Mark Palmer, from the Daily Mail, shares how his wife says, sleeping beside him in bed is like 'sharing a bed with the elephant man'. It's no fun at all when your designated time for resting becomes an agonizing time of tossing, turning, and prodding your husband to stop the racket.

Scientists have recently revealed that snoring can be damaging for both partners, affecting their physical and mental health. The British Snoring & Sleep Apnea Association revealed an unbelievable 20 million Brits are sleep-deprived because of their partner's snores. Almost half of Americans report their partners snoring, according to the American Sleep Association. Similarly, a Sleep Cycle study, 52 percent of American women report waking up from their partner's snoring.

Loud, frequent snoring is one of the indicators of sleep apnea, a chronic condition portrayed by pauses in breathing or shallow breaths during sleep. When people with sleep apnea fall asleep, they can stop breathing for atleast 10 seconds, even up to a minute or more. It can be made worse by obesity, large tongue and tonsils, aging, and a person's head and neck shape.

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A Deeper Problem Behind the Loud Snoring

A study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore found that people enduring snoring could actually be damaging for their health, specifically their blood pressure. The findings of the study reveal that one in seven people create such a loud snore that they can cause their partner's blood pressure to shoot up.

The loudest snorers caused their partners to suffer the noise of up to 53 decibels. This is the level at which can trigger heart attacks, according to a study conducted by German scientists.

Palmer shared that after more than ten years, he and his wife, Joanna, finally got a decent night's sleep. He adds that he and his wife are now again sharing the same bed after he was given a continuous positive airway pressure device, more commonly known as a CPAP machine.

The machine works by blowing air through a mask through the nose and down the throat, opening the airway, and halting the snoring process.

CPAP Machine for Coronavirus Patients

Due to a shortage of mechanical ventilators, CPAP masks are currently being repurposed to deliver oxygen to Covid-19 patients in hospitals.

Yoel Hareven, the international director at Sheba Medical Center in Israel, said earlier this month that BiPAP and CPAP machines could be useful in the fight against COVID-19, he said. He adds that all it took to transform a bi-level device into a ventilator was some simple technical adjustments.

In times of mass casualties, such as the current pandemic or times of war, BiPAP and CPAP machines can be rapidly converted into ventilators, when there are not enough machines readily available, Hareven said as he claimed they were using the devices in their coronavirus unit.

However, some medical professionals are wary of the use of these devices as they claim that non-invasive CPAP and bi-level machines have the potential to spread COVID-19 if they are not properly converted into ventilators.