A snoring partner can significantly impact your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Since consistent, high-quality and adequate sleep is essential for your health, we understand your eagerness to find tips on how to cope with a snoring partner.
When you don’t get enough sleep, your body and brain cannot function properly. Your mood can also be affected by poor sleep, as you’ll probably feel irritated, exhausted, or unable to focus.
Living with (and sleeping with) a partner who has a snoring problem can be detrimental to your sleep quality, but don’t worry, as there are options to help you with this issue.
There are many different options regarding how to cope with a snoring partner, and below are some of the most effective coping methods:
How to Fall Asleep Without Snoring Keeping You Awake
You may be wondering what you can do to get a restful night’s sleep, even with your partner snoring away in the bed? Below are a few tips you could try:
Go to Sleep Before Your Partner
Something as simple as going to sleep a little earlier than your partner could be the difference between a sleepless night and a struggling eight-hour nap in Morpheus’ arms.
Many people who are deep sleepers find that while they can’t fall asleep if someone next to them is snoring, they aren’t actually woken by snoring. This means that as long as you go to bed before your partner or fall asleep first, it’s unlikely their snoring will wake you if you’re already in a deep sleep.
What you might not realize, however, is that you could have a genetic tendency to be a light sleeper, in which case, even falling asleep first won’t help you that much. You’ll be awake as soon as your partner is asleep and snoring. You might be interested to learn about your genetic sleep tendencies through a DNA test, along with your other genetic health reports.
Sleep With Earplugs
If going to sleep before your partner isn’t possible due to conflicting sleep schedules, you could try sleeping with earplugs. Soft wax earplugs mold to your ear shape and are relatively comfortable to sleep with. There are also comfortable noise-cancelling headphones such as the SleepPhone. Using the SleepPhone headband which is like comfortable pyjamas for your ears, you can listen to ASMR, white noise or sleep music which will drown out the snoring.
Essential Oils
Since nasal congestion is a common cause of snoring, there are small things you can do for your snoring partner that may help to solve this irritating problem. Use argan oil in your diffuser as a carrier oil, mixed with one of the claimed essential oils to help reduce snoring.
Recommended essential oils for reducing nasal congestion include peppermint, thyme, lemon, eucalyptus, lavender, sage, and clove. The mix of these oils in the diffuser is meant to help clear the airways and prevent nasal constipation.
Change Up Their Sleep Position
Another simple but effective solution for snoring is encouraging your partner to sleep on their side. There’s evidence that sleeping on your back can worsen snoring, but it may also lead to sleep apnea, breathing pauses, and choking.
What Else Can You Do When Your Partner is Snoring?
You desperately want a good night’s sleep, but at the same time, you don’t want to make your partner feel embarrassed about their snoring. Waking them up whenever this occurs is not the best choice. While you could cope with a snoring partner by poking them awake every time they start snoring, hoping they’ll turn around and stop, you don’t have to do it this way. You’ll be surprised to know there are other options aside from this:
Help Them Sleep in a Better Position
Change your partner’s sleeping position to one of the recommended ones, like sleeping on their side. Maybe your partner is sleeping on their back, and this is the cause of their intense snoring. It’s possible to gently reposition them to a side sleeping position without waking them up, and that could be enough for the obstruction in the airways to stop.
Encourage Your Partner to Stay Hydrated
Dry mouth and throat can potentially make snoring worse, so try to keep a glass of water close to your bed when you go to sleep, and try to encourage your partner to drink water before going to bed and during the night.
Recommend Your Partner Get Evaluated by an Expert
Snoring may be caused for all kinds of temporary reasons; alcohol consumption, sleeping position, seasonal allergies, smoking too much or having a cold or flu. But all of these tend to go away in the short term. If the snoring continues without any of these conditions, the best thing would be to visit a specialist to check for possible obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
If your partner suffers from OSA, many treatments could potentially help them relieve it. Fortunately, many surgical procedures can help patients deal with this condition better and reduce their suffering.
Sleeping Apart
There’s nothing better than cuddling with your partner after a long day, but in some cases, it could be better for both parties if they sleep in different bedrooms. You could still cuddle and get your oxytocin fix, but then you’d move to a different room. This ensures that you can get the rest you need at night, making you feel more energetic, focused, and in a better mood. And a happier you can’t be anything but good for you and for your relationship.
Is “Second-Hand Snoring” Bad for You?
Even if snoring can be problematic for the person who suffers from it, some studies suggest that the partners of heavy snorers lose quality and time of sleep as well. At first sight, the results of sleeping with a snoring partner can show up in your body as lethargy and drowsiness. But after years of sleeping with a snoring partner, some people in rare cases have also experienced a certain level of hearing loss.
Products That Can Help Reduce Snoring
Luckily, there are currently many different products available on the market for you to try, that might help reduce snoring and help you cope with a snoring partner:
Nasal Strips
These are meant to prevent nasal congestion during the night, but they also help you keep the flow of air continually going through your nose. The best perk of the nasal strips is that they are a noninvasive yet effective treatment option for ceasing snoring.
Positioning Pillows
Special positioning pillows are an excellent method for those who aren’t used to sleeping on their side and want to get used to it. Special head positioning pillows for side sleepers happen to be a good way of training your body to stop sleeping on your back, and start sleeping on your side, where snoring is less likely.
Mouthpieces
The point of this anti-snoring product is to move your snoring partner’s lower jaw forward to keep the airways clear and reduce the vibration that causes snores. However, it is considered one of the most uncomfortable techniques.
Will You Be Sleeping Better Soon?
Snoring affects the snorer and those around them, but it’s often a fixable problem. There are options out there for you to try. You could experiment with the above coping strategies in this article, and if you work along with an expert, chances are you and your partner will be sleeping better soon.
