Sleep does more for your life than replenish your energy stocks and help support the growth of new cells. Sleeping helps us relax and renew ourselves in more ways than one. But what if your sleep quality is poor, or worse, nonexistent?

Many people suffer from debilitating sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea and even snoring. While snoring might not seem that serious an issue, imagine this: you’re minding your own business, sleeping away, when you get a sharp elbow to the ribs from your partner. Unbeknownst to you, you were snoring. You roll over and continue to sleep only to be woken up by the lack of oxygen in your lungs from someone half-smothering you with a pillow. It sounds crazy, but it happens to so many people. Snoring is disruptive not only for the snorer but also for the person who shares the bed. Great snoring solutions can make a huge difference.

This is why sleep is so important for relationships. Do you think the snorer and the sleeper can talk to each other nicely when they’ve been keeping each other up all night in one way or another? Probably not. Many relationships, romantic or otherwise, will fall apart if the sleep disturbances are not addressed.

This article shows us why:

New research discovers that when husbands and wives get more sleep than on an average night, they are more satisfied with their marriages '” at least the following day.

In the study, Florida State University psychology professor Dr. Jim McNulty and graduate student Heather Maranges hypothesize that sleep is linked to self-regulation or self-control, which influences how married couples feel and think about their partner.

'The universality of our findings is important,' Maranges said. 'That is, we know all people need sleep. Regardless of the stage at which a couple is in their relationship or the cultural context in which they're embedded, each member of the couple can be adversely affected by not getting enough sleep.'

The paper appears in the Journal of Family Psychology.

The researchers believe sleep influences self-control. Self-control requires energy that can be replenished when our bodies are in the resting period known as sleep. In other words, sleep offers self-regulatory benefits to relationships.

'Up to one-third of married or cohabiting adults report that sleep problems burden their relationship,' the researchers wrote in the paper.

Other sleep studies have indicated that even partial sleep deprivation can have harmful effects on processes that require self-regulation, like evaluating how you feel about your partner.

However, results in this study revealed that differences between couples' sleep durations was not associated with differences in marital satisfaction. Because one couple gets more sleep than another does not mean that the couple that experienced more sleep viewed their marriage more favorably.

Maranges and McNulty conducted their research with 68 newlywed couples. Over a seven-day period, couples recorded the number of hours they slept and then responded to two sets of questions on a scale of one (not satisfied at all) to seven (extremely satisfied).

Via: http://psychcentral.com/news/2016/08/08/sleep-influences-relationship-satisfaction/108272.html? 

If you suffer from snoring you and your partner, if you have one, are not sleeping well. Have you noticed if you’ve been snappy to each other lately? Has the snoring always been an issue, or has it recently started? There are several causes of snoring and some of them you can address and combat on your own. It all depends on how much effort you’re willing to put into getting a good night’s sleep and a sweet good morning.

A lot of things in life are expected to occur. You’re expected to grow up, to finish some sort of schooling and to get a job. We expect to blink our eyes constantly throughout the day and no one ever realizes how many times they swallow until they suffer from a sore throat. Among other expected activities like breathing comes sleeping. We expect to sleep. Doctors and parents have been telling us we need to get at least eight hours of sleep a day. As children, we need more sleep because that’s when our bodies grow.

But what if your sleep wasn’t like what you expected? There are many people who can’t sleep even when they want to. There are others who attempt sleep but find their rest interrupted by snoring or tossing and turning. Your sleep is important and you need to ensure that you’re getting the right amount. So what does it mean when your sleep isn’t as typical as you were expecting?

Everybody sleeps. But not everybody sleeps the same way. So long as you're getting enough'”experts recommend 7 to 9 hours a night'”and you feel rested, you don’t need to sweat the occasional off night. However if you're not feeling rested, or your sleep is frequently disrupted, there might be something more important going on. Here's a look at 3 common sleep issues and what might be causing them.

