High-Tech Tools to Stop Snoring

Did you know that 30% of people snore? This figure increases as adults get older, and there’s a 2:1 ratio between men and women.

While snoring may seem like a minor problem to some, for many, it causes significant issues. In addition to keeping your partner awake at night, your snoring may also link to a health condition. Conditions such as obesity may cause a person to snore, or it could be a more serious condition like sleep apnea.

If you have a condition such as sleep apnea, you’re probably not getting a good night’s rest. Neither is your sleeping partner, who likely is as invested in a tool to limit snoring as you are. You’re waking hundreds of times during the night, without even realizing it. Fortunately, there are a lot of high-tech tools available you can use to stop snoring and tackle such conditions, and even more, are coming to market shortly.

Pillows that recognize snoring and take action

If you’ve ever been woken in the night by your partner demanding you sleep on your side, you’ll soon realize just how uncomfortable adopting a new sleeping position is. Standard pillows aren’t designed to cushion the side of the head as comfortably as they support the back.

In contrast, anti-snoring pillows feature the contours that make sleeping on your side easier. With these contours, you’ll resist the urge to roll onto your back. When you sleep on your back, your tongue slips back against your soft palate. As you attempt to breathe through your mouth, the partially blocked airway causes a vibrating sensation that exits as a loud snore.

Smart Nora is a sleeping device combined with a pillow that delivers a high-tech solution to snoring. A sensor determines when snoring is occurring and inflates a pillow insert to adjust your sleeping position. The movement of the pillow stimulates the snorer without fully awakening them to resume natural breathing.

The Zeeq Smart Pillow plays sounds only audible to the person directly sleeping on it. Filled with memory foam pieces and eight speakers, this battery-powered pillow buzzes and adjusts position through a gyroscope when snoring is detected through the built-in microphone. It’s also designed to track sleep cycles and help wake you in the morning with a gentle alarm.

The Advansa 1 X21 pillow uses sensors to record body movements, sleep patterns and ambient noise to provide snorers with sleeping tips. It also has a smart alarm function that will help wake you during the proper part of a sleep cycle to diminish sleepiness upon waking.

Apps that’ll help you stop snoring

It’s become common to track health conditions with an app. It’s easy to access information and provides a recording tool that allows you to track symptoms and determine if interventions are working.

Snore Lab

Snore Lab enables you to track information on your phone. It is especially helpful in tracking symptoms your physician can use to determine if a referral to a specialist is necessary.

Snore Lab tracks how often and at what intensity you snore to generate a report on your sleep quality. It also provides audio samples so you can play them back. The data, combined with the recordings, gives you the ability to compare changes over time. Fitbit activity trackers can link to the Snore Lab app to provide you additional health information.

Quit Snoring

Quit Snoring is an app that monitors your sleep session and nudges you awake when you snore. It provides long-term data on how long you slept, how many nudges you received, and how loudly you were snoring and makes it simple to email to your doctor.

Sleep Talk and Snore Recorder

If you’re looking for a snoring solution that goes a little bit further, try the sleep talk and snore recorder. This app doesn’t record what’s going on throughout the night. Instead, it’ll start recording if you talk, snore, or grind your teeth.

You can play back the audio tracks to determine how often you’re awakening and provide the information to your doctor or dentist for further treatment. This app works in at least 31 languages.

Beds that tailor themselves to your needs

The Sleep Number 360 mattress adapts itself to your sleeping needs by detecting both sleeping partners’ and adjusts the heat and position to keep you comfortable. Keeping you and your partner from being awakened is a valuable sleep tool, but it also has a dedicated anti-snoring function.

Snorers can adjust the bed’s position to raise the head of the bed by four inches. As a result, your tongue doesn’t fall back and create that vibrating sensation that makes you snore. Pressure sensors in the mattress adjust the firmness to stop your snoring and give you a report of how the bed changed for you as you slept. It also provides information on your overnight heart rate, breathing, and movements.

Silence the snoring

This high-tech device benefits the sleeping partner more than the snorer. Using a technology similar to that you’d find in noise-canceling headphones, Silent Partner uses sub-wavelength technology to silence audible snoring.

The device hangs across the bridge of the offender’s nose and sticks to the lower cheeks with replaceable adhesive patches. A rechargeable button battery powers the microphone and speakers overnight.

The snoring partner wears the device while acoustic physics trick the sleeping partner’s brain to manage the sound without actually reducing the volume or stopping the snoring. Since snoring can be an indicator of a more serious medical condition, see your doctor to confirm you’re otherwise healthy before trying this device.

Hypoglossal Implant

An implant, the size of half a matchstick, is placed under the tongue. When worn with a high-tech band-aid with a signal transmitter placed under the chin, the two work together to stimulate the hypoglossal nerve under the tongue. Stimulating the nerve causes the throat muscles to contract, pulling the tongue forward and opening the airway.

The minor implant procedure takes about 15 minutes under a local anesthetic. The bandaid is about the size of a playing card and has to be replaced daily. The implant is expected to last 12 years.

The treatment, developed by Nyxoah Ltd of Belgium, is in early-stage clinical trials.

