We had a friend at  school who snored terribly almost every night.
This was not so bad, as the fact that he denied it completely.
Sometimes thinking we had the evidence at hand we would wake him up and say, “You were snoring”.
He would still deny it. So out of complete exasperation we video taped the evident.
The whole thing was clear on candid camera, and we were smug in the conviction that we had red hot evidence. A water tight case, or so we thought.
So when we had settled down to our usual kangaroo court accusations, we let him know that we had evidence that he snored.
He was curious about the evidence and said   “Let me see it”.
So we produced our little video clip  of about three minutes in length.
He looked intently at the clip, and then asked “ I can hear the snoring, and I can see the clip of me in bed, but where is it coming from?”.
That was the point at which we gave up. He insisted there were several people in the shared room and the clip did not prove the snoring was coming from him.
Since the culprit is asleep at the time, and they are not aware of it they presume it could not be them, because if it was, they would have heard it.
I was surprised the other day while doing some shopping in Pick and Pay in Ndola, to find tucked away on their back shelves, a snoring device.
Now if a supermarket can sell a snoring device alongside bread, butter and sugar, you can be sure it has to be a common problem.
There is something quiet undignified about snoring, and I am not sure exactly what it is. Perhaps it is because it is so social unacceptable that it stigmatises someone as a bad sleeping companion. Almost everyone will have had an episode of snoring in their life.
It is when this is persistent and regular that it creates a problem. In our very socially integrated life, where it matters so much what other people think of us, social stigma is a bad thing.
To be labelled in this way, is to be pegged in a lower social class then others, probably no better than having bad breath and be  wetting.
So if you snore you probably won’t know it, it is also likely that those who like you most will not have told you.
It is also probably true that you will have denied it when those more neutral people have told you so.
However if you have been constantly accused of it a number of times, chances are that it’s true. It is not so much that snoring is just socially bad, but much more that it may suggest some underlying ill health.
1.What is Snoring?
2. What causes Snoring?
3. How can I stop Snoring?
1. What is Snoring?
If you’ve heard it you will know it.
One common and unusual place where I have heard it is on aeroplanes.
The  exhausting air travelling and the sleeping posture all lend themselves easily to snoring.
You have a group of very exhausted people, quiet a number of whom are above their expected weight and they are made to sleep in a seated position.
All these things make it quite likely that someone in the cabin will snore.
To answer the question what is snoring, it can be said that snoring is sleep noise.
This is due to difficulty in the passage of air during breathing through the upper part of the airway or breathing passage.
When these passages are narrow the forced passage of air generates the noise. Vibration of the roof and floor of the mouth actually makes the sonorous noise.
The second obvious question would be why does it occur during sleep and not at any other time.
Well quite a number of people have noisy breathing, even when they are awake.
However when someone is asleep the air passage tends to narrow more with the relaxation of the neck muscles for sleep exacerbating  any narrowing which already exists.
In addition the posture of sleep itself such as bending of the neck or twisting makes the narrowing of the breathing passages even more.
In addition the body cleans up these passages at night, so there is more fluids in these tubes during the night, which makes these passages rather crowded with things.
You should also remember that the environment is very quiet at night and so any noise becomes very pronounced.
So altogether, snoring is noisy breathing during sleep, which is due to narrowing of the air passage by relaxed airway muscles, increase in secretions in the air passages and the reduction in the level of noise at night.
2. What causes Snoring?
There are two groups in which snoring is most common.
These are children and  overweight adults. Both for the same reason. In children the neck is rather short and small, as it is in overweight adults.
Children who are below five years also tend to  be prone to repeated infections of the mouth and nose.
In part due to their out door  environment in which they play but also to the developing immune system, which is still not sufficiently strong.
Therefore their mouth and nose have a large aggregation of  defence cell sites.
These are the tonsils in the mouth and the Adenoids in the nasal passage.
These compound the already short neck and relatively big tongue, these conspire to create a very small passage for air. For these reasons it is very common for young children to snore.
When they get older the neck lengthens, their jaw gets bigger and the defence sites shrink, therefore the snoring disappears. In adults who are overweight, the neck is short and the air passage narrow.
This is due to the deposition of fact below the skin of the neck, this impinges on the neck passages. In addition the fat under the skin is highest around the middle of the tummy this rests like a heavy weight on the chest.
Therefore the process of breath requires a lot of energy.
Imagine trying to breath with a few bricks tied to your tummy.
In the standing positions this is not so bad. However in the lying down position the weight is increased on the chest and the two factors make the passage of air through the nose and mouth difficult.
It is generally said that up to 30 per cent  of people snore.
