Sleep Tight

Female snoring is a poorly understood and often embarrassing sleep condition, discovers Sarah Catherall. She looks at the scientific reasons why women struggle with sleep conditions and what we can do

I never knew that 40-something-year-old women snore until I went on a tramping trip with seven girlfriends. After the lights went out in the DOC hut, ve of my seven friends began snoring. I reached for my ear plugs to block out the cacophony of sounds coming from the mattresses lined up in the hut.

As a child, I heard my grandmother snore from her bedroom down the hallway when I stayed in her small at. Once my mother hit her 60s, she too started to occasionally snore. However, I ignorantly believed that snorers were most commonly like my father: overweight, elderly men.

It’s a stereotype that makes Frances Anderson nod. Frances is a petite woman who spent much of her life snoring. The Hamilton-based entrepeneur didn’t know she snored until she was 13 and at boarding school. She groans, recalling the shame of being moved to a bed down one end of the dormitory after her schoolmates complained she was keeping them awake.

It’s something that could be down to her genetic makeup. “I spent years listening to my parents snore,” she says.

But what else causes snoring? Normally the muscles in the throat are rm but when we sleep they relax. In some people, they relax so much that the structures they support collapse and partially block the airway. As air is inhaled and exhaled during sleep, these structures can vibrate, producing distinctive snoring sounds.

In today’s culture, snoring doesn’t seem feminine, and it can be embarrassing for women. For years, Frances’ husband pretended he was the one snoring when they stayed with friends, taking the flak for his wife.

Frances found her snoring so problematic that she stopped staying with friends. She also had minor surgery to remove the ap of soft tissue at the back of her throat, which failed to stop the problem. Last year, she launched a scientifically tested sleep pillow on International Sleep Day.