Roll Over and Stop Snoring! Truth or Wives’ Tale?

Many people think it’s an old wives’ tale—that rolling over from your back to your side when you’re sleeping will stop your snoring. Maybe it’s because wives are usually the ones poking their snoring husbands to roll over in the middle of the night! But just like many myths, there is a hint of truth to the tale.

To start, we must first understand why we snore. During sleep, our throats relax causing the tongue to fall into the airway in the back of the throat. Snoring is caused when there is an interruption to the free flow of air through the nose and throat causing a vibration that produces the sound of snoring. There are many reasons why air may block breathing so people can snore for many different reasons. There are many factors that can trigger the interruption of airflow including a person’s weight, whether they smoke, take certain medication, or have allergies. Physical causes can include if someone’s had a nose or throat injury or if they were born with narrow passages, and more.

For some people, gravity produces an increased amount of obstruction from the tongue occurs when they sleep on their backs, which is described as “positional snoring.” This type of snoring explains why snorers often complain about being "frequently assaulted" throughout the night by their spouses, and implored to roll over.

If you’re a snorer whose favorite sleeping position is on your back, a simple solution to keep you off of it is to sew a ball into the pocket of a t-shirt that is then worn backward during sleep, keeping you off of it and sleeping on your side or stomach. If you feel muscle strain in your lower back when you sleep on your side, many people feel more comfortable when they sleep with a pillow between their knees. Some positional snorers also improve when the head of the bed is elevated or they sleep on an extra pillow.

So there definitely is truth to the wives’ tale, but unfortunately, not for everyone. If you have tried keeping off your back when you snore and it’s not working, there may be other physical factors that are causing it, and it makes sense to have a snoring specialist examine you to discover the reason. Snoring can be more than an annoyance, and can negatively affect your health as well as daytime productivity.

If you’re in the New York City area, contact us today at the Manhattan Snoring and Sleep Center to set up your appointment and start your treatment.