Snoring can be a serious point of contention in any relationship. If your partner snores, it can significantly hinder your ability to get sufficient amounts of quality sleep. This leads to sleep fragmentation, resulting in irritability, daytime sleepiness, and reduced cognitive and physical function. Needless to say, it can put some serious strain on your relationship. For that reason, as the snorer - or as the “innocent bysleeper” - you may seek out a snoring solution to bring silence and restfulness back into the bedroom. One of those snoring solutions is a chin strap.
The concept of sleeping while wearing this peculiar piece of headgear is bizarre at first. But in many relationships where snoring is a real problem, it gets to the point where the snorer needs to try something to solve the problem. In this article, we’ll explain how chin straps work, the pros and cons of using a chin strap for snoring, and determining how effective they actually are.
A chin strap is essentially a piece of headgear made of cloth material, with some elastic properties. A strap loops under your chin while the other side wraps around the top and back of your head. As a result, the chin strap pulls your bottom jaw upwards and holds it closed against the top of your jaw. Chin straps come in different sizes, or with adjustable sizing, so that it provides compatible fit. This keeps the chin strap in place throughout the night and provides the correct amount of pressure to keep the jaw closed.
So how does wearing a chin strap prevent snoring? Well, it’s all about inhibiting mouth breathing. You see, while most people think that snoring is caused by the nose, in reality the vast majority of snoring results from open mouth breathing. Essentially, when we breathe through our mouths we are “over breathing,” meaning that we are respirating more air than we actually need. This forces a large amount of air through a small gap - your throat - which causes the relaxed tissues of your mouth and throat to vibrate. This vibration results in that all-too-familiar sound we despise - snoring.
The idea with chin straps is that if mouth breathing can be prevented, then the vast majority of snoring will be prevented as a result. By keeping the jaw closed, it becomes significantly more difficult to mouth breathe, inducing nose breathing instead.
Beyond mouth snoring, there are several other negative effects of mouth breathing. In the short-term, mouth breathing results in bad breath, morning dry mouth, nasal congestion, and potentially respiratory illness. Over time, chronic mouth breathing leads to reduced sleep quality, high blood pressure, weight gain, and deteriorating dental hygiene. For these reasons, we want to ensure that we are nose breathing as much as possible.
Sure it’s easy to nose breathe during the day. We can make a conscious effort while going about our daily routine to keep our mouth closed and breathe through our noses. But what about when we sleep? During sleep, our jaws tend to relax, allowing our bottom jaw to fall open. This leads to mouth breathing as the default form of respiration. By using a chin strap to keep the jaw closed, this makes mouth breathing much more difficult. When we nose breathe, we are protected from the detrimental health effects of mouth breathing.
Beyond avoiding the negative effects of mouth breathing during sleep, there are actually many advantages of nose breathing. Nose breathing has the unique benefit of producing nitric oxide. This is a naturally occurring chemical within the body that acts as a vasodilator, meaning that it allows blood to flow more easily through the body. Among other things, this helps lower blood pressure, boost the immune system, and induce more relaxing, restorative sleep. Since nose breathing dramatically boosts nitric oxide production, we want to nose breathe as much as possible.
On top of nitric oxide production, nose breathing also has the benefits of:
So it’s clear that in order to stop the vast majority of snoring, the key is to sleep with your mouth closed. Therefore, the effectiveness of chin straps for snoring comes down to how well they keep the mouth closed and how practical they are for sleeping. Let’s take a look at the Pros and Cons of using a chin strap for snoring.
On the whole, chin straps are fairly effective at stopping snoring. However, the biggest problem is that they are impractical. To get great sleep you need to be relaxed. It can be very hard to relax when your head is wrapped in what feels like a rugby helmet. The discomfort caused by chin straps often leads to people giving up on using theirs and going back to their snoring ways.
Thankfully, there is a simpler, more effective, more practical solution to keeping your mouth closed while you sleep.
SomniFix Strips are the ultimate solution to curbing mouth snoring. Using a gentle, skin-safe adhesive, SomniFix Strips keep your lips sealed while you sleep. This accomplishes the same mission as chin straps, keeping the jaw firmly closed throughout the night. However, it is a superior snoring solution to chin straps for two reasons. Firstly, SomniFix Strips keep your lips sealed, preventing mouth leaks and mouth breathing more effectively than simply controlling your jaw. Secondly, they are far more comfortable. No more itching, sweating, shifting, or claustrophobic feelings. Just a gentle strip across the lips that you won’t even notice is there.
So if you or your partner snore - bring silent nights back into the bedroom with SomniFix Strips. To date, we’re closing in on nearly 100,000 people who now incorporate SomniFix into their nightly routine. Stop snoring and mouth breathing dead in their tracks and instead reap the many benefits of nose breathing. Wake up feeling refreshed, restored, and ready to take on whatever the day may bring.
Give SomniFix Strips a try today, completely risk-free. If you don’t love your sleep after 7 nights with SomniFix, we’ll refund your order. Great sleep awaits!
If you don't LOVE your sleep in 7 nights, we'll give your money back guaranteed! 🌟
