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How nutrition can have a positive effect on snoring

Topic: Insomnia and Sleep DisordersPublished December 21, 2018

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That a balanced and varied diet has all sorts of positive effects on our well-being and health is now clear to most people. Through being health conscious and eating healthy meals you can reduce your personal risk for a whole range of different diseases, including vascular diseases, diabetes, and heart disease. Interestingly enough, snoring, which is very common, can also be positively influenced by a healthy diet.
Snoring is a worldwide phenomenon and a nightly problem for snorers and their partners! According to the medical definition normal (primary) snoring is not classified as an illness. Nevertheless, apart from the annoying noise that robs your partner of his or her nightly rest, it can also have an effect on the well-being of you, the snorer! Snorers experience a lower quality of sleep than non-snorers and do not feel optimally revitalized the next morning. In addition, snoring could also potentially be a threat to one’s well-being, in the case of pathological snoring or sleep apnoea, where the brain is starved of oxygen to a greater or lesser degree for periods, while you sleep.
Combatting Obesity

Being overweight is one of the main risk factors for snoring. The characteristic snoring noise is caused by vibrations of the pharyngeal (throat) muscles. These muscles slacken during sleep and can start oscillating when the air you breathe, flows over them, which triggers snoring. In overweight people, excess fat is deposited in all possible places in the body. These deposits also occur in the pharynx (throat). For this reason, overweight people have much more flabby tissue in their upper respiratory tract and this tissue can be set into vibration when air flows over them as you breathe. Overweight people are therefore often particularly badly affected by snoring.
Weight loss is an effective way for people who are overweight to combat snoring. A healthy diet combined with regular exercise is the best strategy to reduce obesity. In addition, a balanced diet also prevents weight gain and thus reduces the risk of becoming a snorer.

There are also some other rules you should follow to get your snoring under control:
Avoiding Alcohol Before Going to Bed

The after-work beer or a glass of wine is, for many, part of the evening relaxation ritual, but one should not indulge too much. Alcohol causes the throat muscles to slacken more than they do normally, while you sleep. This makes it even easier for the flabby throat tissue to vibrate. Consequently, you are even more inclined to snore if you quench your thirst with alcohol late in the evening. Therefore, you should avoid alcohol before going to bed. Interestingly, most sleep medications also have the same effect on the throat muscles - they can therefore also promote snoring.
Eating a Light Supper

There is some truth to the ancient wisdom that you should breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper. In today's high-paced world, it is not necessarily easy to adhere to this principle, though. For most professionals, dinner is the main meal of the day. Nevertheless, you should make sure that you don't have a heavy meal on the dinner table - especially if your last meal is late in the evening.
Heavy and fatty foods are a particular challenge to our digestive tract, therefore the digestive tract has to work hard to digest and absorb the ingredients. That is why falling asleep is more difficult, because the body is still occupied with the process of digestion. The result is a restless sleep in which snoring also occurs more frequently. You should give your gastrointestinal tract about two hours to digest before going to bed. In addition, a light salad or Mediterranean diet is easier to digest than fatty foods and is also healthier.
Nutrition and Sleep Routine

An important factor that also influences snoring is sleep routine. This also includes a regular sleep-wake rhythm. Nutrition with a balanced nutrient and vitamin balance not only leads to increased well-being but also makes you sleep better and snore less. In addition, there are foods that contain certain substances that help the body to sleep better. If you sleep well for a long time, you will snore less often or with less intensively:
Melatonin is a substance that causes fatigue in our body. It is also found in foods such as walnuts, almonds, and cinnamon. Tryptophan is an amino acid found mainly in bananas, cocoa, oats, walnuts, eggs, and cashew nuts. Tryptophan is needed by the body to form the brain messenger serotonin (also known as the happiness hormone). Among other things, this substance is involved in modulating the sleep-wake rhythm.
Tryptophan is also found in most protein-rich foods. However, many different amino acids compete for uptake by the body, for example, meat, a protein-rich and therefore amino acid-rich food. Thus, only part of the tryptophan is absorbed. Foods with a high tryptophan content, but containing few other amino acids are therefore particularly desirable, as is the case with the aforementioned foods.
Various studies have shown that there is a link between cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and snoring. Those who do not snore therefore suffer less frequently from these common diseases, which promote the development of many other diseases. With a healthy and balanced diet, many of these risk factors can be alleviated or prevented from developing in the first place. And you sleep better and snore less!
Tip: on the online portal SomniShop (https://somnishop.net/) you will find further information on the subject of snoring.

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