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Last week, I added a new item to my already wide armoury of sleep aids. As well as my ear plugs and my eye mask, I was given the opportunity to wear an unobtrusive, dark grey stick-on gadget – the Zeus, which will hopefully stop me from snoring.
This non-invasive device was developed with experts at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London.
Incredibly, sticking this little gadget under the chin at night has been heralded as a miracle by snoring sufferers (and their partners).
I was devastated to recently learn – via my 17-year-old daughter, with whom I recently went on a mini break – that I have started to snore.
Historically, on girls’ weekends, I have always been the number one room (or even bed) choice. Not only do I sleep on my back, arms crossed like a vampire in a coffin and still, but I am entirely silent. ‘Like a dead person,’ has been the comment.
But in the last year, I’ve noticed that my always poor sleep has got worse. I sometimes jerk awake, as though in response to a loud noise, and I often wake up feeling tired.
So I installed an app on my phone called SnoreLab which tracks and records snoring. To my dismay, it appears that – along with around 40 per cent of the population – I snore.
Not horrendously, only for around an hour a night. But playing back the audio (thanks for recording me, SnoreLab) it sounds as though a small truffle pig is sharing my bed. Mortifying.
What if I’ve been snoring for years and everyone has just been too polite to mention it? I feel retrospectively self-conscious and concerned about future trips.
‘Snoring occurs when airflow is partially blocked in the nose or throat, causing the surrounding tissues to vibrate and produce sound,’ says sleep expert and author of A Sleep Divorce, Dr Neil Stanley. ‘The muscles of the throat, mouth and tongue relax at night and constrict breathing.’
He adds that you tend to snore during deepest sleep, which is usually around 20- 25 per cent of your night’s total.
Those who sleep on their backs, have obesity or drink alcohol are more likely to snore, and menopause and the ageing process can also increase the likelihood.
Snoring might also mean sleep apnoea, where breathing stops and starts, and can lead to serious health problems. We joke about snoring, but it can severely affect relationships. I have many friends who regularly vacate the marital bed when thundering chainsaw sounds from their husbands make sleep impossible. And a very dear girlfriend has always asked bemused hosts, ‘Is there a snoring room?’
It has been suggested that snoring is the second most common cause of divorce in the UK, and this doesn’t surprise me in the least.
‘There aren’t many effective options for snoring, and there’s limited compliance with, for example, CPAP [Continuous Positive Airway Pressure], machines that force air into the airways to keep them open,’ says Nigel Clarke, CEO of Zeus.
‘Doctors at Guy’s and St Thomas’s had a theory about how to treat snoring based around the CPAP masks, but with something far less obtrusive, and my father – who is something of a mad inventor – met with them to develop the idea.’
The key is keeping those airways open.
The Zeus – and I’m glossing over 15 years of research and development here – is basically a mini TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machine. Anyone who has given birth may remember this as being a pain relief option. TENS uses little electrical impulses, delivered via sticky pads. Used to block pain signals in a delivery suite, in Zeus it delicately stimulates the hypoglossal nerve which controls the tongue. This stops it falling backwards and stopping the airway from closing during sleep.
It is incredibly easy to use. I place the device – which looks like a small flat toy spaceship measuring just a few centimetres across – on the accompanying charging pad till a light at the front turns continuously blue. A hydrogel pad attaches to the Zeus itself in order to stick it under the chin, and pressing two little buttons at the side of the gadget turns it on.
You can select from ten programmes, with ‘one’ being the least powerful. It sits dormant for 20 minutes so you can settle yourself down and fall asleep, and then it starts to buzz gently and rhythmically.
It’s suggested that it might take a few nights to work, as you have to adjust to wearing it.
I duly stick it on and lie down in my customary position. After the requisite 20 minutes I feel a gentle tingling and fizzing under my chin. It pulses for six seconds on and four seconds off throughout the night.
To my astonishment – and I mean this, as I am such a light sleeper that I wake if a leaf falls from a tree – I drift off swiftly. I don’t wake till six hours later, which is a record amount of unbroken sleep.
SnoreApp shows I have snored quietly for one minute rather than one hour. I drop off for another hour and wake up feeling the most refreshed in months. I use it for four nights, and have the same result.
Obviously, I am not a dramatic case. But those who find their life severely impacted report good results. Aline Jones, 51, works in tech and has been using Zeus for a couple of months.
‘My husband has been complaining about my snoring for years, and nothing has helped,’ she says. ‘Zeus almost immediately reduced the volume as well as how much time I was snoring every night. I feel more refreshed and my husband has stopped complaining as he is now able to get enough sleep.’
Zeus has excellent clinical data in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea. It has been validated in three independent and robust clinical trials in collaboration with NHS trusts. At the moment, it’s undergoing approvals with a view to being rolled out with the NHS.
There are huge bonuses. It’s drug-free, it’s unobtrusive and although it’s not cheap (£250, zeussleeps.com, plus you have to pay for sticker refills at around £1 a time), I’d pay anything to sleep well.
‘It’s a credible idea for those with a specific type of snoring and has some good trials,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘If you have sleep apnoea you should always see a GP, and use your common sense regarding a healthy lifestyle,’ he adds.
I look like a complete prat, especially with all my other sleep paraphernalia, and it might be a bit of a passion-killer. Better than snoring though. And I’ll do anything that helps me to get a good night’s sleep.
As a bonus, anyone breaking into my house at night would be confronted with such a frightful sight they’d scarper.