Serious Snoring
Snoring is vibrational noise that happens when your breathing is partially obstructed by relaxed tissues in your throat. About half of adults snore at least occasionally, and for most it's not a big deal (except maybe for the person you're sleeping next to). 'Most people are unaware that they're snoring,' says Christopher Winter, MD, president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and medical director at Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center. 'and if you wake up feeling rested, it's not a problem.'

What is a problem is if you're snoring enough to cut off your breathing, and waking yourself up frequently during the night. This is a condition called sleep apnea, and it leaves sufferers chronically sleepy. 'You feel extremely tired during the day and fall asleep almost immediately when you sit down to relax,' says Winter. If this sounds like you, see a doctor. There are medical options like oral appliances or even minimally invasive surgery that can open your airway and allow you to get an uninterrupted night's rest.

Via: http://www.bicycling.com/training/health/what-your-sleep-might-be-trying-to-tell-you

Sleep is precious, almost more so than money. You can’t function without proper sleep and if you can’t function you can’t make that money you need to support your life. Being chronically sleepy leads to mistakes at work and irritability. These can cost you your job and put your life in jeopardy. It doesn’t take a genius to realize this is a potentially serious problem. That doesn’t mean you get to wallow in despair if you find yourself suffering from a sleep-related disorder.

If you’ve tried the mouthpieces, tried the nasal strips and the weird chin straps that are supposed to prevent you from snoring and it’s still happening, make an appointment with your health care professional. It’s possible that you’re suffering from something else and you should get that dealt with sooner rather than later. There are ways to get rid of snoring to help improve your life, but make sure you speak with a health care professional first.

You’ll be surprised at how easy you’ll sleep afterwards.

Everyone knows the sounds of snoring. We’ve all heard them growing up either from family members or on television. In cartoons snoring is usually over exaggerated and used to let the watcher know the person is supposed to be sleeping. They must be truly sleeping to snore, too, not just faking it. While it’s all well and good to laugh over these funny antics on the television, the fact of the matter is that snoring is not only a telling sign of comic relief.

Did you know that snoring can be a sign of underlying health problems? Snoring can betray sleep apnea and a host of other medical issues. Snoring and every dreamers enemy, insomnia, have been linked to something devastating: strokes.

Sleep-disordered breathing and sleep-wake disturbances represent both a risk factor and a consequence of stroke affecting stroke recovery, outcome and recurrence, a review confirmed.

The meta-analysis of prospective clinical and population-based studies noted that more than 50% of patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) and stroke have sleep-disordered breathing.

Sleep-disordered breathing is an independent stroke predictor (OR 2.24; CI 1.57 to 3.19), and that stroke risk increases with apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), Dirk M. Hermann, MD, of University Hospital Essen, Germany, and Claudio L. Bassetti, MD, of University Hospital Bern, Switzerland, reported online in Neurology.

“There is solid evidence linking sleep-related breathing disturbances (e.g., obstructive sleep apnea), insomnia (lack of sleep), and hypersomnia (excessive sleep) with stroke and disturbed stroke recovery,” Hermann told MedPage Today. “Sleep-related breathing disturbances and sleep-wake disturbances should carefully be monitored in stroke patients on stroke units and rehabilitation wards. Here, clinical routines should be implemented for sleep assessment and patient treatment.”

The researchers cautioned that clinicians should proceed with care when using pharmacologic approaches to sleep-wake disturbances in the management of stroke and TIA.
Similarly, while sleep-wake disturbances can be detected with careful patient histories, questionnaires, and actigraphy, treatment is relevant for stroke recovery and outcome and “should be used thoughtfully considering potential side effects,” they said.

“Treatment of sleep-wake disturbances with hypnotics and sedative antidepressants (insomnia), activating antidepressants or stimulants (hypersomnia), dopaminergic drugs (restless leg syndrome), and clonazepam [Klonopin] (parasomnias) are based on single case observations and should be used with caution.”

Via: http://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/strokes/59501 

As if the annoyance of snoring wasn’t bad enough. Those who suffer from insomnia will tell you it’s no walk in the park. Not being able to rest when you truly need it can be devastating. Not being able to sleep without your snoring either waking you up or causing your partner to wake you up is also undesirable. If you or someone you know suffers from snoring or insomnia it would be in their best interests to speak with a health care professional.

