Snoring is a habit that can, at its best, be a source of jokes in your household. However, at its worst, it can force you to sleep alone!
Snoring can harm your sleep as well as your partner’s sleep. It can cause serious health consequences like hypertension and stroke. For your partner, though, it is the dreaded alarm of another sleepless night. Oh no, here it goes again…
According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night to lead a healthy life. We understand that your partner’s snores are hindering your sleep, making you feel lethargic in the mornings. You can give your partner an early Christmas present (but, honestly, this is more for your sake) in the form of a science-backed anti-snoring device, Smart Nora, that detects the sounds of snoring early on and will gently adjust your partner’s pillow to give you quieter nights.
You can also try out Yoga. It will help your partner say goodbye to their snoring woes, and assist you in staying calm. But how does it work?
Fix Your Breathing Naturally with Yoga
To understand how yoga helps with snoring, let us first see how snoring works. When you sleep, the area between the back of your throat and the tongue narrows down. This causes the air to pass through its passage much quicker and makes the throat tissues vibrate. When you breathe during sleep, it is this vibration of tissues that produces the snoring sounds. In short, whenever the breathing passages are blocked, the movement of air causes snoring.
This is where yoga steps in. The different yoga poses and facial exercises open up the chest muscles. This relaxes the air passages and regulates breathing.
Yoga can help you with your snoring. It is completely safe and does not have any side effects. But out of the vast array of poses and techniques, which poses do you choose for snoring? Here is a look at five yoga poses and facial exercises to put a natural end to snoring:
The Bow Pose
The Bow Pose, also called the Dhanurasana, helps in opening your chest, shoulders, and neck muscles. Once you master this pose, you will notice your breaths becoming clearer and deeper. It prevents snoring by allowing smooth inhalation and exhalation of breath.
The Bow Pose is not easy to master. Always stretch before trying this pose and make sure your body is warmed up. If you try to hit the perfect form straight away, it may cause muscle strain and cramps. Practice one of its easier variations before you move on to more difficult progressions.
The Cobra Pose
No prizes for guessing why the cobra pose or the Bhujangasana is called so. Do it perfectly, and you might just meet your inner Karate Kid! This pose will stretch your neck and shoulder muscles and strengthen your back.
The Cobra pose opens up the chest muscles and helps in clearing your lungs. This frees up the air passages and helps reduce snoring. It also improves the blood flow and the supply of oxygen to different parts of the body. Since this pose is great for spine health, it will also help you become more flexible and agile.
The Bee Breath Pose
This pose involves a breathing technique that helps in reducing high blood pressure. Since snoring is often linked to high blood pressure, this pose can be very helpful for its treatment.
Besides, the Bee Breath Pose also helps with anxiety and mid-sleep panic attacks. It is extremely easy to master, making it a favorite among beginner yoga practitioners. If you are just starting out in your Yoga journey and feel a little wary, this pose is perfect for you. Do this pose, and you will also notice a sense of calmness filling your mind.
The Shining Skull Pose
The Shining Skull technique helps in clearing air passages in various organs of the skull, the cranial sinus, and the lungs. It involves a breathing technique with different routines for inhalation and exhalation.
The Shining Skull Pose reduces snoring by clearing up the clogged airways inside the cranial sinus. You can perform this technique alongside the Bee Breath technique to make it more effective. This pose is also very helpful with weight loss. So if you are trying to get rid of some extra baggage alongside the snoring, this is the go-to pose.
Tongue and Facial Exercises
Mouth and tongue exercises can help stop the snoring by toning up the tongue muscles and making them less floppy. Snoring happens when you start breathing through the mouth because of bad tongue posture. These exercises can reduce snoring by restoring normal breathing through the nose.
Tongue exercises like tongue slides and tongue stretch tone up the muscles of the throat and the tongue. They also increase the strength of the tongue. Whereas tongue push-ups and push-downs strengthen and tone the soft palate of the mouth. Face exercises like cheek hooks help to close the mouth while breathing. They strengthen the jaws and tone the throat muscles.
Do each of these exercises two to three times every day, and you will see remarkable improvements in your snoring habit. Besides these exercises, you can try nose-breathing and singing to activate various throat and mouth muscles. You may not get to sing the opera any soon, but your sleeping partner will be grateful! You can also try pronouncing vowel sounds for muscle activation.
Improve the Effects of Yoga with a Snoring Solution
Yoga is a great natural remedy for snoring. It is a long-term solution that may take its time to bring the required results. But what do you do if you need an immediate solution?
Well, you can always rely on the Smart Nora snoring solution for peaceful nights full of deep sleep. Smart Nora gently adjusts your pillow when you begin to snore to relax the airways, giving both you and your partner a good night’s rest. Unlike other uncomfortable alternatives, Smart Nora is contact-free and does not interrupt your sleep. So while you fix your breathing apparatus internally with yoga, you can still count on a good night’s rest. After all, you can only work on your body after giving it the recovery it needs.
