As we all try whatever we can to combat snoring, sometimes we reach for the nearest cure-all, hoping for that elusive night of perfect sleep, unencumbered by the endless snuffling of your average snoring. Solutions range wildly, from devices that hold your tongue out of your mouth to sleep backpacks that keep you from rolling onto your back. One of the options that have risen in popularity in the last several years is the anti snore chin strap, which keeps your mouth shut tight while you slumber. Will it work for you and what are the side effects? Let’s dive in!
The Basics — Is a Chin Strap For Mouth Snoring or Nose Snoring?
Mouth Snoring occurs when tension naturally releases and the muscles in your neck and throat relax, or when an irritant, inflammation, dehydration, or other such things interfere with your mouth and throat. It’s by far the most common type of snoring.
Nose Snoring occurs only when the nasal passages are blocked or too small. For the nose snorer, a snoring chin strap just won’t do the trick, as it forces you to breathe only through your nose, which might, in fact, exacerbate things.
A Chin Strap For Snoring — How It Works
An anti snore chin strap is a device made from a flexible fabric or neoprene sort of material that wraps around your head and chin, supporting your chin and keeping your mouth shut tightly while you sleep. Think a snore can peek out past your shut jaw now? Think again! In theory, what’s happening is that the air that would normally travel over your tongue and soft palate — causing you to snore if when the relaxed tongue blocks or constricts your airway — is diverted through your nose. The mouth snorer becomes the nose breather, and your snoring is stopped.
As always with the majority of purported snoring solutions, it can’t be that easy… can it? Because mouth snoring is more common than nose snoring, there are a lot of companies jumping into the market to produce these sorts of products. A lot. According to the American Sleep Association (ASA), “[We have] identified over 100 different types and brands, and no particular one stands out as having a unique approach, design, or benefit ahead of the rest.” There are a lot of options for a snoring chin strap, but nothing seems to set one apart from the rest. Trial and error are your friends here, while you find the “one-size-fits-all” that actually fits you.
But Does a Chin Strap Really Work?
The chin strap was originally designed to help CPAP users. The positive air pressure from a CPAP would open the mouth and the solution was to help keep it closed. So the function of the chin strap was never intended to stop your snoring. Even as far back as 2014, it was reported that a snoring chin strap may not actually help with snoring. The August 2014 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine published an article reporting results from a study showing that, among trials with 26 adult patients conducted by 10 doctors, there was no improvement when using a chin strap. In their conclusion, they wrote, “A chinstrap alone is not an effective treatment. It does not improve sleep-disordered breathing, nor does it improve the AHI in REM sleep or supine sleep. It is also ineffective in improving snoring.”
The evidence simply does not support that a chin strap is an effective tool for curing snoring.
Chin Strap Doesn’t Work With Nose Issues
Furthermore, if you snore through your mouth because of issues with your nose, such as nasal polyps, a deviated septum, or sinus problems, then a chin strap will not work for you. In these cases, your body requires breathing through your mouth because your nasal passages are not equipped for proper airflow — if you deny yourself regulated breathing, you’ll be worse off than if you simply snored!
Reported Discomfort from Chin Strap
With any device that fits over your face and restricts movement, including snoring mouth guards and nasal dilators, a chin strap for snoring is likely to cause a minor level of discomfort as you get used to using one. Some users report feeling stiff or experience jaw soreness for the first few uses, and continuing if you change the “settings” or tightness over time.
Oddly enough, those with bruxism (teeth grinding) find that a chin strap minimizes the amount that they grind their teeth, possibly because the restriction keeps your jaw from shifting while you sleep.
Chin Strap for Sleep Apnea — Not a Sufficient Treatment
If you’re considering a chin strap for sleep apnea (some are marketed as a CPAP chin strap) you ought to look for a more reputable solution, as the ASA doesn’t suggest a chin strap as a cure for sleep apnea (they’re the leading researchers in sleep science, you know!). While it may help some patients, it isn’t ever a cure — only a deterrent, and one that might not help in the long run. A chin strap for sleep apnea is not a treatment. You should always consult with your doctor about the solution you can try for sleep apnea. You can also try these mattresses for snoring.
What should You Do? — Always do Your Research.
You should always do a thorough research before purchasing a snoring solution. With so many gimmicky products out there, the snoring solution category is unfortunately an untrusted one for valid reasons. Many anti-snoring products fail to deliver what they promise. If you are looking for a snoring solution, look for independent reviews, third party clinical/validation studies and articles from reputable sources. Always ask yourself questions, should a piece of fabric cost $50+? Most definitely not. If chin straps worked for snoring then the sellers would price them more reasonably to be able to sell more.
So is Chin Strap the Solution?
We’ll try anything to get out of our bad habits, sometimes. Snoring can be difficult to deal with, but only because nonfunctional, unregulated “solutions” on the market, like the snoring chin strap, are so prevalent — the science shows that they don’t work in the long run, but the companies making them don’t have to tell you that. When you’re slogging through a long day marred by poor sleep from snoring, you know there’s got to be a better way, just don’t get fooled by a product that won’t give you the sleep you deserve.
In the end you should look for a solution that solves your snoring problem without compromising your comfort. If the solution you use stops your snoring due to poor quality of sleep and frequent awakenings and discomfort, then you haven’t made much progress towards a healthy lifestyle. With the advancement of technology and the new popularity of sleep tech there are new products in the market that can offer a solution to your snoring without compromising comfort. We believe that a contact free snoring solution is the right approach to solving snoring.
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