How can I check my own snoring?
I recorded two of my own nights as they were. The night that felt hard had 4 loud minutes, and the night that felt good had 13. What I felt and what the record showed did not match.
I cannot check my own sound myself
Even when someone mentions my snoring, I cannot hear that sound with my own ears. My mood in the morning, or a vague sense of tiredness, does not tell me what actually happened during the night.
The only way I could think of to check was to just record the night itself, as it happened. Instead of judging by how I felt, I decided to look later at what the sound actually was. Not something for someone else to listen to, but a record kept for myself.
How snoring feels to each person is different, I think, but this is about my own record. I am not trying to compare my night to anyone else's. I just wanted to see, in my own record, how I had actually slept.
Rather than one night alone, I decided to line up two nights that felt different: one that felt hard and one that felt good, recorded the same way, and compare them. One night alone would not tell me whether it was just that particular night, or something more.
I have decided plenty of mornings that "today was hard" or "today I slept well," just going by how I felt. I had never thought about how that lined up with the actual sound.
Two nights, side by side
First, the night of August 27. My sleep was shallow, and I felt it was hard in the morning. But the record showed loud sound for only 4 minutes, peaking at 10:03. The sound had not continued as long as I felt it had.
Next, the night of August 28. This one felt like I had slept well in the morning. But the record showed loud sound for 13 minutes, peaking at 09:03, longer than the night before.
The night that felt hard turned out quieter, and the night that felt good turned out to have more loud minutes. What I felt and what was actually making noise were not the same.
For both nights, I decide the start and end myself with a tap. August 27 came to 6 hours and 25 minutes, August 28 to 9 hours and 0 minutes. That difference in length comes from how long I actually slept each night.
I could have added a short tag to either night afterward, but I added none to either. A tag does not change that night's numbers; it is only a clue for lining nights up later.
The night that felt hard did not take any more effort to record. I tap once before sleeping and once in the morning to end it. That number of taps is the same on both nights.
What surprised me was the direction: the night that felt hard, August 27, turned out quieter by the numbers. I had not expected the good-feeling night to come out with more loud sound; that reversal only showed up once I looked at the record.
Only by comparing the two did I notice something my own sense of a night could not tell me alone. Looking at either night by itself, I would not have thought this.
Recording and your record are free, always. The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept.
The method itself is in another article
How I actually record the night's sound is written up in another article. What I can say here is only this: I put one phone by my pillow, and that was all. No special equipment, nothing worn on the body.
What stays, and what does not
Where the sound goes is explained the same way every time, in one sentence: "The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept." For both nights, the whole night's sound was not kept as it was; only the loud minutes and the short stretch right after them stayed on the phone.
The loudest single moment can be played back in my own ears. The second loudest is kept too, in order, and I can listen to it. Every other, quiet minute of sound is never kept at all. Both August 27 and August 28 could be checked back the same way.
Recording and keeping the record are always free. The recording stays on this phone for 14 nights, and the oldest is cleared automatically; there is nothing to delete by hand.
Keeping this record has never cost anything extra. The night that felt hard and the night that felt good were kept in exactly the same way.
If there is a recording I want gone, I can delete it myself, one at a time. If I do nothing, the oldest ones just clear themselves, and there is nothing else I need to do.
What two nights still do not tell me
What I can say is that my own night of August 27 had 4 loud minutes, and August 28 had 13. Two nights are not enough to say which of them is the usual one.
I still do not know why what I felt and what the record showed did not match. It might be something from the day before, or it might just be how that particular night happened to go. Two nights are not enough to say which.
I do not want to read too much into just two nights of record. Even so, this made one thing clear: how a night feels is not always enough on its own. I plan to keep recording the same way for a few more nights and line them up.
With a few more nights lined up, some pattern in the hard-feeling nights or the good-feeling nights might start to show. Even so, I am not putting an answer to that ahead of the record I actually have.
Checking, the next morning, a night's sound that my own ears cannot hear while it happens: that is what these two nights showed me I can do.
For anything about treatment or making it stop, a doctor is the surest person to ask. All Nagi can do is record the night's sound so you can hear back, in the morning, how long it was loud and when it peaked. No verdicts, only the record.