The Airing

Insert this device’s molded silicon nose pieces into your nose, and it sends air into your breathing tubes much like an air pressure machine. This eliminates snoring because it ensures the airway doesn’t get obstructed. This device is only good for one use of eight hours and is designed to be disposable. Zinc-air batteries power hundreds of tiny micro-blower plates, which open and close like a bellows because of electrostatic force.

The device weighs less than an ounce. It isn’t commercially available yet but is expected to be available in a range of air pressure strengths for different users. Without insurance, it is expected to cost around $3 for each device.

EPAP and CPAP machines

If you’ve spent years trying to figure out how to stop snoring and you’re not getting anywhere, you may want to try EPAP or CPAP. But what’s the difference between the two and how do you go about getting one?

First, you need to understand that EPAP and CPAP machines are medical devices. EPAP stands for Expiratory Positive Airway Pressure, while CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure.

CPAP Machines

CPAP machines work especially well for those who have sleep apnea. Using a mask that straps either over the nose, mouth or both, it generates a positive pressure that stops the user’s throat from closing as they sleep. As a result, they’re less likely to snore or experience random bouts of waking during the night.

While this sounds somewhat miraculous, they’re not without their problems. As the name suggests, this generates a certain amount of ‘pressure’ against the person’s face. Some people struggle to adjust to this. Also, some are quite noisy, which can disrupt their partner’s sleep.

EPAP Machines

The idea behind EPAP machines is to take a slightly more gentle approach to creating the positive airway pressure that reduces the chances of snoring. One such device that uses this approach is Provent. Provent features small nasal devices that fit over the nostrils at night time. When the wearer inhales, the valve opens and only partially closes when they exhale.

Another EPAP machine for those who want to know how to stop snoring is Theravent. Theravent works similarly to Provent by using a MicroValve technology that gently works with your breathing rhythm to open your nostrils. As a result, air flows through smoothly, reducing your nasal snoring.

By only partially closing, Provent provides a clear channel for air to move through. Those who suffer from sleep apnea often find this is a more comfortable alternative to CPAP, as it doesn’t require a large mask or force continuous pressure. However, it’s worth discussing both devices with a medical professional before settling on one.

Useful stop-snoring mouthpieces

Stop-snoring mouthpieces are one of the most effective solutions to reduce and eliminate snoring. These customized mouthpieces hold your jaw slightly forward while you sleep to keep the airway in the back of your throat clear. This has been shown to reduce or eliminate snoring effectively. It works by preventing your tongue from falling to block your airway, causing the vibrations and sound recognized as snoring.

When the snoring mouthpiece pushes the jaw forward, it opens the airways, which makes breathing easier. Some mouthpieces depress your tongue, providing another level of positioning assistance.

There are some stop snoring mouthpieces you can buy yourself. This includes the “Good Morning Snore Solution.” As a one-size fits all solution, it stabilizes your tongue and keeps the airway open. It’s also suitable for those who wear dentures, which means it’s a universal product.

High-quality mouthpieces are available over-the-counter that allow you to customize the shape of the mouthpiece with a boil and bite procedure. The benefit of this type of mouthpiece is that it will be more comfortable when appropriately fitted to the shape of your jaw, and the softer BPA-free plastic is easier on your teeth and gums.

A mouthpiece like this also adds value to a common condition that afflicts snorers. Teeth grinding is often associated with snoring complications. As an added benefit, the mouthpiece reduces teeth grinding by holding your jaw in place, which can fracture teeth and contribute to jaw joint problems.

Over time, teeth grinding, also known as bruxism, can wear down your teeth and contribute to sleep issues. A device made from soft, moldable copolymer plastic keeps your teeth safer during sleep.

See your dentist regularly if you grind or snore. Both of these conditions contribute to dental decay and require good oral hygiene practices. Your dentist may also have recommendations on mouthpieces to address snoring issues, which is good medical advice to have. For those with dentures, your dentist may need to create a custom item that’s the right fit for your mouth and jaw.

NightLase Machine

The Fontona NightLase Machine uses laser technology to help you stop snoring. The machine treatments, only available in the Philippines, attempts to tighten the collagen found in the oral mucosa tissue. This is the tissue inside your mouth. By tightening the collagen, the muscles cannot relax as much, allowing an open airway and positive air flow. After three treatments, snoring diminishes or goes away entirely. The company claims the treatments help with sleep apnea also.

The company that produces the Fontona Nightlase, Luminisce Holistic Innovations, is actually a skin care company. No scientific testing has been made publically available, although it is a very popular method that many people in the Philippines swear works very well.

Get a good night’s sleep

With so many snoring solutions available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Start with a tracking tool and a visit to the doctor or dentist to find out more about your snoring habits to inform your decision about anti-snoring technologies. Whether you decide to try an EPAP device such as Theravent or a snoring aid like a mouthpiece, it’s important to find what’s a comfortable fit for you. You can use an app to monitor your snoring, sleep on an anti-snoring mattress or use an anti-snoring pillow along with other anti-snoring aids.

Snoring is a complicated condition that affects people differently. No two snorers are the same, which means not everyone will respond in the same way to the intervention they choose. As such, if one snoring aid doesn’t work for you, keep trying others. You might find that a tracking device provides you the best information to decide statistically what intervention is the most effective. With time, you’ll find a dreamy solution that makes bedtime easier.