Oropharyngeal refers to an area of the throat to the back of the mouth, comprising of the uvula, tonsils, soft tissues, and back of the tongue. Doing an oropharyngeal exercise can help to alleviate disordered breathing conditions during sleep such as snoring and apnea. Such exercises will strengthen the throat muscles and can avoid it from collapsing while you sleep.

The purpose of an oropharyngeal exercise is to improve the muscle tone associated with the opening of the upper airway, which comprises of the jaw, throat muscles, and tongue palates. If the root cause of your snoring and other breathing issues during sleep is a receding tongue, the exercise meant to strengthen the tongue and its nearby muscles would help greatly in alleviating the condition.

In case you breathe through an open mouth during sleep and snoring occurs due to that, it is worth considering using oral appliances such as a sleep apnea mouthpiece that trains you to sleep with the mouth closed. The prime intention of such snoring remedies is to open the airway for a free flow of air during sleep and cure the health issue without any side effects. The same goes true for oropharyngeal exercises that are meant to reduce apnea episodes during sleep.

Some of such throat and mouth exercises even have the backing of clinical studies just as it is with a proven anti snoring mouthpiece or any other snoring remedy that works on improving the structure of the airway. It is believed that an instrument such as the didgeridoo was used to improve the same in the past, and oropharyngeal exercises were invented as an advanced form of speech therapy that could cure mild to moderate sleep apnea.

Such exercises for breathing disorders during sleep can as easy as putting the tongue’s tip on the surface of the mouth and sliding it backward or opening the mouth to its full and ensuring that your lips meet while closing the mouth. To get the desired results of an oropharyngeal exercise, a snorer should practice the same several times throughout a day or at least for a total of half an hour in intervals of 3 minutes or so. Even singing the vowel sounds with an open throat is a form of such exercises.