A clinical trial concludes that snoring exercises may offer relief to those who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea.
Participants showed positive results in reducing the severity of their apnea and saw a reduction in the frequency of night time snoring.
According to the American Association of Respiratory Care, more than 18 million people in the United States suffer from some form of sleep apnea.
This is a medical condition which causes the sufferer to stop breathing periodically while sleeping.
Without treatment, there is a risk of high blood pressure, daytime sleepiness, and other significant health problems.
Sleep apnea is the result of a physical blockage of the airway passages through which oxygen enters your body.
That blockage could be the result of enlarged tonsils or simply a relaxed soft palette which gravity pulls into your airway while you sleep.
The results of a clinical trial filed with the US National Institute of Health by the University of Sao Paulo reached the conclusion that "Oropharyngeal exercises significantly reduce OSAS severity and symptoms and represent a promising treatment for moderate OSAS".
The results were published by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine in 2009.
Improvement in symptoms related to obstructive sleep apnea were also reported and included measurements for daytime sleepiness, neck circumference, and sleep quality along with the severity of the sleep apnea and snoring frequency.
The exercises assigned to the trial participants included those that are applied during speech therapy to improve the muscle strength in the tongue, the soft palate, the jaw, and cheeks.
Participants completed the exercises for three months.
The reason these exercises can work is that if the physical blockage is the result of a weakened muscle, then strengthening that muscle makes it tighter, more compact, and less likely to block the airway when someone with sleep apnea lies down.
There are social and lifestyle benefits to using snoring exercises, too.
For those who snore but do not have sleep apnea, if muscles can be strengthened to reduce snoring, the reliance on special devices which make sleep less comfortable could become a non-issue.
We'd all rather sleep without having to strap something on our nose or use a special device to stop the problem.
Sleeping naturally could, once again, be a viable option.