Yes, there are devices and medication that can assist with snoring and sleeplessness, respectively, but if you’re concerned about your risk of stroke you need to speak with a medical professional. Once you’ve been seen and assessed you can work with your doctor on determining what mouthpiece might work best for you or if there is something else you need to consider.

Your health is no joke and it’s important that you are aware and understand everything that happens. If you have a history of heart disease in your family that’s all the more reason to get yourself checked out. Don’t let snoring and insomnia pull a fast one on you.

We’re no strangers to the rules our parents have instilled in us as children. Rules like washing our hands before we eat, not eating food off the floor (aside from the 5 second rule) and to always use our manners. These sorts of things are taken for granted and thought of as common sense. The reality about common sense is that it’s not common at all! Due to that, there are times when we’ll forget these little rules and tips we’ve learned about and fall out of practice.

The same thing goes for those who have snoring issues. There are many common sense tips out there that you can practice in your life to reduce or eliminate your snoring. Since you’ve probably forgotten all about them they might seem wondrous or revolutionary, but trust that they’re just common tricks that can really make life so much easier:

1. Unclog Nasal Passages

Dr. Mark Hendricks, the sleep services director at Fairview Park Hospital in Georgia, shared to Fox News that taking hot showers before sleeping will help clear the nasal passages. Unclogged nasal passages facilitate slower and more silent airflow. Contrastingly, clogged or narrowed nasal passages cause airflow to move hastily thereby producing the loud snoring sound.

 2. Shed Some Weight

Losing weight could cure some snorers, but results may vary from person to person. If you began snoring the same time you added considerable amount of weight, reverting back to your initial weight could stop the snoring.

“If you gain weight around your neck, it squeezes the internal diameter of the throat, making it more likely to collapse during sleep, triggering snoring,” sleep expert and otolaryngologist Daniel Slaughter explained. He clarified that snoring is not exclusive to plump individuals as “thin people snore too.”

3. Good Sleeping Posture

Sleeping on your back makes the base of your tongue and soft palate collapse to the back of your throat. This hinders proper airflow and causes a vibrating sound during sleep. To remedy this. sleep experts recommend sleeping on your side as this prevents the base of your tongue from collapsing into the back of your throat.

“A body pillow (a full-length pillow that supports your entire body) provides an easy fix,” Dr. Sudhansu Chokroverty of JFK Medical Center told Web MD. “Or you can recline the bed with the head up and extended, which opens up nasal airway passages and may help prevent snoring.”

 4. Combat Inflammation

Inflammation can narrow nasal and throat passages, which causes hasty airflow and loud snoring noises. New York-based naturopathic doctor Gabrielle Francis revealed that chronic snorers can add herbs such as ginger, turmeric and Boswellia into their diet to combat inflammation.

Via: http://www.parentherald.com/articles/47801/20160606/5-amazingly-simple-tips-stop-partner-snoring.htm

None of these things cost loads of money and they are probably things your parents have told you about before. Maybe your doctor has mentioned it in passing but it sounds so natural you’ve forgotten to actually put it into practice. Now these aren’t quick fixes and won’t stop your snoring after one night. With a proper plan in place and dedication you can integrate these common sense tips into your routine.

The one thing that was missed by the doctor in this case? Snoring mouthpieces. A great choice for a MAD mouthpiece is the ZQuiet (https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/zquiet), whereas the tongue retaining champion is easily the Good Morning Snore Solution (https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/good-morning-snore-solution).

It all depends on how much sleep you’d like to get. If you share a bed with someone and you’re the one who snores, you’ll be doing yourself all kinds of favors if you get this issue under wraps.

It can be done and if you’ve already tried most, or all, of these tips and find that you’re still snoring, make an appointment with your healthcare provider. You might have an underlying condition that requires more specific care.

Once you’ve ruled everything out and gotten all your ducks in a row, you’ll be sleeping pretty.

