Answered by : drgayat on Fri, 29 Jan 2010

Snoring as everybody assumes is not always indicate of a good nights sleep. Snoring happens because of a partial obstruction of the airways during sleep. In an entity called primary snoring there is only evidence of snoring without any accompaning significant obstruction of the airways. Here the main problem may be sleep disturbance to the bed partner.
If the snoring is very severe then it indicates that there is obstruction to the airways when the person is sleeping as a result of which the person is repeatedly aroused from sleep, thus disturbing his sleep.
The measures employed for primary snoring are:
You can slightly elevate the head end of the bed
You should try and avoid sleeping in the supine posture as this aggravates airway obstruction. To achieve this you can place pillows on the side or place something hard like tennis balls on the sides so that you cannot sleep in that posture.
Any nasal obstruction should be promptly treated.
But the most important thing would be to lose weight if you are overweight. As excess fat can get deposited around the airways in obese persons resulting in narrowing of the airways.
For a lot more information on this I would advice you to read my article obstructive sleep apnea which is on the medindia website.
If you have any further queries on this I will be glad to clarify.