Is Snoring Disturbing Your Family Life?
What is snoring?
According to Sleep Foundation, snoring is the making of rattling and noisy sound while breathing during sleep. Often snoring can interfere in relationships as well. You might be caught a little off-guard, or even feel hurt when your partner complains about your snoring. It is very difficult to believe that snoring can cause problems in your relationship but it has been a major cause of relationship turmoil.
Family tensions due to snoring
As per Help Guide site, lack of sleep due to snoring can cause a rift in your relationship in various ways. You and your partner might sleep in different rooms due to snoring which might mean less physical intimacy between the both of you. As Evolutionary Parenting spoke about in For the Love of Sleep, sleep is a time in which we feel vulnerable and therefore need to feel safe. While snoring doesn’t make us feel unsafe per se, the stress of not being able to sleep with a partner who snores may be confounded in that vulnerable time.
Snoring might also cause you to feel isolated. A person who snores often has no control over the situation and when your partner is mad at you for something you have no control over, it can be a lonely place. Snoring might lead to huge resentment among your family if your sleep partner feels that he/she has done everything to sleep like putting ear plugs but you have not done anything to combat snoring.
The effects of snoring may be compounded if you have your little ones sleeping with you. Some people snore loudly enough that they wake their baby up due to the noises. Your poor baby may find it very difficult to fall asleep in such circumstances. And if your partner is now up from your snoring and an awake child (who may suffer sleep deprivation the next day from it), no one is going to be happy.
Snoring often leads to weight changes (some lose and others gain) which further leads to irritability. So reign in your frustration and attack snoring but not your sleep partner. You should work together to overcome this menace of snoring together with your partner which will eventually improve your bonding with your partner and the quality of your life.
How do you communicate with a partner who snores?
Do remember that your partner may feel a little embarrassed or even defensive when you talk to him/her about snoring. Like talking to anyone about something that they may not be aware of or have conscious control over, it can be hard to be criticized for such an action. Timing is also key. Don’t go into it in middle of the night or early morning when everyone is typically at their most stressed period over the snoring. Wait until later in the day when you’ve both relaxed to talk about it sanely and respectfully.
Remember that snoring is highly unintentional and your partner is not keeping you awake on purpose with his snoring habits, though sometimes it can feel that way, especially when you’ve been up for hours or have a baby who is awake due to the snoring as well. Use of humor and playful jokes to communicate to your partner might do the task while keeping your relationship intact, but that will depend upon your partner.
Remedies to Snoring
Small changes in your diet plans and sleeping patterns might give the peaceful atmosphere at home which you wish for. Snoring is highly common in people who sleep on their backs so sleeping on your sides may help. Raising your bed or putting in an extra pillow might as well. Replacing cow’s milk with soy or almond milk can help some as cow’s milk has certain proteins which have the tendency to induce allergies and hence lead to snoring. Including onions, garlic and mint tea in your regular routine can also help.
If natural remedies don’t work there are non-invasive remedies like nose strips or even certain mouthpieces that can help alleviate snoring. However, in some cases you may have to find different sleeping arrangements, at least part of the time. One thing to be considerate of is that if you have to do this so that everyone gets sleep, make sure you and your partner get enough touch time. Not sleeping in the same room can cause psychological distance between you and your partner so you need to set up some time to reconnect during the waking hours.
Like everything though, you have to find a solution that works for you and your family. Just know that although snoring can be problematic, it does not need to be that way forever.