Women almost always have a lot going on. Whether it's dealing with various life issues like motherhood, working hard for half the pay your male coworker gets or cringing over taxes on feminine hygiene products (taxes haven't been removed on this everywhere yet!), it turns out the amount of sleep you get can impact your chances of developing or worsening depression. This is especially true for young women who are trying to balance life being a college or university student.

Like we said: as if you don't have enough going on.

Fret not! Just because you find out that there are links between certain sleep issues and depression doesn't mean all hope is lost:

One night of short sleep may lead to less depression the following day, but chronic short sleep is tied to greater depression overall for young women, according to a new study.

'The overall message that poor quality and insufficient sleep lead to poor mood, which, in turn, worsens sleep was not surprising,' said lead author David A. Kalmbach of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

More noteworthy, he added, was that these relationships were evident in healthy, young women, not just insomniacs or depressed people.

The researchers studied 171 female college students for two weeks, beginning with an in-person questionnaire assessment of anxiety and depression levels and continuing with daily self-reported measures of mood and anxiety. The women also reported their total sleep time, time to fall asleep, and ratings of sleep quality each night.

On average, the women slept for seven hours and 22 minutes each night, taking 21 minutes to fall asleep. Overall, they rated their sleep quality 'fairly good.'

At the start of the study, a third of the women scored in the 'at risk' range for depression and 17 percent had clinically significant anxiety.

Women who averaged less sleep per night over the two-week period tended to report greater 'anhedonic' depression symptoms, or the inability to enjoy pleasurable things. But they also tended to report more of these symptoms the day after a night of particularly long sleep, as reported in Sleep Medicine.

One night of sleep deprivation may improve mood the following day. But unfortunately, 'therapeutic effects of a night of sleep deprivation are typically short-lasting, and because chronic sleep deprivation increases depression-risk, the therapeutic benefit of sleep deprivation on depression is modest at best,' Kalmbach said.

Via: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sleep-depression-idUSKCN0YI2FL

The important thing that you should do once you've identified a problem is figure out a way to fix it. It's possible you didn't know about this until someone told you, right? Now that you have the information it's your responsibility to do something about it.

If you think you may have a serious sleep disorder or suffer from depression you need to speak with your health care provider. The sooner you address the issue the faster you can manage it. Don't try to self-diagnose because, let's face it, Google is not a medical professional.

These people get paid the big bucks for a reason. Book an appointment and you'll begin your journey to sweet dreams.

Snoring can be a huge burden, and not just to those who snore. While the snorer is most likely getting a poor night's sleep their relationships with their partners and other members of their household tend to be strained and potentially at the point of breaking. There are many couples who have been together for years yet sleep in separate rooms because of one partner's snoring.

Snoring occurs when the airways are blocked. This can be due to congestion from sickness or allergies, relaxation of the tongue in the mouth or even just relaxation of the muscles in the throat. There are plenty of products on the market that can help you with your snoring such as nasal strips and mouthpieces. But if you're looking for something natural, these may not be for you. There are some natural options out there, but there are also things to consider first:

If your snoring drives your partner nuts'” or if you're victim of your loved one's snoozing'” this is for you.

Snoring occurs when the flow of air through the mouth is obstructed. There are a few things that can trigger snoring like colds, allergies, drinking alcohol, smoking and certain medications.

We recently got this tweet from a viewer:

My wife has a bad snoring problem and refuses to use any anti-snoring nasal gadgets. Are there any natural remedies that might help?

Chronic snorers can be at risk for serious health problems like sleep apnea, so you should always see your doctor to rule this condition out first. Dr. Mark Hendricks, the medical director of sleep services at HCA's Fairview Park Hospitalin Georgia said there are several ways to test for sleep apnea. Patients can stay overnight at a special sleep observatory where doctors can measure the number of times they stop breathing or have shallow breathing per hour, also known as apnea-hypopnea index (AHI).

'We can also do home sleep tests as well. Typically it is a small portable device where the patient has a sensor under the nose and on the finger to monitor air flow,' Hendricks told FoxNews.com.

Although the market is flooded with anti-snoring gadgets that claim they can reduce snoring, there are also effective natural remedies the can help.

