A Complete Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Snoring
You’re Not Alone
If you’re reading this, chances are snoring has become more than just a noise problem. Perhaps your partner has moved to the spare room. Maybe you wake up exhausted despite what should have been a full night’s rest. Or you’ve started avoiding holidays with friends because you’re embarrassed about what happens when you sleep.
You’re not alone. Snoring affects an estimated 57% of men and 40% of women at some point in their lives. For many, it’s an occasional inconvenience. But for millions of others, it’s a nightly battle that affects their health, their relationships, and their quality of life.
The good news is that snoring is not something you have to accept. It’s not an inevitable part of ageing or something you’re powerless to change. With the right approach, most people can significantly reduce or completely eliminate their snoring.
This guide is written for real people dealing with a real problem. We won’t talk down to you or oversimplify the issue. Instead, we’ll give you the information you need to understand what’s happening when you snore, why it matters, and what you can do about it.
What Actually Happens When You Snore
Snoring occurs when air flowing through your mouth and nose is partially obstructed during sleep. As you breathe, the soft tissues in your throat—including your soft palate, uvula, and tongue—relax and can partially collapse into your airway. When air passes through this narrowed space, it causes these tissues to vibrate, producing the familiar sound of snoring.
Think of it like a flag flapping in the wind. When there’s a gentle breeze, the flag might barely move. But when the wind picks up and the flag is partially restricted, it begins to snap and flutter loudly. The same principle applies to the soft tissues in your throat.
Several factors can contribute to this airway narrowing. Excess weight, particularly around the neck, can put pressure on the airway. The natural relaxation of muscles during sleep plays a role—which is why snoring often worsens with age as muscle tone decreases. Alcohol consumption before bed can cause muscles to relax more than usual. Sleeping on your back allows gravity to pull tissues backward into the airway. Nasal congestion from allergies or a cold can force you to breathe through your mouth, increasing the likelihood of snoring.
The anatomy of your mouth and throat also matters. Some people have a naturally narrow airway, a thick soft palate, or an elongated uvula. Others may have a deviated septum or enlarged tonsils that contribute to obstruction.
Why Snoring Should Not Be Ignored
It’s easy to dismiss snoring as a nuisance—an annoyance for your partner but nothing to worry about for yourself. This is a mistake. Snoring is your body’s way of telling you that something isn’t quite right with your breathing during sleep, and the consequences can be significant.
The Health Impact
When your airway is partially obstructed, your body has to work harder to breathe. This extra effort, repeated hundreds of times throughout the night, takes a toll. Even if you don’t fully wake up, your sleep is fragmented. Your brain is constantly being pulled out of the deeper, restorative stages of sleep to deal with the breathing difficulty.
The result is a collection of symptoms that many snorers know all too well: waking up feeling unrefreshed despite spending enough time in bed, daytime fatigue and sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, morning headaches, a dry mouth or sore throat upon waking, and increased irritability.
Over time, chronic snoring has been associated with more serious health concerns. Research has linked untreated snoring to an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. The mechanism isn’t fully understood, but it’s believed that the repeated drops in oxygen levels and the stress placed on the cardiovascular system during snoring play a role.
The Relationship Impact
Beyond the health implications, snoring takes a profound toll on relationships. When one partner snores, both partners suffer from disrupted sleep. The non-snoring partner often lies awake, increasingly frustrated, nudging their partner to roll over, or eventually retreating to another room to get some rest.
Over time, this creates distance—both literal and emotional. Sleeping apart becomes the norm. Intimacy suffers. Resentment builds. What should be a peaceful, shared experience becomes a source of tension and conflict.
Studies have shown that partners of snorers lose an average of one hour of sleep per night. Over years, this sleep debt accumulates, affecting the health and wellbeing of both people in the relationship.
The Social Impact
The effects extend beyond the bedroom. Many snorers feel embarrassed about their condition. They avoid travel, decline invitations to stay with friends or family, and feel anxious about work trips where they might have to share accommodation.
This self-consciousness can be isolating. Snoring feels like a personal failing, even though it’s largely beyond conscious control. People often suffer in silence rather than seeking help, unaware that effective solutions exist.
