When you have to sleep next to a partner who is snoring it can be incredibly frustrating. Thankfully, there are several things you can try to get a better night sleep.
What Will I Learn?
Sleeping When Someone Is Snoring
We all need our sleep, and some people need more of it than other people do. Unfortunately, when you have to sleep next to a partner who is snoring, it can often be hard to get any decent sleep at all.
Even though you know that terrible snoring is not your partner’s fault, the knowledge is little consolation when you feel tired and out of sorts all through the day.
Apart from making you feel tired and irritable, lack of sleep can interfere with your ability to think. Needless to say, this is something that can negatively affect your ability to work.
When you are robbed of sleep, night after night, it also weakens your immune system making you more susceptible to every bug that’s “doing the rounds.”
Lack of sleep can make you more susceptible to serious health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, as well.
Snoring is an issue that affects people in a lot of different ways and can place a strain on the most loving of relationships. It’s also an incredibly common problem so, if you have to sleep next to someone who is snoring, you are not alone.
So, how do you sleep when someone is snoring next to you? Is there anything you can do? Fortunately, there are a number of things you can try.
7 Ways to Try and Get More Sleep When Someone Is Snoring
1. Go to Bed Earlier (Than Your Partner)
Going to bed an hour or two earlier than your partner may be a good way to get more sleep when you have a partner who snores.
Having the bed to yourself will allow you the opportunity to relax and drift off into sleep. Later, when your partner climbs into bed, if they begin to snore you might be so deep in sleep that the sound of their snoring fails to rouse you.
Of course, this idea will work better with light snorers. If your partners snores very loudly they may still cause you to wake up. Then you will be back to square one.
However, even if this is the case, you will still have had an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep. This may help you to feel a little less tired the following day.
2. Don’t Focus on the Snoring
It’s easier said than done, but try not to focus on your partner’s snoring. If you can, place your focus elsewhere and think of something else instead.
With practice, meditation may be able to help. It trains the mind and gives you more control over your thoughts.
Self-hypnosis is another tool you may be able to use to help stop your mind from focusing on the sound of your partner’s snoring. As with medication, though, getting the full benefit of self-hypnosis could take some time.
People who are skilled in hypnosis can sometimes achieve incredible things. It’s such a powerful tool dentists can use it to help reduce patient anxiety and to control their pain.
Hypnosis works well for other types of pain too. Research shows it has a 75 percent success rate for treating people suffering from pain caused by arthritis and related diseases.
If hypnosis can train your brain to be less susceptible to pain, it should be able to help train it to ignore snoring too.
If this is an option you wish to try, consider buying a self-hypnosis session on mp3. Some hypnotherapists have recorded hypnosis sessions especially for people who want to learn to ignore the sound of snoring.
3. Wear Earplugs
Plugging up your ears is probably one of the most obvious ways to escape the sound of your partner’s snoring. It’s also a method that can work very well.
However, there is a drawback you will need to consider. There’s a possibility the earplugs may also cause you to sleep-in by preventing you from hearing your alarm.
If you do decide earplugs may be a good way to escape your partner’s snoring, you will be spoiled for choice. There as plenty of options available.
The cheapest way to go will probably be to buy some plugs made from soft foam. These are intended to be disposable but some people use them several times before throwing them away.
Cheap foam earplugs can be effective for minimizing the disturbance caused by someone who is snoring lightly. They may not be so effective if the snoring is very loud.
If you have to contend with unusually loud snoring, silicone noise-reducing earplugs may be the best way to go. They are designed to protect the hearing of people working on airport runways or other extremely noisy environments.
Silicone noise-reducing earplugs can help drown out the noise of a jet engine so, although they could save you from your partner’s snoring, there is a real danger you will sleep through your alarm.
4. Try Noise-Canceling Headphones
If you don’t relish the idea of sleeping with something bunged in your ears, noise-canceling headphones are a good alternative.
Noise-canceling headphones are more expensive than earplugs but they offer an important advantage. They will allow you to drift off to sleep listening to some relaxing music.
Alternatively, you could use them to wind down with a meditation mp3 or a self-hypnosis session.
The only problem is, standard noise-canceling headphones are quite bulky. They may make it very uncomfortable if you want to sleep on your side.
Of course, if you prefer to sleep on your back, there will be no problem. However, sleeping on your back may make you start snoring as well.
Some manufacturers have got around this problem by producing special sleep headphones that have ultra-thin speakers that fit inside a soft headband.
5. Listen to White Noise
Listening to white noise recordings is another good way to get to sleep while someone is snoring.
White noise provides all the frequencies of sound at the same time. That’s a lot—20,000 tones resonating together.
White noise can be very good for overpowering other noises such as rowdy neighbors and snoring.
Although, its possible to buy a white noise machine for $20 – $30, it will probably be cheaper to buy a white noise recording on mp3.
You may have heard that an electric fan produces white noise. There is some truth to this. However, it may be best to avoid sleeping with a fan running in your bedroom.
Running a fan redistributes airborne dust and pollen. Fans can also dry out the air. These things have the potential to irritate your partner’s throat and make their snoring worse.
Listening to a white noise recording is a much better idea. If you don’t like white noise, you could try listening to relaxing music, dolphin song, or other soothing nature sounds.
6. Encourage Your Partner to Stop Sleeping on Their Back
Back sleeping is the worst position for making you snore. If your partner normally sleeps on their back it might be the reason they are snoring and keeping you awake. Side sleepers are much less likely to snore.
Talk to your partner, suggest a change of sleeping position, and see how it goes.
If your partner agrees to sleep on their side but reverts to back sleeping during sleep, don’t worry. There are some things you can do.
An old trick is to place a tennis ball on the bed near your partner’s back. That way, if they turn over in their sleep the tennis ball may cause discomfort that makes them turn back onto their side.
A better option is to sew the tennis ball onto the back of their pyjama top, or T-shirt. It’s also possible to buy special pillows you wear like a backpack. Some people find they work incredibly well.
7. Suggest Your Partner Seeks Professional Help
If your partner’s snoring is very loud or unusually persistent, it may be due to sleep apnea. This is even more likely to be the case if you observe your partner and notice they stop breathing during the night.
Sleep apnea is a dangerous condition that has the potential to lead to loss of life. An “apnea” is a period where respiration stops. People who have sleep apnea may have up to 100 apneas an hour.
Fortunately, the condition is not overly-hard to treat. Many sleep apnea patients control their condition with a CPAP machine. A CPAP machine pressurizes the windpipe by pumping air through a tube into a face mask. This helps keep the airway clear so breathing can continue normally. It prevents snoring as well.
If your partner finds it hard to believe that they snore or does not realize how bad the problem is, try to explain things tactfully. If this is not successful, you could try making a recording of their snoring and play it back to them.
One way to do this is to download a special snoring app onto your phone. A good snoring app can provide a lot of information such as snoring frequency and volume (in decibels).
Leave a Reply