1. Proper sleep positioning
   Instead of sleeping on your back, lying on your side may help to keep the base of your tongue from collapsing into the back of your throat, which can obstruct breathing.

Via: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/06/05/5-ways-to-reduce-snoring-naturally.html

You'll find that there are five things to consider that are all natural and can help reduce or eliminate snoring. Naturally, we recommend one of our favorite mouthpieces, the Good Morning Snore Solution (read a review: https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/good-morning-snore-solution/). None of these natural remedies involves anything outside your normal capabilities and you also don't have to enlist the services of a specialist. This makes them easy on the pocketbook and you'll have a better chance of actually trying these methods out.

Aren't you glad there are natural options out there aside from never sleeping again? Rest well, friend, and take solace in the fact that potentially; this too shall pass.

Some people will tell you that getting older is the worst thing that can happen to a person. Your body hurts, you can't sleep, and you begin to forget what you had for breakfast. Maybe your knee hurts every time it's going to rain or you find that you keep putting the peanut butter in the fridge instead of the cupboard.

As if getting older wasn't bad enough once you hit 50 you'll find that sometimes things will just get worse before they can get better. Put a hold on the pity party though; there are  things you can do to make climbing the hill of age a bit easier on yourself:

For the first time, older adults got their very own personalized sleep recommendations. The National Sleep Foundation concluded, after reviewing the scientific research on sleep duration, that adults 65 and up should aim for 7 to 8 hours a night, compared to adults 26 to 64, who should sleep between 7 and 9. The distinction might not seem like a huge deal at first, but it's a nod to what many older adults inherently know to be true: Sleep really does change with age.

'Our sleep changes throughout the lifespan,' says Natalie D. Dautovich, PhD, the NSF's environmental scholar and an assistant psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Many 50+ sleepers find it's easier to become awakened during the night, which is reflected in a little shorter sleep duration over all, Dautovich says.

It's not exactly a welcome change: The NSF found 71 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds report some sleep problem, including difficulty falling asleep, waking up still tired, or snoring.

Here are a few of the unique sleep situations facing you as you age.

'”Your bedtime and your wake-up time shift earlier.

Remember how all you wanted to do when you were 19 was stay up late and doze until noon? You weren't just exercising your laziest teenager muscles; our natural internal clocks, technically called our circadian rhythms, are delayed until our 20s, meaning we truly don't get tired until later at night and don't feel alert until later in the morning, Dautovich explains. After we grow out of this phase, though, our circadian rhythms keep advancing, and later in life we tend to become sleepy earlier and feel our most alert earlier in the morning, too.

Via: http://www.myajc.com/news/lifestyles/parenting/6-sleep-problems-that-crop-up-after-age-50/nrJM4/

If you read closely you'll see that there are six issues outlined in that article. Six can seem like a big number and a small number all at once. Instead of just throwing these issues at you and running away laughing, you'll find that some tips have been incorporated so that you can address these potential sleep disturbers.

Sleep is always going to be precious and depending on what your daily life is like you might find yourself getting less and less of it. If that's the case, it's even more important to make sure that the sleep you are getting is truly restful. You still need to function during the day and being a productive member of society.

Sorry, you don't get to laze about until you hit 80.

We're busy people and we like to have things a certain way. We want to be able to eat when we need to, work when we have to and sleep when we'd like to. We also want all of these things to be easy to do.

If you suffer from a sleeping disorder such as snoring or sleep apnea, falling asleep can be a real challenge. Snoring is caused when the airways are blocked by either over-relaxed muscles or general congestion. This causes the sound television has taught us so much about. Sleep apnea is more severe in that not only are the airways blocked, but breathing is interrupted several times during the night. You read that right. You just stop breathing. If you suffer from either one of these conditions just the '˜simple' act of falling asleep could be difficult for you.

There are plenty of devices and products on the market to help you cope with the disorder, but what about actually falling asleep? It can be difficult when you're worried about how your disorder will impact your sleep that night or when you're trying to get used to a new device.

