining these long-term can develop into mental health disorders like anxiety and depression.
Additionally, the inability to focus due to lack of sleep makes people more susceptible to accidents, for example during driving or other dangerous work. If something unwanted ends up happening, disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder are also very common in people with sleep apnea.
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease
Snoring is also bad for your stomach because the modified way in which your throat opens and closes to facilitate the movement of air during the snoring results in pressure changes in the windpipe and oesophagus. These cumulatively suck the contents of your stomach back into the food pipe, causing this reflux disease.
Other Problems
There are much other health or otherwise problems that have been linked to sleep apnea, such as:
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- Strokes: Heart arrhythmias and excessive strain on the heart can cause blood clots that could lodge in the brain
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Lowered sexual satisfaction
- Marital problems, due to the snoring noise and overall change in the mood the following day
What Can I Do To Stop Snoring?
If your snoring is hinting at obstructive sleep apnea, there is a lot you can do to put an end to them both. OSA is usually a result of undue weight around the neck, nasal congestion, or alcohol before bed, and these can be resolved by getting a lot of exercises to lose weight, taking medications for the cold or allergy, and avoiding alcohol three hours before bed.
Moreover, raising the head of your bed a few inches can significantly improve airflow. If none of these work, interventions like nasal strips, oral mouthguards, tongue-retaining devices, mandibular advancement devices (MADs), and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices can help.
In Conclusion
there are many resources to help you stop snoring because while snoring is not bad, it hints at obstructive sleep apnea which needs to be curtailed promptly.
