Snoring is one of those issues that plagues more people than you probably realize. In fact, you may snore yourself and just not know it! If you sleep alone you probably are in the dark on any 
potential snoring issues. When there’s no one there to stab you in the side because you’re keeping them awake, it’s hard to see you have an issue. There are several causes, and treatments, for snoring. Some of the major causes are being overweight, smoking or drinking heavily before bed, stress and plain old muscle relaxation. You can exercise, scale back on bad habits and do yoga to reduce your stress but it’s a bit hard to combat muscles relaxing. Unless you have super control of your muscles. Then that’s a different story.
When your muscles relax too much your tongue will fall to the back of your throat and the muscles will loosen. This vibration on loose flesh is what causes the sound we’re all to familiar with. Various mouthpieces designed to either push your jaw forward to increase airflow (such as what we talk about in our ZQuiet review) or hold your tongue in place can assist with this issue.
But what else can you do?
As our houses get smarter and smarter, technology is slowly creeping into the bedroom:
After a full day of meetings at CES 2017, I noticed a few trends that could bubble up beyond some of the bigger ones that get a lot of the media’s attention. Roaming around a large hotel ballroom (The Mirage Events Center, actually) during the Pepcom Digital Experience event, I noticed a LOT of individual products, but some of them have coalesced into themes to watch during the year.
Technology hits the bedroom
Humans spend about 1/3 of their life sleeping or trying to sleep, so it’s been interesting to see that products are finally addressing our needs for a better night’s sleep. Companies and products like Smart Nora, the Zeeq Smart Pillow and Sleepace all have different approaches towards alleviating the annoyance of someone snoring (alleviating for the partner, since it probably doesn’t bother you if you’re the snorer). Different approaches are used by some of the products – the Nora device, for example, uses a small device that raises the pillow slightly to get you to move when snoring is detected through its sound sensor. The Zeeq includes speakers (which let you play music to help you get to sleep) that can activate when it detects snoring.
The big company in this space is Sleep Number Bed, which was at the event showing off its new Sleep Number 360 Smart Bed. The entire mattress system includes the anti-snoring approach (the bed adjusts the position when snoring is detected), but also includes a warming feature, biometric sensors and other health data abilities to help customers get their 40 winks in an easier manner.
A bevvy of cold-footed humans are very excited about the warming feature but for snorers, to have a bed that will automatically tilt you to help stop snoring is a great idea. It certainly sounds like something that could be effective, for sure, but it is quite an expensive proposition for a lot of people. If your bed does it for you there’s no need to stab your partner in the ribs or be concerned that your snoring is shaking the windows and you don’t know it.
While some people might be hesitant to have technology in their beds, others will see it as progressive. There’s no denying that these are all fantastic ideas, but they are going to cost you a pretty penny. Before you get too wrapped up in the idea of buying a smart bed, maybe you should start saving your nickels and dimes. While it might take you a while to save for it, it’ll be that much sweeter when you can afford it.
