Experts say a quality night’s rest requires 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. However, this can be tough if you or your partner is a chronic snorer. According to John Hopkins Medicine, almost half of healthy adults in the US snore from time to time, whereas a quarter of the population snores regularly. A few more facts — men generally snore more than women, and, usually, snoring develops with age. From quiet snuffles to resounding roars, snoring makes it tough for your partner or the people you live with to sleep well.
Moreover, when they wake you up several times per night asking to change your sleeping position to stop snoring, it affects your sleep quality, resulting in low energy and a bad mood.
While a range of means exists to mitigate snoring, perhaps, one of the easiest is changing your sleeping position with an adjustable bed. Let’s dive deeper into the nature of snoring and learn how adjustable beds can help reduce snoring and improve the quality of your and your loved ones’ sleep!
What are the Reasons for Snoring?
In a nutshell, snoring happens when something prevents air from freely moving through your nose and throat when you breathe. Obstructions can narrow your airways, and compressed airflow makes surrounding tissues resonate, creating the rumbling sound we call snoring.
We’ll go through some of the main reasons for snoring, giving you a comprehensive understanding of the thing that can make or break a good night’s sleep for many!
1. Relaxed tongue and throat muscles
When we sleep, most of the muscles in our body, except for the heart and eyes muscles and those responsible for breathing, lose their tonus. Lack of tonus leads to throat musculature sagging and the tongue falling back and partially blocking the airways.
2. Nasal polyps and sinusitis
Sinus swelling narrows airways significantly, provoking a stuffy nose. Since your nasal airways are clogged, you have to breathe through your mouth, which can also call snoring.
3. Open mouth
When sleeping on a back, relaxed jaw muscles let jaws go down and close the throat, which obstructs free airflow and causes snoring.
4. Extra weight
Overweight tissues press even more on the relaxed throat when lying. This combination of factors puts plump people at a higher risk of chronic snoring.
5. Sleeping on your back
If you prefer to sleep on your back, it requires more effort from your throat muscles to resist gravity and keep your airways open. When relaxed at night, muscles sag under gravity, and you start snoring.
How is Snoring Different from Sleep Apnea?
Sometimes, snoring isn’t caused by the factors above but by sleep apnea, a condition when breathing stops and resumes while a person is sleeping. People who suffer from sleep apnea have their throats not partially narrowed like in the case of snoring but fully blocked for a short time. When breathing stops, the body wakes up to restart it — this can happen many times a night, considerably deteriorating sleep quality. The resumption of breathing is followed by loud snorts. However, unlike usual night snoring, your body makes these sounds when you’re already awake.
Do Adjustable Beds Really Help with Snoring?
Luckily, yes! The use of an adjustable bed is one of the best ways to stop snoring quickly. Since the main reason for snoring is throat tissues that sag under gravity when lying and block airflow, elevating your head is a game-changer. Raising a head helps lessen the tissues’ vibration and open airways by removing the pressure on throat muscles and pushing your jaws and tongue forward. The elevated head is also a relief for people who suffer from sleep apnea — the 2017 study proved that a small, 7.5-degree elevation significantly alleviates sleep apnea intensity. The Anti Snore function in all three models from Progressive Beds enables the adjustable bed head segment to rise at about a 7-degree angle, allowing to free partially blocked airways.
Furthermore, electric adjustable bed frames also reduce the need for devices to stop snoring, such as a CPAP machine, nasal clips, or jaw supporters, providing the possibility to change the head’s position whenever needed and ease breathing.
Here are some benefits of adjustable beds:
1. Benefit from the zero gravity sleep position
This sleep pose, also called the neutral body position, came from astronauts’ practices and proved to have value here on earth. Firstly, with your head and knees raised just slightly above your heart level, the pressure on the back is fairly reduced. Then, the zero gravity position provides head support and prevents throat muscles from sagging and narrowing your airways, which mitigates snoring.
2. Alleviate sinusitis symptoms
Blocked sinuses hamper free airflow being the common cause of snoring. Adjustable bed frames allow you to change the bed’s head height with the only push of a button, helping your nasal ways drain more effectively in an elevated position.
3. Sleep comfortably on the side
Back sleeping is more likely to induce snoring due to the force of gravity on your throat tissues. When turning on your side, you distribute the pressure differently, which helps you breathe better and snore less. Moreover, adjustable beds and let you reduce the pressure on hips and shoulders and find the most comfortable sleeping position.
Additionally, adjustable beds lessen the need for additional pillows, allow for proper body weight distribution, and improve blood circulation.
Closing Thoughts
Whether you’re a chronic or occasional snorer, adjustable beds can help you minimize snoring and ensure good sleep quality for your partner and yourself. Not only do adjustable beds help with snoring, but they also improve your posture, provide better back alignment, and support proper bloodstream and heart work. Atop the above, our adjustable beds have more features for your comfortable and healthy lifestyle.
We hope you’ve found a handful of useful insights in this article. And if you are still unsure whether an adjustable bed is right for you, find out why you definitely need one, or just contact us to get some advice!
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