Generally more  men are said to snore more (24 per cent ) compared to their female counterparts(14 per cent).
The reason for this appears to be related to the size of the back of the throat. In women this area is smaller because of a smaller neck and jaw.
This means the space between the floor and roof of the mouth is less.
This results in less vibrations in this space which is the cause of snoring, Snoring tends to increase with increasing weight and age.
In addition to factors that close off or narrow the nasal or oral passages, other factors such as excessive tiredness, alcohol and the pillow types will affect snoring. Many people will snore occasionally when they are very tired or have had very little sleep.
This maybe because they sleep more deeply and their neck muscles are more relaxed creating more vibration through the air passages. In addition alcohol has a similar effect, in making people sleep more deeply, in rather awkward positions.
Many people report snoring after parties and an episode of alcohol ingestion.
When people change beds or pillows, or sleep in a different bed or room, they will also sometimes report snoring. This is likely due to change of neck posture and sleep position, both may change the flow of air through the breathing passages and lead to an episode of snoring.
3. What can I do to stop Snoring?
Someone might say, and people often do, “So what if I snore, I do no one any harm”.
That would be an understatement, and probably at best a naïve perception of the effects of snoring.
I will highlight a few of the common problems related to snoring just to convince you that it’s a habit that should be managed.
There are many social consequences, key of which is the fact that men snore more commonly then women.
The snoring men often deny it, and the women get no sleep, because they are disturbed by it.
You will be surprised to learn that among couples snoring has been cited as one of the top three reasons for divorce. Up to 53 per cent  of couples admit relationship problems because of snoring.
It has been indicated that up to 60 per cent  of couples have separate bedrooms because of snoring.
In addition to these social problems a few medical problems result from snoring. It is sometimes thought that those who snore are enjoying their sleep the most.
In fact most people who snore sleep poorly.
They will wake up many times because of  not getting enough  into their lungs. They also toss and turn frequently in order to get better volumes of air into their lungs.
This means that they sleep insufficiently and will often sleep during the day.
The greatest risk is with occupations like long distance drivers and heavy duty machine operators.
If they fall asleep while driving or using a dangerous piece of equipment they may injure themselves or others.
Many people who are rather overweight may experience episodes of failure to breath during  these periods, a condition called sleep apnoea.
The biological effect is seen in headaches and heartaches during the day.
This is because of inadequate sleep and poor circulation of oxygen to the brain and the heart at night.
So in the morning they wake up feeling stuffy and with a dull throbbing headache, which recovers during the course of the day.
They have the feeling of been a little slow mentally as well. Similar strain is felt on other body organs including the heart.
It is not uncommon for people who snore to complain of chest pain at night or during the day.
This is the consequence of poor supply of oxygen to the heart and increasing energy demands generated by sleep restlessness and snoring.
People who snore also feel generally tired during the day. It’s as if, instead of sleeping at night they were actually working. In years gone by in the 1970s and 1980s, Zambian people were a lot more superstitious than they are today.
They also believed in “Shambas”(Swahili word for garden), a little farm area near your urban dwelling which the family cultivated to supplement the office jobs in the cities.
It was believed that many of these people mobilised sleep slaves at night who cultivated their Shamba.
So the belief was prevalent in those days that if you woke up feeling tired in the morning, someone had used you as a sleep slave to cultivate their Shamba.
Superstition aside, if you snore, you will wake up feeling tired in the morning and needing some more sleep.
Hoping that you are now convinced that snoring is sufficient of a problem, to need correction, I will discuss some possible remedies. These include the following
1.Change  sleep positions and sleep posture
2.Day sleeping
3.Losing weight
4.Reduce or minimise alcohol intake
5.The use of anti snoring devices
6.Surgery treatment
The position of sleep tends to worsen snore. In particular position of the neck.
Try to change your sleeping position as well as your pillow.
The higher the pillow the more you are likely to narrow the air passage and worsen the snoring.
Take occasional naps during the day, say after meals.
This will help to make you less tired at night and this will make snoring less likely.
Snoring is particularly common among overweight children and adults.
If  you lose a little bit of weight, this will open up the airways and will reduce the risk of snoring.
Alcohol tends to deepen sleep and worsen snoring.
If you reduce your alcohol intake you are likely to snore less.
There are a number of snoring devices, some of which are available in Zambia.
These are designed to hold down the tongue during sleep and keep the mouth open.
This tends to reduce snoring. However the down side is they may not work on all clients and may displace during sleep.
In children who snore due to enlarged lymph glands such as Tonsils(in the mouth) or Adenoids (in the nose).
This particularly common in children below five years old.
The removal of these glands by a surgical operation is likely to help reduce snoring.