Men snore more than women, and the reasons are largely structural. The male airway is surrounded by bulkier tissue, including a larger tongue and more soft tissue around the throat, which means the airway takes more muscular effort to keep open during sleep. The good news: several natural strategies can meaningfully reduce or eliminate snoring without devices or surgery.
Why Men Snore More Than Women
Men have significantly larger structures surrounding the airway, including the tongue, soft palate, and surrounding tissue. Women have similarly sized air passages but with smaller structures around them, which means less tissue pressing inward and less effort required to keep the airway open. This anatomical difference is the primary reason snoring and obstructive sleep apnea are far more common in men.
Fat distribution plays a role too. Men tend to accumulate weight around the neck and throat before other areas, and a neck circumference greater than 17 inches is a recognized risk factor for airway obstruction during sleep. If you’re carrying extra weight around your neck, that tissue compresses the airway when you lie down, making the surrounding soft tissue vibrate with each breath.
Throat and Tongue Exercises That Work
This one surprises most people, but exercising the muscles of your mouth and throat can substantially reduce snoring. A randomized clinical trial found that three months of oropharyngeal exercises reduced snoring frequency by 36% and total snoring intensity by 59%. The exercises strengthen the muscles that hold the airway open, preventing the collapse and vibration that causes the sound.
The exercises used in the study are simple and take about 8 to 10 minutes a day:
- Tongue slides: Press the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth and slide it backward. Repeat 20 times.
- Tongue presses: Press the entire tongue flat against the roof of your mouth and hold for a few seconds. Repeat 20 times.
- Forced swallowing: Press the back of your tongue against the floor of your mouth while keeping the tip touching your lower front teeth. Repeat 20 times.
- Soft palate raises: Say “ahh” loudly enough to lift the soft palate and uvula. Repeat for about a minute.
Consistency matters here. The benefits in the trial appeared after three months of daily practice. Think of it like any other exercise routine: the muscles need regular work to stay toned.
Lose Weight Around the Neck
If your neck measures over 17 inches around, losing even a modest amount of weight can make a noticeable difference. Fat deposits around the upper airway narrow the space available for air, and that narrowing gets worse when the muscles relax during sleep. You don’t need to reach an ideal body weight to see results. Even a 10% reduction in body weight often produces a meaningful drop in snoring severity, because some of the earliest fat lost comes from the neck and throat area.
Elevate Your Head While Sleeping
Gravity pulls the tongue and soft palate backward when you lie flat, which narrows the airway. Raising your upper body changes that equation. A 2020 study tested different incline angles on regular snorers and found that snoring stopped completely in 22% of people at a 10-degree incline and 67% of people at a 20-degree incline.
A 20-degree angle is roughly the equivalent of a thick wedge pillow or an adjustable bed raised partway. Stacking regular pillows tends to create a neck bend rather than a true incline, which can actually make things worse. A foam wedge pillow that supports your entire upper back gives a more consistent angle. If you have an adjustable bed frame, experiment with raising the head end gradually until you find a comfortable position.
Sleep on Your Side
Back sleeping is the worst position for snoring. When you’re on your back, the tongue falls directly into the airway, and the surrounding soft tissue collapses inward under gravity. Side sleeping keeps the tongue from falling backward and opens more space in the throat.
The challenge is staying on your side through the night. A few approaches that work: sew a tennis ball into the back of an old T-shirt, use a body pillow to prevent rolling, or place a firm pillow behind your back. Some people find that a slight incline combined with side sleeping produces the best results, since you’re getting the benefits of both gravity adjustments at once.
Stop Drinking at Least 4 Hours Before Bed
Alcohol relaxes the muscles that hold the airway open, and it does so more aggressively than normal sleep. Even moderate drinking in the evening can turn a mild snorer into someone who sounds like a chainsaw. The Sleep Foundation recommends finishing your last drink at least four hours before you plan to fall asleep, giving your body enough time to metabolize the alcohol before those throat muscles need to do their job.
Sedating medications have a similar effect. Antihistamines, sleep aids, and muscle relaxants all reduce airway muscle tone. If you’re taking any of these regularly and snoring is a problem, it’s worth discussing alternatives with your doctor.
Open Your Nasal Passages
When your nose is partially blocked, you breathe through your mouth, which dramatically increases the likelihood of snoring. Mouth breathing pulls air past the soft palate at higher velocity, creating more vibration. Keeping nasal passages open can shift breathing back through the nose, where airflow is smoother and quieter.
Internal nasal dilators (small cones or clips placed inside the nostrils) outperform the adhesive strips you stick on the outside of your nose. In testing, internal dilators increased nasal airflow by 110%, compared to 54% for external strips. Both help, but if you’ve tried the stick-on strips and found them underwhelming, internal dilators are worth trying. Saline rinses before bed can also help if your congestion is related to allergies or dry air.
When Snoring May Signal Something Bigger
Not all snoring is just noise. Obstructive sleep apnea, where the airway closes completely and breathing stops repeatedly through the night, affects a significant percentage of men who snore. A screening tool called the STOP-Bang questionnaire uses eight yes-or-no factors to assess risk: loud snoring, daytime tiredness, observed pauses in breathing, high blood pressure, BMI over 35, age over 50, neck circumference of 16 inches or more, and male sex. Each “yes” scores one point, and a score of 5 or higher indicates a strong likelihood of moderate to severe sleep apnea.
If your partner has noticed that you stop breathing during sleep, if you wake up gasping, or if you feel exhausted despite a full night in bed, natural remedies alone may not be enough. Sleep apnea carries real cardiovascular risk and typically requires a formal sleep study to diagnose. The natural strategies in this article can still help as part of your overall approach, but they work best when you know what you’re actually dealing with.