Understanding Sleep Apnoea
While snoring itself is concerning, it can also be a symptom of a more serious condition called obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). In sleep apnoea, the airway doesn’t just narrow—it completely closes, causing breathing to stop temporarily. These pauses, called apnoeas, can last from a few seconds to over a minute and may occur hundreds of times per night.
When breathing stops, oxygen levels in the blood drop. The brain recognises this danger and briefly rouses the sleeper—just enough to restore muscle tone and reopen the airway, but usually not enough to fully wake them. The cycle then repeats: relaxation, obstruction, arousal, recovery, and back again.
Not everyone who snores has sleep apnoea, and not everyone with sleep apnoea snores loudly. However, the two conditions are closely related. If your snoring is accompanied by witnessed pauses in breathing, gasping or choking during sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, morning headaches, or night sweats, it’s worth discussing with a healthcare professional.
Sleep apnoea is a serious medical condition that requires proper diagnosis and treatment. If you suspect you might have it, we encourage you to seek professional medical advice. Snoreguard can help with snoring and mild to moderate sleep apnoea, but severe cases may require additional intervention.
What You’ve Probably Already Tried
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already tried various solutions to stop snoring. Many people spend years working through the options, often with limited success.
Lifestyle Changes
The usual advice includes losing weight, avoiding alcohol before bed, sleeping on your side, and treating nasal congestion. These recommendations aren’t wrong—they can all help reduce snoring. But they’re often not enough on their own, and some aren’t practical for everyone. Weight loss takes time and isn’t always possible. Not everyone wants to give up an evening drink. Staying on your side all night is easier said than done.
Over-the-Counter Products
The market is flooded with anti-snoring products: nasal strips, throat sprays, special pillows, chin straps, and various devices that claim to keep the airway open. Some of these provide modest relief for some people. Most don’t work at all. The fundamental problem is that they don’t address the underlying cause of snoring—the relaxation and collapse of soft tissues in the throat.
CPAP Therapy
For those diagnosed with sleep apnoea, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is often the first treatment offered. A CPAP machine delivers a constant stream of air through a mask worn during sleep, keeping the airway open through positive pressure.
CPAP is highly effective when used correctly. The problem is compliance. Many people find the mask uncomfortable, claustrophobic, or intrusive. The machine makes noise. It’s difficult to travel with. Partners can find it off-putting. Studies show that a significant proportion of people prescribed CPAP either don’t use it consistently or abandon it altogether.
As one of our clients memorably put it, sleeping with a CPAP machine felt like being attached to a “grotesque reverse vacuum cleaner.” It worked, but at a cost to comfort and quality of life.
Surgery
Various surgical procedures exist to treat snoring, from relatively minor interventions like uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) to more extensive operations that reposition the jaw. Surgery can be effective for some people, but it’s invasive, carries risks, requires recovery time, and doesn’t always work. It’s generally considered a last resort after other options have been exhausted.
We’ve met people who underwent multiple surgical procedures over several years—having their tongue brought forward, their palate reduced, and their hyoid bone repositioned—only to still be snoring at the end of it all.
A Different Approach: How Snoreguard Works
Snoreguard is a mandibular advancement device—an oral appliance that works by gently repositioning your lower jaw (mandible) forward during sleep. This forward position helps keep the airway open by preventing the tongue and soft tissues from collapsing backward.
The concept is simple, but the execution matters. Unlike generic, one-size-fits-all devices available online or in pharmacies, each Snoreguard is custom-made to fit your individual mouth. We take precise impressions of your teeth and gums, then craft a device that fits comfortably and securely.
Because people snore for different reasons, we’ve developed four specifically targeted devices to address different types of obstruction. During your consultation, we’ll assess your particular situation and recommend the device most likely to work for you.
Comfort and Compliance
The most effective anti-snoring device in the world is useless if you don’t wear it. That’s why we put such emphasis on comfort. A custom-fitted device that sits naturally in your mouth is far more likely to be used consistently than a generic one that feels awkward or causes jaw discomfort.
