Tongue exercises may ease sleep apnea

Doing certain tongue and facial exercises for 30 minutes daily may ease the severity of obstructive sleep apnea, a Brazilian study shows.

Three months later, the patients in the tongue/facial exercise group had reduced their obstructive sleep apnea severity by 39%. Those patients also reported that they were snoring less, sleeping better, and were less sleepy during the daytime than they had been before learning the exercises. And, although their BMI ( body mass index) hadn't changed, their neck circumference was thinner than it had been at the study's start.