If you have a specific sleeping problem, such as snoring or obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) that affects your sleeping, help is at hand. These surprisingly simple tips can make the difference for you (and your partner) between a sleep deprived night and a full night’s sleep.
1. Breathe Moist Air
Improve the quality of the air in your bedroom with a humidifier and you could find that your snoring problem, or that of your partner, disappears or noticeably reduces. Humid air works by helping to loosen the mucus in the respiratory system so that, rather than blocking the nose, the body is able to expel it more easily.
2. Exercise Your Tongue
Tone your tongue muscles to help stop yourself from snoring. Try fitting these exercises into your daily routine:
- Push your tongue to the back of your front teeth and, as you do so, roll it around at the back of your mouth, using as much pressure as you can. Continue this exercise for 3 minutes.
- Repeat each of the vowels (A, E, I, 0, U) out loud for 3 minutes, stressing the tone of each one.
- Purse your lips and try to keep them in position for 30 seconds.
- Contract the muscles at the back of your throat for 30 seconds this may produce a sound like a croaking frog.
3. Dilate Your Nostrils
Try putting on nasal strips at night to dilate your nostrils. If you snore because your nasal passages are blocked due to an allergy such as hay fever, sinus infect ions, or unwanted growths such as polyps in the nose-nasal strips may help. It’s also possible to have surgery to keep the nasal passages open by inserting small rods into them. The surgical removal of troublesome polyps can be effective, too.
4. Watch Your Medications
Alcohol, and a variety of medications including antihistamines and sleeping pills, can cause relaxation of your tongue muscles leading to snoring. If your muscles are so relaxed and your tongue falls too far back in your mouth, a plastic mouth guard that pulls both it and the lower jaw forward can successfully reduce snoring.
5. Diet
Add exercise to your weight loss regimen to help tighten your neck muscles. Being overweight is a cause of OSAS snoring plus frequent pauses in breathing. In a Greek study, a calorie controlled diet combined with 30 minutes exercise a day proved effective, after six months, in producing both weight loss and less interruption of REM sleep from OSAS.
6. Mask the Danger
OSAS is the most dangerous form of snoring. It also causes headaches and fatigue and is linked with high blood pressure, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. You can get relief with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPP) device a mask that fits over the nose connected to a bedside machine, which delivers a steady stream of pressurized air.
7. Search for the Cause
It’s particularly important to discover the cause of snoring in a child because it can lead to disturbed sleep and a reduced supply of oxygen to the brain, which can cause poor school performance and behavioural problems. Enlarged tonsils and adenoids, common in a small child, can cause snoring. Being overweight is also a risk factor because excess fat can constrict the throat and prevent the diaphragm from working properly. Seek your doctor’s advice.
8. Cut Down on Caffeine
Found in coffee, tea, and cola, this stimulant slows down the body’s absorption of iron, which is often deficient in people with restless leg syndrome. And caffeine is a well-known impediment to good sleep.
9. Keep a Sleepwalker Safe
Take every precaution if someone in your household is a sleepwalker. Keep them away from stairs consider installing a stair gate. Lock windows and secure any potentially dangerous area in the house where a fall might occur. Affecting 1 in 10 children and 1 in 50 adults, sleepwalking can be brought on by sleep deprivation.
10. Give up the Gum
If you grind your teeth at night, don’t chew gum during the day chewing clenches the jaw muscles, which can exacerbate the problem. If you find yourself clenching your teeth while you ‘re awake, push the tip of your tongue between your teeth, as this can help train your jaw muscles to relax.
11. Try Massage Your Legs
To prevent restless legs at night, give your legs a good rub 2 or 3 hour before bedtime. It may also help to apply hot or cold compress to your leg muscles whichever work best.
Keep Your Legs Calm with Supplements
Try taking a daily supplement of 400mg magnesium combined with 800mg calcium if you suffer from restless leg syndrome. It may also be helpful to increase your intake of iron and folic acid, essential for the manufacture of oxygen carrying blood cells and of myoglobin, the protein that stores oxygen in the muscles until it is needed. Achieve this by increasing the amount Nutrition and Weight Control of leafy green vegetables, whole grains, and beans in your diet, plus red meat if you ‘re not a vegetarian. Alternatively, take iron and folic acid as supplements.
Massaging your legs can prevent them from becoming restless at night
