Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Apr 30, 2021
Date Accepted: Feb 19, 2022
Sleeping in an Inclined Position to Reduce Snoring and Improve Sleep: An In-home Study Analyzing Over 1,000 Nights of Data from Commercially Available Trackers
ABSTRACT
Background:
Accurately and unobtrusively testing effects of snoring and sleep interventions at home has become possible with recent advances in digital measurement technologies.
Objective:
This study examined the effectiveness of using an adjustable bed base to sleep with the upper body in an inclined position to reduce snoring and improve sleep, measured at home using commercially available trackers.
Methods:
Self-reported snorers (N=25) monitored their snoring and sleep nightly, and completed questionnaires daily, for 8 weeks. They slept flat for the first 4 weeks and then used an adjustable bed base to sleep with the upper body at a 12-degree incline for the next 4 weeks.
Results:
Over 1,000 nights of data were analyzed. Objective snoring data showed a 7% relative reduction in snoring duration (P=.001) in the inclined position. Objective sleep data showed 4% fewer awakenings (P=.038) and a 5% increase in proportion of deep sleep (P=.023) in the inclined position. Consonant with these objective findings, snoring and sleep measured by self-report improved.
Conclusions:
New measurement technologies allow intervention studies to be conducted in the comfort of research participants’ own bedrooms. This study showed that sleeping at an incline has potential as a non-obtrusive means of reducing snoring and improving sleep in a non-clinical snoring population.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.