For many years, I adopted a clear and unwavering strategy on snoring: blanket denial. My husband would wake, make a face and accuse me of spending the night doing a highly creditable impression of a foghorn. I would adopt an outraged expression and tell him he was imagining it or maybe even – if things escalated from there – GASLIGHTING me. Because I wasn’t a snorer. Not in my own mind. I’m simply not that sort of person.

For a start, I’m a woman. Most snorers are men. Forty per cent of the smellier sex snore. But, it turns out, the rest of us aren’t exempt. A recent Australian study suggested that cases of sleep apnoea (that’s snoring that actually results in your breathing stopping and starting, reducing your blood oxygen levels and thus increasing your risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and more) are likely to double in 75 years as a direct consequence of global warming.

The British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association already estimates there are around 15 million snorers in the UK and it becomes more common as we age. I couldn’t exactly deny that was happening to me. Plus, can you keep a secret? Occasionally, a particularly operatic snore would actually wake me up myself. So, ultimately, I couldn’t deny it. In the end, I had to come clean. My name was Hattie and I was a snorer.

Finding a solution to my snoring problem

The problem was what to do about it? The internet is awash with gizmos and gadgets promising instant relief for you and the people sleeping in proximity to you. Whatever TikTok says, however, experts do not recommend mouth taping. I tried a mouthguard (uncomfortable, ineffectual) and nasal strips (not much better).

After which, dear reader, I gave up. I resolved to embrace my identity as a snorer (admittedly, a harder task for my husband). And then, two months ago, I stopped – unintentionally and accidentally. This is not the sort of timeframe that scientists would call conclusive. My snoring could, I’m aware, resurface. But for the moment, oh, the bliss of uninterrupted sleep (and unresentful sleeping partners). So, here’s what changed and why it might have worked.

Banishing the booze

I’m sorry, I know you may not want to hear this, but I can’t hide it from you. The clearest change in my habits and lifestyle was… I stopped drinking. First, I cut it back – weekend tipples only. Then, I cut it out altogether. Not for good, you understand, but for the moment. The timing overlaps uncannily with the cessation of my snoring. So, could that be at the root of it?

‘From more trips to the bathroom from alcohol’s diuretic effects to the overall impact it has on our sleep quality, booze isn’t conducive to a restful night’s kip and snoring is very common after drinking,’ says Dr Richard Piper, CEO at Alcohol Change UK. ‘The reason behind this is that alcohol is a muscle relaxant. When we have a few drinks, the muscles and tissue in our throat, mouth and airways relax, causing the space in which air passes through to narrow and vibrate more with every breath we take. Hence louder snoring!’

So, what does he suggest? ‘If we’re keen to prevent or reduce alcohol-related snoring, stopping drinking earlier in the day – at least a few hours before we plan to hit the pillow – and drinking less alcohol when we do drink can both help,’ says Richard. ‘Simply put, the more muscle relaxant we consume, the more our muscles relax – so swapping out alcoholic drinks for alcohol-free alternatives, soft drinks or water can reduce the amount we snore after drinking.’

Losing weight

When I cut down on drinking and started to exercise more (have you joined our Fit (Enough) Club yet?), I also lost weight. Not in a wild or dramatic way, but a noticeable amount. Could this have contributed, too? I asked Saira Hameed, consultant endocrinologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the country’s leading experts in weight loss and author of The Full Diet, whether carrying too much weight can cause snoring.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ she says. ‘The mechanism is that the excess weight around the neck compresses the windpipe when we lie down and snoring definitely improves in many (not all) with weight loss – a good screening question for risk of snoring/sleep apnoea is to ask a male patient their collar size.’

In fact, one study suggests that losing weight, especially a reduction of 3kg, can reduce the number of snores you emit every hour from 320 to 176. Impressive.

Side sleeping

The third and final factor that may have influenced my newly silent nights is – at least – more pampering. A friend bought me a silky pillowcase. You’re meant to rest your face against it and then wake like Sleeping Beauty, with a serene brow and smooth hair.

Somehow, this is not what happened to me. Instead, I found myself curling round it like a comforter. The pillow did not erase my wrinkles, but it did turn me from a lifelong back sleeper into a side sleeper. And this, it turns out, can have a real impact on your snoring. So much so, in fact, that the NHS (rather incredibly) recommends that snorers do the following: ‘Try taping or stitching a tennis ball to the back of your sleepwear.’ Far be it from me to contradict the experts, but I’m pretty sure my silky pillow case is comfier.