Placeholder Content Image

Are you a snorer? It could be affecting your quality of life

<p dir="ltr">A new study suggests that people over 70 who have abnormal breathing while they sleep could be more likely to have a lower quality of life in relation to their physical health and lower cognitive function.</p> <p dir="ltr">The research, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/resp.14279" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Respirology</a></em>, saw 1400 people over the age of 70 take part in a sleep study to check for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) - usually related to snoring - followed by a questionnaire assessing their mental and physical health.</p> <p dir="ltr">The team found that 80 percent of participants had some kind of disordered breathing during sleep, with more men having moderate to severe difficulties than women (36 versus 25 percent).</p> <p dir="ltr">Though they didn’t find an association between SDB and depression or daytime sleepiness - which are commonly associated with SDB among middle aged people - an association was found between SDB and lower measures of cognitive function.</p> <p dir="ltr">They also found an association between SDB and obstructive sleep apnoea, along with a lower score for physical health, which the authors say is novel as this link has only been found in people under the age of 70.</p> <p dir="ltr">The link between SDB and dementia was also explored by the team, since SDB causes the brain to be temporarily deprived of oxygen, resulting in an increased heart rate and changes in blood pressure that could cause additional neurodegenerative damage.</p> <p dir="ltr">SDB also disrupts sleep, which helps the body to clear neurotoxins such as beta-amyloid, a  protein that <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/health/mind/alzheimer-s-marker-found-in-the-brain" target="_blank" rel="noopener">can build up between nerve cells</a>,disrupt cell function and cause symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.</p> <p dir="ltr">Though they did find associations between moderate to severe SDB and delayed recall among men - which they say could “predict incident dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease” - the researchers note that more data over longer periods of time would be needed to establish this association.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Whether treatment of SDB is a reversible factor towards the development of dementia remains to be seen,” the authors conclude.</p> <p dir="ltr"> As for the quality of life for people over 70, the team suggest that, since SDB is common among this age group, treating SDB can improve quality of life, and that assessments of quality of life and cognitive function could be used to decide how to treat SDB in the first place.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d5c12fbd-7fff-e6f4-5fbd-a49064e842b4"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Body

Placeholder Content Image

Why don’t snorers wake themselves up?

<div class="copy"> <p>Ask any snorer why their sonorous rumblings don’t wake them up and they will almost inevitably give the same, simple response: “Why ask me? I don’t snore!”</p> <p>A snorer’s blissful ignorance of their own snuffles gives the impression that they must sleep soundly through them, while the rest of the household listens on in frustration or horror.</p> <p>But just because they don’t remember waking up, doesn’t mean they sleep like a baby. To explain why, we need to look at why some of us snore in the first place. Let’s break it down.</p> <h2>Why do we only snore when we’re asleep?</h2> <p>Your mouth and throat are full of all sorts of delightfully soft, floppy bits, such as your uvula, tonsils, adenoids and other bits of tissue.</p> <p>When you’re awake, your body actively holds all these bits in their designated positions, ready for action. But when you fall asleep, your muscles relax and everything is free to loosen up.</p> <p>This relaxation is an important part of sleeping. As well as allowing our bodies to rest and recuperate, partial muscle paralysis prevents us from acting out our dreams while not fully conscious and walking. While a live action mime of our dreams could be an amusing insight to spectators, it could also be dangerous to us – and them.</p> <p>As well as keeping your limbs safely tucked in bed, sleep relaxation affects the muscles that hold everything in place.</p> <p>For some people (but certainly not any of us), this relaxation is enough for the soft tissues in our mouths to flop into undesirable positions and partially block the flow of air as they breathe.</p> <p>Snoring is the resulting sound of all the oral smooshy bits vibrating and slapping together as air forces its way through the obstruction when we breathe.</p> <h2>Human evolution has set us up to be snorers</h2> <p>Those mouth parts that cause all the trouble are actually the result of human evolution.</p> <p>If we were designing a perfect anti-snoring airway, it would be a long, straight tube with no soft parts at all. Unfortunately, a lot more is required of our airways than just unlaboured breathing. In order to vocalise beyond simple grunts, faces and throats have been reshaped to accommodate more sophisticated sound apparatus – most of which is soft tissue. Our tongues have migrated further back in our throats to shape different sounds. Compared to other mammals, our tongue rests precariously close to the back of our upper airway – the perfect place to become a blockage when we snooze.</p> <p>Our upright posture has also had an effect, shifting throats directly underneath skulls and leaving less room in which to fit all the additional squishy bits – prime conditions for the airway obstruction that leads to snoring.</p> <h2>Loud sounds can wake us when we’re fast asleep. Why not snores?</h2> <p>A loud crash from the kitchen in the middle of the night is almost certain to wake us up. Whether tree crash or a pet’s overly ambitious adventure, human bodies react to the sound by snapping speedily into a state of awareness.</p> <p>This is because our ears are still taking in sound while we’re asleep, and our brain is still processing – but its decision-making processes are very different to when we’re awake. Brains prioritise restfulness while we sleep, filtering out low-priority sounds and letting us snooze through unimportant background noise. Only high-priority signals trigger wakefulness: research has shown we’re more likely to respond to unusual sounds, especially loud sounds that could signal danger, and someone speaking our own names.</p> <p>For the offending snorer, the brain interprets soft snores as innocuous background noise that needs no further attention. But what about the ones that rattle the roof shingles?</p> <p>In fact, very loud snores actually <em>do</em> wake the snorer, but only briefly. We usually need to be in a very deep sleep state for our muscles to be relaxed enough for snoring to start, and at that point our brains are shutting out all but the most important information. Even if a snore is thunderous enough to make it through this filter, the snorer slips right back to sleep within a matter of seconds. Brainwave research suggests that we can have up to 25 of these “microarousals” per hour without even noticing.</p> <p>Unfortunately for everyone else in the household, you have to reach that deep sleep state <em>before</em> the snoring starts in order to be able to filter it out. So bad news for the ‘chainsnorers’ out there –your wake-ups might be impeding a sustained good night’s rest. For the rest of us, a couple of choices: learn to love the bear, or invest in a comfy pair of earplugs.</p> <p>Sleep tight!</p> <em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/the-body/boring-in-on-snoring/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Jamie Priest. </em></p> </div>

