Your neck, throat and jaw muscles need exercise too
Snoring and sleep apnea can both be a result of your throat getting blocked while you sleep because your muscles sag and your throat closes when you sleep. By strengthening the muscles in your neck, throat, and jaw, it is possible to enable your muscles to remain toned, so they don’t sag and block your airway. Exercise your neck and throat by spending a few minutes every day performing exercises designed to strengthen the tongue, jaw and neck area. Strengthening these muscles can increase your throat strength and decrease the chance that it will go slack while you are sleeping.
Exercise your mouth and throat
Throat exercise will strengthen the muscles in your throat, keeping them from collapsing during the night. Try pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then hold it there for two or three minutes. You can also use a balloon. First take a deep breath through your nasal passages, then inflate the balloon as much as possible. Repeat this five times. These exercises will strengthen your airway muscles. Another simple exercise that you can do to help prevent snoring is to say your vowels. Take a few minutes a few times a day to say a, e, i, o and u. Say each letter loudly and draw out the sound to last 5-10 seconds each. This will help strengthen throat muscles that are lax and may help eliminate snoring and sleep apnea. You can also give singing a try. Singing is a natural form of exercise for the muscles in the throat and soft palate. Since snoring is sometimes caused by lax muscles in these areas, strengthening them can help. So go ahead and belt out your favorite tune every day, it might give you a quieter and more peaceful night’s sleep and help you stop snoring!
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Exercise your tongue
Tongue exercises can also be beneficial because a lot of snoring arises when your tongue falls back and blocks your airway while sleeping on your back. The best exercise consists of sticking your tongue out as far as possible and keeping it straight and then moving it from the right to the left and then up and down. Try to do this roughly 15 times a day.
Exercise your body
Add regular exercise into your routine. Exercise not only tires out the body, it helps relax your mind as well. With a good exercise routine, you may find that a more normal sleep is possible. It may keep the snoring or sleep apnea symptoms from being as severe or even not appearing at all.
If exercise is not for you….
If the mouth and throat exercises don’t help, then a great way to ensure that you do not sleep on your back and cause snoring or sleep apnea to occur is to use a tennis ball to prevent rolling onto your back. You can place one in a pillow behind your back and when you roll over in your sleep, the tennis ball will make you roll back on your side. You could also sew the tennis ball into a pocket on the back of your night clothes. If a tennis ball is too large, you could try a table tennis ball instead.