The risks of smoking include the development of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. Reduced airflow into the lungs strains the heart and vascular system, overburdening it over time. What is more worrying is, the ignorance of the person who snores, without realizing that his snore can be a serious condition and also that it’s disturbing his sleep. Disrupted and decreased quality of sleep due to sleep apnea or other reasons can also increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents by up to 8 percent.

Treatments for Snoring: Family doctors can assess risk factors for snoring and may recommend treatment at a sleep clinic. There are a number of treatments including.

Changes in Lifestyle to manage snoring: Personal physician might suggest the following lifestyle changes that help in combating snoring like:

Lose weight: Obesity is a risk factor for snoring. A doctor can recommend a safe and balanced plan to reach a healthy weight. This means that if you want to stop snoring you should reduce your weight.

Exercise: Sound sleep is essential and physical activity can help you attain this by keeping you busy, healthy and manage your weight too. Exercise, particularlywalking, jogging, running and hiking improve sleep quality. Strenuous activities should not done for at least two hours before you hit the bed.

Quit smoking: Smoking and second-hand smoke make symptoms worse because of throat irritation and coughing at night, leading to snoring.

Good Sleep Hygiene: Going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day helps to promote restful cycles of sleep. Not only that, it also avoids exhaustion due to less sleep which promotes snoring.

Avoid alcohol and sleeping pills: Alcohol and few drugs like sleeping pills, pain killers etc can make the throat muscles relax or contract that it usually does, leading to obstructions or narrowing. It might also make it tough to get up in the morning, resulting in longer ignored hours. They may also make it more difficult for your brain to wake you up when this happens, causing longer, more serious pauses in breathing.In the long run it causes severe damage to the body.
Sleep on your side: Scientists have found, sleeping with back rested on the bed enables gravity to narrow airways further more and increase snoring.

In more serious cases, Sleep Disorders clinics can assess the severity and causes either at home or in in-clinic observations and tests. Treatments include breathing devices such as CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) equipment. This device is a filter air blower that intakes regular room air and funnels it into a mask at a pressure determined by your doctor. This equipment is typically worn over your nose and the specified pressure enables smooth and free airflow thus reducing snoring.

Other treatments include a dental device that is worn while sleeping to dilate the airways, holding the lower jaw and tongue forward. Radio wave treatments are used to shrink tissue in the throat or tongue and surgeries involve reducing the soft tissues in the nose, uvula, and palate (roof of mouth) or the bony tissues in the back of the throat to alleviate the risk of blockages.