Learn How To Stop Snoring Without Surgery Blog

“Neem neem nee ney nai na.” John, my tone-deaf husband is singing. More precisely, he is exercising his nasalis, or nostril-flaring muscle, a lax little area that could be causing him to snore - and me to want to kill him - several times a night.

Do you know the exercises that are part of a Singing for Snorers CD programme of daily vocal “muscle toning”?

The answer to the nightly problems of an estimated 30 million people in Britain, the snorers and their unfortunate sleep partners, could, it seems, lie in a simple daily singsong.

The programme, invented by choir director Alise Ojay, may seem a little kooky at first, but it is the basis of a clinical trial at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the results, so far, are promising.

A recent study suggests that more than 40 per cent of middle-aged people in this country, and twice as many men as women, snore. Snoring is known to be not just a passion killer but also a genuine cause for relationships breaking down. In a survey a few years ago, 10 per cent of cohabiting couples said their snoring problem was so acute they were thinking of splitting up. Malcolm Hilton, an ear, nose and throat specialist and director of the “Singing for Snorers” clinical trial, says the dreaded noise - whether it sounds like a wild boar, an angry rhinoceros, a chainsaw or a mongoose - comes from “turbulent airflow that makes the structures at the back of your throat rattle”.

This usually happens because the soft palate, the area at the back and top of the mouth, is too relaxed. It (and sometimes the tongue) then “flops” backwards when you are prone, causing a partial obstruction and making the air whistle, honk or roar as you breathe. Smoking or drinking too much alcohol can contribute by relaxing the muscles. Being overweight is also a factor, as the extra flesh around your neck presses down when you lie on your back, narrowing the opening.

Ojay has come up with a set of vocal exercises, to be performed daily over three months, to tighten the lax muscles that affect the soft palate, tongue, nasal passages and palatopharyngeal arch (at the back of your mouth, where the dangly bit, the uvula, hangs). “When we sing, we use certain muscles to make different sounds, tunes and pitches,” says Ojay. “It’s like going to the gym and lifting a weight again and again: repeating these sounds tightens these muscles, so they no longer vibrate so much.”

More info about it here