Congratulations, you finished high school, you made it past the SAT's and now you're stuck with a loud snoring roommate at college. Don't despair – many people don't even know they snore until they start sharing a room with someone. It may very well be the case that your roommate does not even know its happening. So aside from formally addressing your roommate in a non confrontational way you need to get some solutions for both of you.

Snoring is typically a sign of a serious medical issue – aside from your own frustrations you are really bringing an important issue up with your roommate that could even help prolong their life.

Snoring occurs a few different ways – but typically it can be attributed to a partially blocked air passage – sometimes related to a deviated septum and even including someone's tongue literally sliding too far back in their throat.

Aside from the medical issues that the snoring roommate has this can also affect your life. The obvious thing it can do is keep you up late at night or even wake you midway through sleeping. This will impact your health and your grades – so this is a serious issue. Research has also shown that the sleeping partners of those who snore can have hearing issues if close enough in proximity. Depending on how your door room is laid out you may be across from their bed or you may be above or below them in a loft bed.

There are several steps you can take to reduce dorm roommate snoring and sleeping issues including:

·         Breathe Right Strips

·         A Specialty Pillow

·         Ear Plugs

·         Medical Solutions

Breathe Right Nasal Strips

So the easiest thing to try out is to have your roommate try a nasal strip like the brandBreathe Right– which are these adhesive strips that lay across your nose and force the sides up causing a larger passageway for breathing. Usually this solves about 25% of snoring issues you may come across and for less than $10 a box per month – it's a cheap solution. Most stores have their own knock off versions but theBreathe Rightstrip brand is much better than those typically found at drug or grocery stores.

Specialty Pillows

In some snorers cases their head is not elevated enough and their tongue may be sliding back towards their throat thus causing air blockage and hence snoring. The options range from angled wedge pillows to pillows with weird cutout shapes. A simple starting point is to have them sleep in bed with extra pillows thus causing their head to be more elevated than normal. This may not work because during the night they might unconsciously reach up and move a pillow to obtain their typical sleeping position (But it's free and worth a shot). If extra bed pillows don't solve the snoring, a specialty wedge pillow is a great solution. The special shape usually has a 30 degree angle and made with foam or memory foam and will force them to sleep upright (unless they slide their body off the pillow at night and defeat the purpose). There are dozens of weird shapes and sizes for these non snoring pillow solutions. In most cases they try to force you to sleep at an angle or to sleep on your side. These pillow tricks may address another 25% of those typical snoring issues.

Ear Plugs

Even if one of the two options above fixes some snoring at night you may still have to deal with an occasional bout – so grab some good earplugs (A good pair may run $20-$30 and has the added advantage for ear protection for concerts and noisy neighbors). Just be careful as the earplugs may block important residence hall warning bells and alarms.

Medical Solutions

This is a big step and this assumes the above solutions have been tried and failed. Snoring is serious and is correlated with high blood pressure, heart issues, being overweight and a number of medical issues.

The options run the gamut and some who suffer from snoring may even have to wear a special forced air mask to help them sleep without snoring (CPAP Mask). While it may be scary sounding, snoring in the long term is serious and it's better to have to wear a weird mask each night then to spend the rest of their life with medical issues and eventual death. In addition, the amount of personal relationships stress whether its with a roommate or a bed partner is enough to warrant a medical diagnostic test usually at a special sleeping facility (Where many times they prescribe the CPAP Machines as well as other solutions).