The facts about snoring all men should know

By: Hugh Wilson

There was a time when snoring was a bit of a joke. In 70s sitcoms, for example, well-rested men would regularly wake up to the frosty glares of saggy-eyed wives, exhausted after a night trying to sleep alongside the resident hippo.

It's fair to say that snoring is taken a bit more seriously these days. This week is national stop snoring week, and the need for it suggests snoring has been recognised as something that can take a real toll on mental and physical wellbeing.

Snoring was once considered annoying but essentially harmless, but more recent research has shown that it can have serious consequences for both health and happiness, and that's true for both the snorer and anyone who has to sleep next to them. It's also on the rise, with studies showing that more of us snore than ever before.

Here are the facts on snoring, and what snorers can do to stop.

The numbers 

The latest figures suggest that the UK is facing an epidemic of snoring, and men are the worst victims (or culprits, depending on your point of view). A study by the British Snoring Sleep Apnoea Association (BSSAA) found that 41.5% of the UK adult population snores, and twice as many men snore as women.

If you extrapolate from the study - which gathered information from 1,075 subjects - that means nearly 10.5 million men in the UK snore. On a bad night, you could probably hear the collective snorts and whistles from space.

And it's getting worse. The disparity may partly be explained by the fact that fewer people took snoring seriously in 1992, when one study put the total number of snorers in the UK at just 3.5 million. But it could also be because we're getting fatter, drinking more and working longer hours.

Why do we snore? 

And those factors say something about the causes of snoring. Excess weight, alcohol consumption and exhaustion can all cause snoring or make it worse.

Essentially, we all snore for the same reason. When we go to sleep our nasal airways relax, and in snorers the upper airways collapse to such a degree that breathing forces the soft tissues to vibrate.

Of course some people snore all the time, some people never and some people occasionally. But both regular and occasional snorers can make their snoring more frequent, louder or both, by overeating, taking too little exercise, smoking and sleeping on their backs. Allergies and nasal stuffiness also contribute.

These factors effect everyone's snoring, but it's interesting to note that studies find that even women who snore tend to do so less frequently than men (about a third less) and that their snoring is generally reported as quieter.

How does snoring affect health? 

The most obvious effect is tiredness. Snoring leads to disrupted sleep, which leads to that all consuming sense of fatigue the next day. But that's just the start.

'For snorers, in the short term they suffer disrupted sleep that will impact on their daily functioning but if the snoring is not addressed there are other more serious consequences,' says Marianne Davey, director of the BSSAA.

'The most likely is over a long period of time snoring will develop into the more serious condition of obstructive sleep apnoea. But other health conditions tend to occur as well.'

Sleep apnoea can cause excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability, headaches, anxiety and loss of libido, to name just a few. Hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol and type two diabetes are also all more common in snorers.

And it's not just the snorer himself that suffers. A bad snorer can be louder than a chainsaw, a vacuum cleaner or a lawnmower. 'Bed partners of snorers suffer twice as many health problems as those of non-snorers,' says Davey. 'This is probably due to sleep deprivation and stress on the relationship.'

What other problems does snoring cause? 

If you wake up tired and stressed from snoring, and your partner wakes up tired and stressed from listening to your snoring, it's not difficult to see how tensions might arise.

'Snoring is probably the number one cause of arguments among couples and consequently can put a strain on a relationship,' says Davey. 'We have seen many cases where snorers come to our snoring clinics having split from their partners.'

Sleep deprivation makes couples tetchy in the morning, but the anticipation of another bad night can make them tetchy in the evening, too. For couples with a spare room, sleeping apart can be the answer, but such a lack of intimacy can also cause relationship problems. The best thing for all concerned is to tackle the snoring at source.

What you can do about snoring? 

You can't cure snoring, but you can control it. The first thing to do, says Marianne Davey, is take the tests on the BSSAA website to identify what sort of snorer you are.

Once you've identified your snoring type you can try a range of solutions, from nasal dilators that keep nasal passages open to chin up straps that encourage 'mouth breathers' to breath through their nose. Sleeping with your mouth hanging open is one of the chief causes of loud snoring.

It could be that your snoring is caused or worsened by lifestyle factors, in which case, losing weight (if you need to), cutting alcohol consumption and quitting smoking are all good ideas.

Whatever you try, it's now beyond doubt that snoring - a condition that can lead to both diabetes and divorce - is no joke. As Davey says, 'now we know a lot more about the health and social implications of being a snorer people tend to take the problem more seriously than they ever did before.'