Snor­ing can be a se­ri­ous health is­sue, dis­rupt­ing nor­mal sleep­ing pat­terns and dis­turb­ing part­ners as they try to sleep through the noise. Snor­ing af­fects more than 90 mil­lion adults and their part­ners. One British sur­vey found that if your spouse snores, by your 50th wed­ding an­niver­sary you'll have lost about four years' worth of sleep.Be­sides just feel­ing tired all the time, peo­ple who don't get enough sleep can de­vel­op mem­o­ry and mood prob­lems; they're even at a greater risk of car ac­ci­dents.Mod­er­ate snor­ers in­clude peo­ple who snore every night, but per­haps on­ly when on their backs or on­ly for part of the night. Heavy snor­ers should see a doc­tor to make sure they don't have a se­ri­ous sleep­ing dis­or­der called sleep ap­nea.For light or mod­er­ate snor­ers, here are home reme­dies that can help you-and your part­ner-sleep bet­ter.

Ten­nis ball

If you snore most­ly when on your back, put a ten­nis ball in a shirt pock­et cut from an old T-shirt and sew it to the mid-back of your tight pa­ja­ma top. The dis­com­fort forces you to roll over and sleep on your side, with­out wak­ing you up.

Ex­tra pil­lows

Try prop­ping your head up with an ex­tra pil­low to stop snor­ing. This opens your air­way more, which pre­vents the back of the throat from col­laps­ing and caus­ing snor­ing. You can al­so raise the head of your bed by putting a cou­ple of bricks un­der the legs of your bed, for ex­am­ple.

Hu­mid­i­fi­er

If a cold or con­ges­tion is be­hind your snor­ing, one way to un­stuff your nose is to run a hu­mid­i­fi­er in your bed­room at night. This en­cour­ages your si­nus­es to drain, shrink­ing nasal mu­cous and im­prov­ing air­flow to re­duce snor­ing. Smear­ing some vapou­rub on your chest at night will help open your nasal pas­sages too, eas­ing your snor­ing.

Nasal strips

If you snore but don't have un­der­ly­ing si­nus prob­lems or cough­ing, you can re­lieve some of the snor­ing by wear­ing an OTC nasal strip. These ad­he­sive strips pull open the nasal pas­sages so they're less nar­row, giv­ing you bet­ter air­flow.

Mouth guard

A mandibu­lar ad­vance­ment de­vice, al­so known as an oral ap­pli­ance, is shaped like a mouth guard for you to wear at night. It helps keep the low­er jaw pushed out, widen­ing the air­way and re­duc­ing snor­ing. Stud­ies show it is 90 per cent ef­fec­tive at re­duc­ing noise from snor­ing. Your den­tist can fit you for one. For a less ex­pen­sive op­tion, you can buy an OTC de­vice called a snore guard. You boil it and then fit it in­to your mouth to cre­ate an im­pres­sion of your teeth and den­tal struc­ture. The goal is the same: to bring your low­er jaw for­ward a bit to make the back of your throat less crowd­ed.

When to call a doc­tor

In gen­er­al, the loud­er and more fre­quent you snore, the more like­ly it is re­lat­ed to a med­ical prob­lem such as sleep ap­nea. If home reme­dies haven't helped your snor­ing, or if you have snor­ing and chron­ic stuffi­ness, or snor­ing and heart­burn, see a doc­tor.

What Caus­es Snor­ing?

The phys­i­cal ob­struc­tion of the flow of air through the mouth and nose is the cause of snor­ing. The walls of the throat vi­brate dur­ing breath­ing, re­sult­ing in the dis­tinc­tive sounds of snor­ing. Air flow can be ob­struct­ed by a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, in­clud­ing:

Ob­struct­ed nasal air­ways: Par­tial­ly blocked nasal pas­sages re­quire ex­tra ef­fort to trans­fer air through them while sleep­ing. This can pull to­geth­er or col­lapse the non-rigid soft and dan­gling tis­sue of the throat, re­sult­ing in snor­ing. Some peo­ple snore on­ly dur­ing al­ler­gy sea­sons or when they have a si­nus in­fec­tion. De­for­mi­ties of the nose such as a de­vi­at­ed sep­tum (a "crooked" wall that sep­a­rates one nos­tril from the oth­er) or nasal polyps can al­so cause ob­struc­tion and sleep prob­lems.

Poor mus­cle tone in the throat and tongue: Throat and tongue mus­cles can be too re­laxed, which al­lows them to col­lapse and fall back in­to the air­way. This can re­sult from deep sleep, al­co­hol, and some sleep­ing pills. Nor­mal ag­ing caus­es fur­ther re­lax­ation of these mus­cles and in­creas­es the po­ten­tial for snor­ing.Bulky throat tis­sue: Be­ing over­weight can cause bulky throat tis­sue. Al­so, chil­dren with large ton­sils and ade­noids of­ten snore.