Why I Tape My Mouth Shut At Night: Mouth Taping Benefits, Best Tape to Use, and Does It Work?

For a few years now, I have been hearing about the importance of nose breathing and people subsequently taping their mouth shut to sleep in order to force their body to do so. I wasn’t really quite sure how much merit there was behind it– is mouth taping at night some kind of weird health fad? It wasn’t until I heard this podcast episode from Huberman Lab about the importance of correctly breathing and breathing through your nose which he mentions mouth taping that I finally decided to get onboard.

My grandma actually used to tape her mouth shut with scotch tape like 10-15 years ago. Was she on to something?

About 4 years ago, my husband complained that I was snoring a bit (although when he described it, it really more-so sounded like I was breathing through my mouth noisily– but not truly snoring lol). I went and visited my ENT doctor who determined that I had some slightly swelling in my nasal passages that was making it difficult to breathe through my nose. He prescribed me some steroid nasal spray which helped. However, because I think I have always been more inclined to breathe through my mouth, it didn’t get me to start breathing through my nose at night. I noticed I started getting cavities, waking up with a super dry mouth, and waking up feeling groggy.

Since I started taping my mouth to sleep at night, I have stopped snoring and now breathe through my nose properly at night. I’ve noticed I sleep better at night, no longer wake up with dry mouth, and its easier to breathe through my nose during the day.

Potential benefits of mouth taping at night:

• strengthen/define jawline
• stronger chin profile
• brighter eyes (from better sleep)
• wake up with more energy
• can reduce bad breath (from lessening dry mouth in the morning)
• Reduce snoring (other study to confirm here)

As far as the jawline claim goes, I am a little bit more skeptical. I think if you are able to prevent primarily mouth breathing while the jaw is still forming, maybe it will have an effect (google photos of mouth breathers vs nose breathers). However, I do have trouble believing it makes a difference in adults where the jaw is developed already. But jury is still out; I’ll see if I notice a difference with my jawline the longer I mouth-tape!

I’ve been using this soft silicone tape. It is 5 yards of tape for under $10 so it should last you quite a while for relatively inexpensive! While completely unrelated to the other benefits of mouth taping, I feel like this tape helps lock in the products I put on my lips at night which helps keep them moisturized, avoid chapping, and helps make my lips more full and plump!

If you want to really elevate your mouth taping game, this mouth tape from The Skinny Confidential is more expensive but actually has a small hole so you could sip water if you needed to in the night without having to remove the tape!

Is Taping Your Mouth Shut at Night Dangerous?

This is one of the first things I thought when I heard of mouth taping for sleep. What if I can’t breathe? Will I die? And one of the first nights I used mouth tape, I got super anxious before falling asleep with those exact thoughts going through my head.

In this post from OSF Healthcare, “You’re supposed to breathe in and out through your nose, but mouth taping is not safe at all,” said Kaninika Verma, MD, clinical sleep director at OSF HealthCare. “This is nothing a physician would ever recommend to a patient.”

HOWEVER

I think that the patient population that Verma is referring to here is people with obstructive sleep apnea, nasal polyps, a severely deviated septum, etc. For these people, it really could make it difficult to breath through the nose and mouth taping could be dangerous.

In this 2022 study, it concluded that mouth-taping during sleep improved snoring and the severity of sleep apnea in mouth-breathers with mild OSA, with AHI and SI being reduced by about half. The higher the level of baseline AHI and SI, the greater the improvement was shown after mouth-taping. Mouth-taping could be an alternative treatment in patients with mild OSA before turning to CPAP therapy or surgical intervention.

This is really exciting because epidemiologic studies show that people with sleep apnea are at increased risk for stroke, heart attack, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes mellitus. OSA is also responsible for serious illnesses such as congestive heart failure, arrhythmias, and bronchial asthma.

@whyieatplants Replying to @Daphne | Life in Austria once you see it you can’t unsee it 🫢 thats why i swear by this mouth tape #nosebreathing #mouthbreathing #nighteoutine #whyieatplants ♬ original sound – Alexis Hawes | Holistic Health

I actually started getting my mom, who was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea and who takes medicine for hypertension (high blood pressure), to start taping her mouth at night. Her doctor didn’t advocate super hard for CPAP for her because her sleep apnea was very mild, so mouth taping seemed to be ok for her. Sleep apnea can actually contribute to worsening hypertension, so I felt like her doing something for the apnea could potentially benefit her blood pressure, and hence help prevent further health problems. Since she starting mouth taping, she has told me how much better she is sleeping, feeling so much more rested, AND her blood pressure has improved! Obviously this is all anecdotal, but it lines up with the research.

The Bottom Line About Mouth Taping

If you snore and/or mouth breathe (especially if because you have difficulty breathing through your nose), talk to your doctor. You may have sleep apnea or another issue which can be diagnosed through a sleep study. If your doctor determines that you snore for no pathological reason, you can talk to them about mouth taping and see if it works for you!

You can alternatively focus on breathing through your nose throughout the day. Especially when you do lighter exercise (one in which you could comfortably hold a conversation), if you instead focus on breathing through your nose, eventually you can, essentially, retrain your body to nasal breathe which can carryover into nighttime sleep. I started off focusing on nasal breathing when I cycle on my stationary bike and started noticing a difference in that I was nasal breathing throughout the day more often even when not consciously reminding myself to do so.

If you are sick with a stuffy nose, been drinking/using drugs, nauseated, or anything that gives you pause about using mouth tape on certain nights, skip it! And like I said, make sure you talk to your doctor to figure out the reason behind your snoring and run mouth taping by your doctor before you try it!

References

Faley, K. (2022, October 24). Is it safe to use mouth tape for sleeping?. OSF HealthCare Blog. https://www.osfhealthcare.org/blog/is-it-safe-to-use-mouth-tape-for-sleeping/

Huang, T. W., & Young, T. H. (2015). Novel porous oral patches for patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea and mouth breathing: a pilot study. Otolaryngology–head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 152(2), 369–373. https://doi.org/10.1177/0194599814559383 Format:

Lee, Y. C., Lu, C. T., Cheng, W. N., & Li, H. Y. (2022). The Impact of Mouth-Taping in Mouth-Breathers with Mild Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Preliminary Study. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 10(9), 1755. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10091755

Mitra, A. K., Bhuiyan, A. R., & Jones, E. A. (2021). Association and Risk Factors for Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Cardiovascular Diseases: A Systematic Review. Diseases (Basel, Switzerland), 9(4), 88. https://doi.org/10.3390/diseases9040088

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): Symptoms & treatment. Cleveland Clinic. (2022). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24443-obstructive-sleep-apnea-osa

You should consult with your doctor if you are having any health issues such as snoring, difficulty breathing through your nose, or difficulty breathing at night. You should also, therefore, consult with your doctor before trying mouth taping. This post contains affiliate links, please see policy page for more information.