One person falls asleep within five minutes. The other lies staring at the ceiling, waiting for the moment it starts again.
The next morning, the snorer says he slept like a log. That’s true, and it’s also exactly why this conversation so often gets stuck.
Snoring is a problem for two people, and it is almost always treated as if it is the problem of one.
What happens to the snorer
Snoring is vibrating tissue. Your soft palate and the walls of your throat relax in your sleep, the passage narrows, and the air passing through it makes that slack tissue rattle.
You barely notice it yourself. Your body corrects it, so you briefly wake up hundreds of times a night without remembering it.
What’s left is a dry mouth, a dull head, and the feeling that you got eight hours. On paper, that’s true too.
What happens to the other person
Your hearing does not switch off when you sleep. Your brain keeps processing sound, and a spike pulls you out of a deeper stage into a lighter one, or wakes you up completely for a moment.
The waiting adds another layer. Once you know it will start again in half a minute, you keep paying attention to it, and that keeps you more awake than the sound itself.
Estimates put the partner of a snorer at losing about an hour of sleep per night . That adds up to a whole night per week.
So you have two people sleeping badly, one of whom has no idea.
Why the conversation so often goes wrong
It takes place at three in the morning. One person is exhausted and irritable, and the other is being jolted awake for something they don’t remember.
Then there is the shame. The snorer feels guilty about something they do in their sleep, and the other person feels guilty for complaining about it. That is how it keeps dragging on for months.
Separate bedrooms feels like giving up for many couples. For part of the nights, it is simply a fine solution, and it says nothing about your relationship.
What people try
Poking works for one minute. He turns over, it goes quiet for a moment, and then it starts again, while you have half-woken him up.
A glass of wine to sleep through it yourself makes it worse, because alcohol relaxes the muscles in your throat even more. In the snorer, it amplifies exactly what you wanted to stop.
Earplugs or white noise give the other person some rest, and that is a perfectly good starting point for tonight. Nothing changes for the snorer, so it remains a band-aid.
What you can do about it
Have the conversation at a neutral moment. Five minutes at the kitchen table on a Saturday, with one question at the center: what are you going to try? Don’t do it in the dark and not right after a bad night.
Lie on your side and put a pillow behind your back or between your legs. On your back, snoring is loudest for almost everyone, and this is the cheapest fix there is.
Skip alcohol for the last three hours before bedtime, even if it helps you fall asleep faster.
See your GP if your partner hears pauses in breathing or if you fall asleep during the day. Snoring can be a sign of something that needs treatment and you want to rule that out.
And make the airway wider. Nasal strips pull your nostrils outward and keep your nasal passage open with a splint, so there is less negative pressure in your throat and that slack tissue vibrates less. Mouth tape keeps your mouth closed, because with an open mouth your jaw drops back and the passage becomes narrower.
This week’s habit
Schedule that five-minute conversation and do it at a time when you are both rested.
Then agree on one thing to stick with for seven nights. Sleeping on your side with a pillow behind your back is the obvious first choice.
Have the other person keep track of whether it got better, because the snorer is the worst judge of that :)
1% Better Every Night.
Guy Veeke
PS: Is your partner still awake while you think it’s getting better?
Then the other person is your best measuring tool. The combination of nasal strips and mouth tape keeps your nose open and your mouth closed, so you can get through it together.