In comes this proposed, pretty cool, device:

The fifth annual International Space Apps Challenge which brings together teams from all over the world to try and solve specific NASA challenges is coming to a close. One of the top twenty-five teams has proposed an idea if implemented could relieve us from sleep deprivation problems. Their idea is a device that can help you sleep better called hypnos.”

“My roommate Thomas and I are currently researchers at the Harvard-MIT HST Division & Brigham and Women’s Hospital and both our projects involve a lot of overnight experiments which did cause sleep issues to some extent. I think this initial motivation for hypnos stemmed from this idea that sleep deprivation was affecting our cognitive function on a daily basis.” said Sachin Bhagchandani, one of the team members.

“With Aaron and Gabriel’s help at the NASA Space Apps Challenge happening at the Harvard GSD, we discussed about how although humans have leveraged light and sound in intuitive ways to better our existence by stimulating powerful psychological and corresponding physiological responses through communication or art, we have not given appropriate weight to the merit of using these media as clinical modalities to stimulate tunable physiological responses.” added Sachin.

Via: http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-your-sleep-problems-could-go-away-if-this-device-becomes-a-reality-2210902

If that doesn't sound pretty cool you need to read more science fiction. The fact that we are looking into options to essentially plug ourselves into a good night's sleep is pretty amazing.

If you read the article all the way you'll notice that you can vote for the project. If this sounds like something you would like to see become a reality, there's no time like the present to make your voice heard!

Sleep is previous and definitely needed. You don't want to be a zombie for the rest of your life. Wouldn't you like to be able to peacefully fall asleep like they do in the movies?

Yeah, we thought so.

Sleep is supposed to be a wondrous thing. It's a necessity to living life: you have a great night's sleep and then wake refreshed and ready to take on the next day. The unfortunate reality for a lot of people is that sleep is not that magical elixir that renews their energy levels. Sleep disorders can make it almost impossible to get any semblance of rest.

Those who snore run the risk of waking their partners or even themselves. Those who grind their teeth or clench their jaw will wake up with splitting headaches. There are also those effected by sleep apnea, a disorder that causes interrupted breathing during sleep, that actually stop breathing several times a night.

Without true rest you can't function to the best of your abilities the following day. Lack of sleep leads to lethargy, reduced energy and terrible moods. While some sleep disorders can be affected by your everyday such as stress and overall health, sleep disorders can also worsen existing health concerns:

Scientists say they now have more evidence that sleep apnea might worsen heart disease.

Sleep apnea leads to interrupted breathing during sleep. In their study, the researchers found that patients with the condition who had a form of the heart procedure called angioplasty were much more likely to suffer heart attacks or strokes after their procedure.

The big difference held up even when the researchers adjusted their findings so they wouldn’t be thrown off by factors like obesity and high blood pressure, which are common in these patients.

While the study did not prove sleep apnea caused heart disease to worsen, the authors think the first one probably exacerbates the second one.

“For cardiologists inserting stents for coronary artery disease, it is important to screen the patients for obstructive sleep apnea,” said study author Dr. Lee Chi-Hang.

“And patients who have been diagnosed with sleep apnea should know about the strong relationship between sleep apnea and heart disease,” added Chi-Hang, a senior consultant in the department of cardiology at the National University of Singapore Heart Center.

For the study, the researchers tracked just over 1,300 patients from Brazil, China, India, Myanmar and Singapore who had undergone angioplasty with stents. In these procedures, surgeons thread catheters through vessels and clear blockages by implanting stents designed to keep arteries open.

Via: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-apnea/news/20160516/sleep-apnea-may-raise-risks-for-angioplasty-patients

It's no surprise that sleep apnea and heart disease may be connected. While scientists are still researching this issue the fact remains that obstructive sleep apnea causes you to stop breathing during sleep. Of course your heart is going to be affected by this.

While research is ongoing it's still beneficial to get yourself checked out by your medical or health care professional. It's important to keep yourself healthy and functional. If your sleep, or lack thereof, is impacting the quality of your life you should do yourself a favour and talk with someone.

Hopefully once scientists are able to better understand how these disorders affect each other they will also be able to create an action plan to combat them.