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Singing for Snorers, Especially Senior
Citizens
Alise Ojay graduated with a first class degree in
Philosophy from the University of York, UK and later qualified
as a Dramatherapist. Singing has always been her love and she
was a founding member of the Natural Voicework Practitioners'
Network which promotes singing as a natural expression, open to
all. She directs a community choir in Devon, specialising in
unaccompanied part-songs from around the world and delights in
singing a cappella with three friends as The Giddy Aunts.
Alise has researched the use of singing exercises to reduce
snoring for four years as an Honorary Research Fellow at the
Department of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter, UK.
Alise first had the idea that singing might
reduce snoring when talking with a friend who was troubled by
his snoring. Having explored different singing traditions from
around the world, Alise was very familiar with the inside of her
own throat and how different kinds of singing exercised it. She
immediately wondered whether a well-toned throat would be so
inclined to vibrate in the very lax-sounding way her friend's
throat vibrated when he demonstrated his snoring noise. Thus
began a quest.
First of all Alise discovered that Dr. Elizabeth
Scott, a medical doctor living in Scotland, had tried singing
exercises on her snoring patients. She claimed to have had
considerable success (27), but had been unable to carry out a
clinical trial.
In 1999, with the support of the Department of
Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, Alise
conducted the first trial of singing exercises to reduce
snoring. This pilot trial caught the media's attention
internationally and Alise appeared on the BBC television
programme Watchdog Healthcheck (8.3.99) where her trial received
a positive review.
Two years of research followed with Alise
determined to design a programme of exercises that would
specifically target the right areas in the throat and so
increase the benefits suggested by the preliminary trial. The
Singing for Snorers exercise programme is the result of this
research. |
Have you or your partner started to
snore? It’s very common among senior citizens.
We all know that to keep our muscles
from going floppy we have to exercise and that the older we get the
more gravity works against us. Everything wants to sag. Of course the
muscles inside us are no different to the ones visibly keen to droop
on the outside and the throat muscles are no exception. If their tone
becomes poor, loose tissue at the back of the throat tends to vibrate
in the in-breath causing the snoring noise, and partners who in their
youth slept silently beside us are transformed into snorers.
But a solution may be at hand:
Five years ago a friend was explaining
to me how snoring was a real problem for him in his relationships and
he demonstrated his snoring noise to me. As a choir director
specialising in songs from around the world, I’m used to making all
sorts of different sounds and using my throat to reproduce vocal
placements from different cultures. When I heard my friend’s noise I
immediately thought, “Hmmm that sounds like a lax soft palate to me.”
Then I got thinking: “Singing exercises the soft palate; surely
singing could be used to tone the soft palate and thereby reduce
snoring”.
To cut a long story short I ended up
leading the first trial of singing exercises to reduce snoring at the
University of Exeter, UK. The results were promising and by the
completion of the trial I had learned a lot – about snoring, snorers,
designing a user-friendly programme of exercises. As a consequence,
with the aim of increasing the effect observed in the trial, I spent
two years designing and creating “Singing for Snorers”: a complete
programme of do-it-yourself sing-along singing exercises on triple CD
which specifically target the soft palate, tongue, palatopharyngeal
arch and nasopharynx. Its like a programme of targeted press-ups for
the muscles in these areas. And it’s just been released!
What are the exercises like? Here’s an
example: if you make the sound “ung-gah” you will feel your soft
palate come down and touch the back of your tongue on the “ung” and
spring upwards on the “gah”. Now imagine energetically singing such
purposeful sounds over and over to simple tunes which make progressive
demands on the targeted muscles. Each exercise has a guiding voice to
sing along with and a different instrumental accompaniment. While the
user’s singing is simple and repetitive, the complex accompaniments
make the whole experience more satisfying and enjoyable.
Is “Singing for Snorers” the answer for
all snorers? Sadly no. It will depend why you’re snoring and most
particularly the extent to which your snoring is caused by lax
muscles. It is most suitable for people who start to snore from middle
age onwards simply because of loss of muscle tone in their throats.
The exercises will not
help you lose weight or affect the size of your tonsils or remove
polyps from your nose (other causes of snoring), they will simply tone
the throat and improve the strength of your breathing muscles in a
lively, enjoyable way. Actually they will also improve the strength
and agility of your singing voice and improve your pitching but those
are happy by-products of the main aim!
Surgical interventions to treat snoring
include removing slack tissue or toughening it by creating scar
tissue. Singing for Snorers provides an enjoyable, harmless and
healthy way to restore the throat’s tone. And indeed for those wary of
starting to snore, it provides a way to prevent tone loss from
occurring.
It’s been a long journey for me from
that initial conversation with my friend – I hope you find it a
valuable one! For full details of my exercise programme please visit
www.singingforsnorers.com
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