Products are independently selected by our editors. We may earn an affiliate commission from links.
If you asked my partner if he snores, he would proclaim with full sincerity, “No! Never.” But if you asked me, I wouldn’t describe it as simply “snoring”—he’s sawing timber logs, making bolded ZZZs, catching horse flies. He snores with a bold, capitalized “S.” And after almost three years, I (and my horrible sleep score) couldn’t take it anymore.
“Snoring is caused by a change or reduction of the airflow in the nose or throat,” says Dr. Andrew Namen, a sleep medicine physician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “It can occur when your sinuses are swollen from allergies or congestion, your tongue falls back, or your jaws falls when you sleep.” He also—diplomatically—notes that snoring can create “a difficult environment for a bed partner,” as well as “wake you from your sleep or keep you from maintaining deep sleep, which has been associated with elevated blood pressure.”
While it’s estimated that up to 50% of Americans snore nightly, that didn’t make me feel any better—this was bad company to be in. Bad, tired, and grumpy company, to be exact.
First, I tried kicking. As in, kicking my partner every time the snoring started. I’ll admit, it was a short-term solution: He’d jolt awake and stop snoring for a moment or two, but once he settled back into a deep sleep, there he’d go again. Then I tried mouth tape at the recommendation of my coworker Arden Fanning Andrews—and as sexy as the practice of taping your lips shut in your sleep sounds, my partner gave it an instant no. If I was going to get the snoring to stop, I needed something convincing, something good. That’s when I found Eight Sleep.
Though it may be all about sleep, the Eight Sleep is actually everything but your mattress: A cover, a smart hub, and a base. When it arrived in a series of ginormous, impossible-to-lift boxes, my partner was out of town for work (of course!), and so I had to hire someone to help me drag the boxes into my apartment and set it all up. Like a scene from Frankenstein (or really, Young Frankenstein) we strapped in my mattress, plugged in the wires, and clothed my Casper in its new sensor-filled black ensemble. When it was all over, my chest heaved. Aliveeee! I thought it connected to the WiFi—but it was 11:30 p.m. (well past my bedtime), so it was farewell to my professional box-shifter and right to sleep. No changes in sleep noticed.
The first point of difference was when I was shaken awake the next morning. It was a jolting experience for somebody who knew they were home alone—but that was just my new morning alarm, which physically vibrates the mattress. When my partner returned home later that week, though, it was time to put the gadget to the test.
He took in the most obvious differences first. Now, the mattress was taller—that’s because of the base, which can manipulate your mattress into different positions from subtle corner lifts to full-on folds that are nice for reading in bed. And then we had the cooling and heating options through an app on our phones to play with. “Weird,” the man-of-few-words-but-many-snores muttered before hopping into bed.
The next morning, the app feedback proved that we were onto something. On the nights I had been sleeping alone, the mattress had detected less than 3 minutes of snoring per night. But that last night’s feedback? Somebody had spent an hour and 49 minutes snoring—however, I hadn’t heard a thing. The app served up why exactly that was in a bright blue box: “Last night, Autopilot made adjustments to boost your sleep by 45%.”
“Obviously, you started snoring last night,” my partner said.
“If your tongue, jaw, or other structures create snoring, then repositioning these structures [may result in] less obstructing airflow and less snoring,” says Dr. Namen. When the Eight Sleep detects snoring through detecting vibrations via the sensors in the cover, it manipulates the mattress to shift the snoring sleeper into another position so subtly that they aren’t disturbed from their slumber. More importantly, it stops the snoring.
These days, I only remember I’m in a relationship with a snorer whenever we stay at a hotel. That’s when luddite mattresses do me dirty and the nocturnal noises (and tactics return) of our pre-Eight Sleep life return. Other than that, it’s only been sweet dreams.
.jpg)
