Snoring happens when relaxed tissues in your throat, tongue, and soft palate partially block your airway during sleep. As air squeezes through that narrowed space, the tissues vibrate and produce sound. The narrower the airway gets, the more forceful the airflow becomes, which is why snoring can range from a soft flutter to a wall-shaking rumble. The good news: most people can reduce or eliminate snoring with a combination of simple changes.
Why Your Airway Narrows at Night
When you transition from light sleep into deep sleep, the muscles in your throat, tongue, and the roof of your mouth relax significantly. For some people, those tissues sag enough to partially obstruct the airway. Certain physical features make this worse: a naturally low, thick soft palate, an elongated uvula (the small piece of tissue hanging at the back of your throat), or enlarged tonsils all take up space and leave less room for air to pass through freely.
Anything that further relaxes those muscles or adds extra tissue around the airway makes snoring louder and more frequent. That’s why the most effective strategies target either keeping the airway physically open or reducing the factors that cause it to collapse.
Change Your Sleep Position
Sleeping on your back lets gravity pull your tongue and soft palate backward into your airway. Switching to your side keeps those structures from collapsing as much, and for many people this alone is enough to dramatically cut snoring. If you tend to roll onto your back during the night, a body pillow or a tennis ball sewn into the back of an old T-shirt can help you stay on your side.
Elevating your head also helps. A wedge pillow that raises your upper body to about a 45-degree angle repositions the airway so it’s less likely to collapse. Standard pillows stacked on top of each other tend to bend your neck at an awkward angle, which can actually make things worse, so a single firm wedge is a better option.
Cut Back on Alcohol Before Bed
Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, meaning it slows brain activity and loosens muscle control throughout your body. Your throat and tongue muscles are especially affected. Even small amounts of alcohol reduce muscle tone in the upper airway and increase airway resistance, making each breath more effortful. The result is louder, more frequent snoring, even in people who don’t normally snore.
If you drink in the evening, try stopping at least three to four hours before bed. You’ll likely notice a difference on the nights you skip it entirely.
Lose Weight Around the Neck
Excess weight, particularly around the neck and throat, physically compresses the airway. A neck circumference greater than 17 inches in men or 16 inches in women is a recognized risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea, the more serious cousin of simple snoring. You don’t need to hit those thresholds for weight to be a factor, though. Even a modest weight loss of 10 to 15 pounds can reduce the amount of tissue pressing on your airway and noticeably quiet snoring.
Weight gain later in life is one of the most common reasons people start snoring when they never did before. If your snoring appeared alongside extra pounds, that connection is worth addressing first.
Try Mouth and Throat Exercises
Myofunctional therapy, a set of exercises that strengthen the muscles around your airway, can reduce snoring frequency and volume when practiced consistently. The logic is straightforward: stronger muscles are less likely to collapse during sleep. Research suggests that doing these exercises daily for about three months can reduce snoring severity, particularly for people with mild to moderate airway issues.
A few exercises worth trying:
- Tongue slide: Place the tip of your tongue where your upper teeth meet your gums, then slide it backward along the roof of your mouth. Repeat for three minutes a day.
- Tongue hold: Stick your tongue straight out and hold it there for 10 to 15 seconds. Repeat five times, gradually increasing the hold duration over weeks.
- Cheek resistance: Hook your index finger inside one cheek and pull outward while contracting your cheek muscles inward against the resistance. Repeat on both sides.
- Lip purse: Pucker your lips tightly as if whistling. Hold for 10 seconds, relax, and repeat.
These exercises won’t produce overnight results. Consistency over weeks is what builds the muscle tone needed to keep your airway open during sleep. Some research also suggests that regular singing for several months can tone throat muscles enough to reduce snoring.
Address Nasal Congestion
If your nose is partially blocked from allergies, a deviated septum, or chronic congestion, you’re more likely to breathe through your mouth at night. Mouth breathing pulls air across the soft palate and back of the throat in a way that promotes vibration and snoring. Treating the underlying congestion with saline rinses, allergy management, or a humidifier in dry environments can shift you back toward nasal breathing.
Nasal strips and internal nasal dilators (small devices placed inside the nostrils) are widely marketed for snoring, but the evidence behind them is mixed. Studies show they do widen the nostrils and reduce resistance when breathing in, but measured reductions in snoring have generally been small, and in some studies no better than a placebo. They’re inexpensive and harmless, so they’re worth trying, but they’re unlikely to solve moderate or loud snoring on their own. They also do nothing for snoring caused by throat-level obstruction or sleep apnea.
When Snoring Signals Something Bigger
Simple snoring is a nuisance. Obstructive sleep apnea is a health risk. The difference matters because sleep apnea involves your airway fully closing during sleep, which repeatedly drops your oxygen levels and fragments your rest. Over time, untreated sleep apnea raises the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and daytime accidents from excessive sleepiness.
A simple screening tool called the STOP-BANG questionnaire helps identify people at higher risk. The eight factors it checks are: loud snoring (audible through closed doors), daytime tiredness or fatigue, someone observing you stop breathing or gasp during sleep, high blood pressure, a BMI over 35, age over 50, a neck circumference of 16 inches or more, and male sex. Scoring positive on three or more of these warrants a sleep evaluation.
If your snoring is accompanied by choking or gasping sounds, long pauses in breathing, or you wake up feeling exhausted no matter how long you slept, those are strong signals that you’re dealing with more than simple snoring.
Devices That Keep the Airway Open
For snoring that persists despite lifestyle changes, or snoring connected to sleep apnea, two main devices can help. A continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine delivers a steady stream of air through a mask to keep your airway from collapsing. It’s highly effective but can take time to get used to, and some people struggle with wearing a mask every night.
A mandibular advancement device is a custom-fitted mouthpiece that pushes your lower jaw slightly forward during sleep, pulling the tongue and surrounding tissues away from the back of the throat. These devices are smaller, quieter, and easier to travel with than a CPAP. A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that mandibular advancement devices performed at least as well as CPAP for cardiovascular outcomes, with the mouthpiece group actually showing a greater reduction in blood pressure over six months.
Both devices require a prescription and fitting. Over-the-counter “boil and bite” mouthpieces exist but tend to be less effective and less comfortable than custom versions made from a dental impression.
Combining Strategies Works Best
Snoring rarely has a single cause. Someone carrying extra weight who also drinks before bed and sleeps on their back has three separate factors narrowing their airway. Addressing just one might help, but tackling all three is far more likely to produce results. Start with the changes that are easiest for you to maintain, whether that’s switching to side sleeping, cutting out evening alcohol, or spending three minutes a day on tongue exercises. Give each change a few weeks before deciding whether it’s working, and layer on additional strategies from there.