Laugh and the world laughs with you; snore and you sleep alone. Snoring may be defined as a respiratory (breathing in) noise produced by vibration of the soft parts of throat.
Unluckily, the term snoring is used to define all noises generated in sleep, from merely annoying noises to the dangerous and disturbing sounds made by patients with Sleep Apnea.
It is easy to laugh at people who snore. Occasionally the snorer tries to be a good sport and laugh along, but laughing at someone's problem is never a nice thing to do.
Every snorer hopes there was something they could do about it, and is probably privately embarrassed about it, no matter what they say.
Both non-snorers and snorers should realize that snoring is a physical condition no different than any other, and the snorer has absolutely no control over it, just like epilepsy or any other condition.
This is easy to get mad at snorers, too: don't, it isn't their fault. Try to be compassionate and live by the golden rule: if you had a physical problem that you had no control over, would you like people to laugh at you? After all you don't laugh at people in wheelchairs, do you?
People who snore have at least one of the following problems:
1. Low muscle tone in the muscles of the tongue and throat (Alcohol and other drugs relax these muscles even further, causing increased snoring);
2. Excessive bulkiness of tissue in the throat, such as large tonsils and adenoids, big uvulas (the part that is hanging in the throat), or excessive length of the soft palate;
3. Obstructed nasal airways: When the mucous membranes become stuffy and swollen, the air passages become smaller. Then you have to breathe with exaggerated force to move the air through the narrow hole. It explains why some people only snore during hay fever season, or when they have a cold.
4. Anatomical deformities in the airway: Some people have a broken or crooked nose, which cuts down on the airway size. Being overweight also can cause snoring, because fat deposits around the upper airway make the airway smaller.
About half of all adults snore occasionally, and one out of four snores regularly.
Snoring is much more widespread in men than in women until menopause, when almost as many women as men snore. Children can snore if they have enlarged tonsils or adenoids.
• There is a continuum ranging from Snoring Only (Stage 0) to Snoring associated with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
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