 First of all, what causes snoring? Now snoring is officially known as obstructive sleep apnea. That sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? Well, obstructive sleep apnea is one of the things you want to avoid, particularly if you like your brain. Your brain actually enjoys getting oxygen, particularly while you're sleeping. And when you have snoring episodes, many, many times your oxygen levels drop dramatically. And snoring is the first sign of mischief. So pay attention to your significant other and or spouse if they're waking you up saying turn over or you're snoring or your spouse literally sends you to the other room or is sleeping with a pillow over their ears. That's a sign that you need to pay attention because if you're snoring that bad, as Dr. Aiman has said on my podcast, you're actually starving your brain cells. And one of the shocking findings of snorers is that they're killing part of their brain and it looks very much like Alzheimer's disease. So please, please pay attention to snoring. So what causes snoring? Well, there's a lot of potential causes. First of all, some people, particularly with not a very prominent chin, unwittingly when they sleep their tongue falls into the back of their mouth and the tongue falling back into the back of your throat is actually causing obstructive sleep apnea and snoring. Now that one is actually a remarkably easy fix. The first thing I do with my patients who are snores like this is I do not let them sleep on their back. And that's one of the first tricks to use. I like my patients to sleep on their left side and I've posted another video on the benefits of left sided sleeping. You can use two large pillows to prop yourself on your side. There are pillow like devices that you can get on the internet and you just type in anti snoring pillows and you'll actually find a number of them that actually are very successful at putting you on your side. For the most part that will keep your tongue from falling in the back of your mouth throat. There are dental devices that are available to pull your jaw forward. And a lot of times these work. I like to send my patients to a holistic dentist who specializes in snoring treatments. Many times ear, nose, and throat physicians, ENTs, otolaryngologists also will have specialized devices for this purpose. And finally, quite frankly, weight loss is my most effective treatment for snoring. Why weight loss? Well, it turns out that we put remarkably a lot of fat storage in our mouth, cheeks, and neck. And that fat can actually contribute to compromising your airway. And invariably, when patients go on my program for another reason, say it's for the treatment of diabetes or the treatment of an autoimmune disease, treatment of arthritis, one of the side effects that the spouse notices is that their husband or wife stops snoring. Oftentimes, I have patients return from a trip to Europe for several weeks, found that they were snoring over in Europe. And when they came back, they discovered that they had gained five, seven pounds. And as soon as that trip weight fell off, the snoring disappeared. Finally, a lot of my snoring patients or their spouses or significant others notice that the snoring corresponds to when they've had either or too much to drink or too much to eat late at night. And alcohol in it of itself will change the motor tone, the muscular tone in your airways. And again, listen to your bedmate. And if your bedmate notices that this is the trend, that's an easy fix. Either stay up for a few hours, let that food and the alcohol digest, or simply don't eat late into the night, don't drink, and then go to bed. So those are great tricks. Snoring is a warning sign. Secondly, we know that people who have sleep apnea do not get good quality sleep and good quality sleep. It turns out has a reciprocal effect on preventing snoring. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the average adult needs somewhere between seven and eight hours of sleep every night. And a lot of that sleep needs to be deep sleep. And unfortunately, snoring really interferes with deep sleep. So just because you're getting six hours of sleep may be inadequate to get you the sleep you need and just getting more sleep many times is part of the process of preventing snoring. Now, are there other tricks we can do? Well, I've had a video showing the benefits of olive oil. If you have a jigger of olive oil before you go to bed, you will lubricate your tongue and the back of your throat. And remarkably, air moves much better across those passages. And it's a great trick to try. It often does the job. Other tricks that you can use, mouth taping has become popular. Many people inadvertently are mouth breathers, particularly when they're on their back. And many people have less than adequate nasal passages. Interestingly enough, experiments have shown that taping your mouth before you go to bed forces you to breathe through your nose. And many times that's a effective treatment. But word of warning, make sure that you have adequate nasal passages to accomplish this. One of the easiest ways to test that is to try altered nasal breathing like in the yoga practice, where you close your mouth and close one side of your nostril and breathe in and then close the other side of your nostril to breathe out. First of all, it's a great breath control method that you really ought to be practicing on a regular basis. But it's a great way of deciding whether it's safe for you to do mouth taping before you go to bed. Finally, try out a side sleeping pillow. They're really not very expensive and always, always, always check in with your bed partner to see if any of these tricks are making a difference. And the important thing is if these tricks are not making a difference, then it's time to get a sleep study, a sleep apnea study. Because Dr. Amon and I are in complete agreement. If you have sleep apnea, that's a dangerous thing that needs to be treated. If you found this video helpful, I think you're going to love this one. All American oats are loaded with glyphosate, even the organic ones, and are also loaded with a banned herbicide that is cancer causing in humans.