Millions of Americans and other people across the globe struggle with snoring every year. Even babies snore. Snoring negatively impacts the quality of sleep and life of the person snoring.
It is for these reasons that people are turning to new developments in scientific snoring research and medical technology to help them stop snoring for good.
Is it possible to find and fix the cause of your snoring?
The Dream Sipper: A Glass of Water can Fix Your Snoring (with a little help from science)
I have been snoring since I was a young adult, and my snoring persisted throughout my adult life. After reviewing so many products for my blog here on SnoringHQ, I was so excited to hear about an innovative product called the Dream Sipper.
I consider myself a bit of an expert on anti snoring devices. In my more than twenty years of annoying my wife with my snoring, I have tried thirty or more different solutions. While some of these methods have worked well for me and some have not, I’m always on the lookout for the latest and greatest device that will help me to stop snoring for good.
It turns out that almost all snoring devices that work help bring the tongue out of the throat. Mandibular devices change the position of the jaw which helps bring the tongue out of the throat. A tongue restraining device does the same thing. A CPAP also brings the tongue out of the throat.
Several scientific studies have shown that training the tongue to rest completely along the top of your mouth helps reduce snoring. The patent-pending Dream Sipper makes it easy to do this by having a tongue bulb and special soft palate activating straw to train your tongue to stay up. The creators of Dream Sipper claim this saves many hours of oral therapy and helps you to start reducing snoring within a week.
How the Dream Sipper Works
The Dream Sipper can be described most simply as a type of oral therapy device that has a tongue bulb and a sipping straw that you use during the day, not night. The Dream Sipper is made from a medical grade silicone and can be washed in your dishwasher. It is free from BPA and other harmful substances.
The mechanism by which the Dream Sipper works is twofold.
First, you place the bulb in the middle of your tongue and press it up. The resistance helps train your tongue to want to rest on the top of your mouth.
Secondly, from the bulb’s unique location inside of your mouth, you can suck from your soft palate instead of using your cheeks. Strengthening the soft palate cuts the snoring noise it makes, and it also helps hold up the base of your tongue to your palate. The base of your tongue is the big noise maker in snoring and is the most important part of your tongue to train to stop snoring.
Quick Test You Can Take Now To See If It Will Help YOUR Snoring
As you are reading this, where is your tongue inside of your mouth? Most likely your tongue isn’t touching near the back of your tongue where it is most important (say the sound ‘kah’ - that is where the back of your tongue touches your soft palate). The recent snoring studies prove that what you do during the day with your mouth carries over to your mouth behavior during sleep. So keeping the tongue up during the day translates to sleeping the tongue ‘snore-free’ position.
In short, the Dream Sipper falls into the category of devices that one might call a ‘tongue trainer.’ It strengthens the tongue and throat, and by doing so prevents it from collapsing into the airway during sleep time. According to the manufacturer, the Dream Sipper starts working to prevent snoring in as little as one week using the Dream Sipper and following their tips for improving how your mouth works.
Instructions for Using the Dream Sipper
There is good news for people who intend to use the Dream Sipper to prevent snoring: it is extremely user-friendly and simple to use.
Anyone who can drink water can use the Dream Sipper. To use the device, simply place the Dream Sipper into a full glass of water and sip or drink the entire glass through the upper mouthpiece by alternating tongue bulb presses and soft palate suctions of water.
For best results, the Dream Sipper can be used before a meal so you can improve how you swallow your food. Since we swallow at least once every minute, if you learn to swallow correctly with your tongue fully up, it’s bound to help stop snoring. The more you use the device, the quicker the muscles of your upper airway and tongue will develop and strengthen.
The instructions for the Dream Sipper do not say if it is appropriate for use with liquids other than water. For this reason, when I tried it, I used it with plain drinking water only.
My Experience with the Dream Sipper
When I ordered the Dream Sipper, it arrived at my doorstep within a week’s time. I was very excited to unbox it and try it out.
I found that with this device it took a decent amount of time to figure out how to swallow correctly. The makers say this is a good sign that I had bad tongue and swallowing habits that needed to be fixed. The most common swallowing problems are tongue down and sucking from the cheeks instead of the soft palate. These habits cause snoring because the tongue and soft palate are trained to stay in the wrong place and because they get weaker by not using them fully. The instructions come with methods to use the device daily for at least a few weeks.
Unfortunately, because the instructions are replacing oral therapy, it does take an investment to learn how to use it and how to swallow properly. The trick is to learn how to relax the cheeks - which sounds easier than it is and would be very hard to do without having the Dream Sipper to help.
Once I figured out the Dream Sipper exercise method, I understood better the methodology behind this. After a week of using the device and following the tips, I do find my tongue is wanting to rest more on the top of my mouth and it feels very natural (in fact, all babies are born with the tongue-up habit and trained with it by breastfeeding).
You will get results because your tongue rests along the top of your mouth during the day and that carries over into the night.
It’s a great idea to purchase the Dream Sipper even if you have a night time Oral Device for two reasons. First, the night Oral Device will give immediate results to stop the noise effect, but it does not improve the causes of your snoring. Second, because snorers use their tongues and soft palates incorrectly, the effect of an Oral Device will go down over time and require tighter adjustment unless you reverse the cause of your atrophying anti-snoring muscles.
It is important to remember this is only one of many snoring solutions. There continues to be innovation and inventors creating new snoring products. Try different anti-snoring products to find the one that is best optimized for you, your anatomy, and your sleep patterns.