Body

Placeholder Content Image

Tips to happily coexist with a snorer

<p>Snoring can take a heavy toll on a relationship when it disrupts your sleeping patterns. Frustration and resentment brews which can cause embarrassment, guilt and conflict. However, sleeping in separate rooms isn’t your only option.</p> <p>According to a <em><strong><a href="https://sleepfoundation.org/%20" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">US study conducted by the Sleep Foundation</span></a></strong></em>, 32 per cent of men report that they are snorers, versus 16 percent of women. This means the majority of “sufferers” (the one’s lying awake) are women.</p> <p>A study by John Shepard, M.D., medical director of the <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/neurology/center-sleep-medicine-minnesota/overview" target="_blank"><em><strong>Sleep Disorders Center at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.</strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">,</span></em></a> found that the bedmates of heavy snorers lose an average of one hour of sleep per night. Another study released last year, from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., found that when heavy snorers with sleep apnea underwent treatment, they and their spouses reported better sex lives and a smoother relationship.</p> <p><strong>How to tell them</strong></p> <p>Snoring tends to get worse as people age because, like so many other body parts, tissues in and around the airway start to sag. The mid-40s and up is when snoring really becomes more prevalent. This means that people who were never snorers before, may become snorers later in life. Regardless, there's usually very little perception of snoring on the part of the snorer. If they are having trouble believing your concerns, try a tape recorder or getting their friends to tell them. They’re more likely to believe it from them rather than dismiss in embarrassment. </p> <p><strong>Ways to deal</strong></p> <p>There are a few tricks you can try to get around your partners snoring issue before the couch starts to look more and more comfortable.</p> <ul> <li>If you wake up to your partner snoring in the night, try to gently move them onto their side. If you find they just move right back, try to prop up some pillows before bedtime to keep them from rolling onto their back. If this still doesn’t work, you can have them wear a T-shirt that has a pocket sewn onto the back to put a tennis ball in and every time they go to roll over they will find the position uncomfortable and roll back.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Ask your partner to avoid eating too late at night as this effects snoring.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>As you will have probably noticed by then, snoring is louder and more likely to disrupt you if your partner has been drinking. Perhaps this is something to open a discussion about.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>If you are partial to a small humming noise in the place of snoring, you could look into getting a <em><strong><a href="https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/continuous-positive-airway-pressure-and-sleep">CPAP machine.</a></strong></em></li> </ul> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/body/2015/12/6-signs-you-need-more-sleep/">6 signs you need more sleep</a></strong></span></em></p> <p><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2016/01/side-sleeping-avoid-neurological-disease/">Your sleep position linked to diseases</a></strong></span></em></p> <p><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2015/12/women-have-a-harder-time-sleeping-than-men/">Why do women have a harder time sleeping than men?</a></strong></span></em></p> <p> </p>

Body

Our Partners