Most people adapt to wearing a Snoreguard within a few days. After that initial adjustment period, many report that they barely notice it’s there. Unlike a CPAP mask, there’s nothing on your face, no straps around your head, no machine humming beside the bed. You can speak, drink water, and move naturally during the night.
Durability and Value
A well-maintained Snoreguard typically lasts for many years. We have clients whose devices have lasted seven years or more before needing replacement. When you consider the cost spread over that period, it represents excellent value—especially compared to the ongoing expense of CPAP supplies or the significant cost of surgical procedures.
Real People, Real Results
We’ve been helping New Zealanders sleep better for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve worked with thousands of people who came to us frustrated, exhausted, and often sceptical that anything would work.
One electrical engineer tried everything over a decade—nasal sprays, plastic devices from Sweden, special pillows—before reluctantly trying Snoreguard with “a high level of scepticism.” Within five days of adjustment, he stopped snoring completely. His wife confirmed it. His daughter confirmed it when they travelled to the UK. That was nearly 30 years ago.
Another client had been sleeping apart from her husband for over six years. He’d undergone three throat operations over four years, tried CPAP without success, and was told that breaking and repositioning his jaw might be the only remaining option. Snoreguard worked when everything else had failed. For the first time in years, they were able to share a bedroom again.
A frequent traveller who spent 18 days out of every 28 overseas found CPAP effective but impractical—too noisy, too cumbersome, too antisocial. Snoreguard became, in his words, “one of my most treasured possessions.” It allowed him to use crew rest facilities on aircraft without embarrassment and travel freely without the burden of a machine.
These aren’t exceptional cases. They’re representative of the results we see regularly. Not everyone responds identically—individual results vary—but the majority of people who use Snoreguard correctly experience significant improvement.
Our Guarantee
We stand behind our work with a straightforward promise: if Snoreguard doesn’t stop your snoring, you get your money back.
In the unlikely event that your device doesn’t work as expected, contact us. Sometimes a small adjustment is all that’s needed. We’ll work through the issues with you. If we ultimately decide that Snoreguard isn’t suitable for your particular situation, we’ll refund the purchase price and help you understand your other options.
This guarantee isn’t just marketing. It’s a reflection of our confidence in what we do. When you’ve been in business for over three decades and your product genuinely works, you can afford to stand behind it.
Taking the First Step
If snoring is affecting your life, your health, or your relationships, we encourage you to take action. Not because we want your business—though of course we do—but because we’ve seen the difference that proper treatment makes.
We offer free, no-obligation consultations. This is a chance to discuss your situation, understand your options, and decide whether Snoreguard might be right for you. There’s no pressure and no commitment. Many people find it helpful just to talk through their experience with someone who understands.
During the consultation, we’ll ask about your snoring history, any treatments you’ve tried, your sleep patterns, and your overall health. We’ll examine your mouth and throat to understand your particular anatomy. Based on this assessment, we’ll give you our honest opinion about whether we can help and which approach is likely to work best.
If you decide to proceed, we’ll take impressions of your teeth and create your custom device. The whole process is non-invasive and straightforward. Most people are sleeping better within a few weeks of their first visit.
You Deserve Better Sleep
Sleep is fundamental to health and wellbeing. It’s when your body repairs itself, your brain consolidates memories, and your immune system strengthens. Good sleep affects everything from your mood and energy levels to your ability to think clearly and make decisions.
You deserve to wake up feeling refreshed. Your partner deserves peaceful nights. Your relationships deserve the intimacy that comes from sharing a bed without tension or resentment.
Snoring doesn’t have to be something you live with. It doesn’t have to be a source of embarrassment or a barrier to connection. With the right approach, it can be solved.
If you’re ready to explore your options, we’re here to help.
Contact Snoreguard
Phone: 027 523 2134
Email: support@snoreguard.co.nz
Location: 178a Waimumu Road, Massey, Auckland 0614, New Zealand
Free consultations available by appointment.
Important Note: This information is provided for educational purposes and should not be considered medical advice. If you suspect you may have sleep apnoea or another sleep disorder, please consult a healthcare professional for proper diagnosis and treatment recommendations.