We don’t bury the lead here at MLM. We don’t do clickbait. We don’t do filler. What we do is tell you the truth, straight up, and in this case, the shortest version of this column can be told in three words:
Mouth taping works.
I doubted it. I thought it was goofy. I thought it looked dumb.
Then I tried it and… it works.
I kinda wish it didn’t because then I could write a snarky column dunking on all those dumb influencer ads on social media with people taking pictures of their mouths taped shut… But… Then I’d be lying.
Even comedian Sebastian Maniscalco recently went viral sharing how mouth taping stopped his snoring cold.
What Is Mouth Taping?
Mouth taping (the strategy of taping your mouth shut when you go to bed) helped with my snoring, with night wake-ups, with quality of sleep, with time to sleep, with dreaming… Just about everything.
Now, the question is “why?”…
Why does slapping your mouth shut at night like you’ve been kidnapped in a Liam Neeson movie solve so many sleep problems and how can it work for you?
Here’s the supposed medical reason:
By taping your mouth shut you are forced to breathe through your nose all night. When you breathe through your nose, all kinds of beneficial things happen, from the temperature of the air you breathe to the quality of the air you breathe to the humidity of the air you breathe all night.
With your mouth shut, your nostrils and nasal passage warms the air entering your lungs, ensuring that it is closer to an optimal temperature for your body to absorb. You are also putting your nose hairs to use all night as the natural air filter for which they were intended. And finally, by the time the air makes its way through your nasal passage, the humidity has increased while simultaneously keeping your mouth, tongue and throat comfortable and moist because your lips are closed.
Add up these three things and by taping your mouth shut, you’re letting your nose fulfill its purpose, like handing a basketball to Steph Curry and letting him shoot threes.
On the flip side, if you sleep with your mouth open, you’re subject to snoring, breathing in fits and starts, dry air, dry mouth, cool air, unfiltered air and more entering your lungs.
This can lead to intermittent sleep, low time in REM, uncomfortable throat breathing and lots of repositioning throughout the night.
As for me, I wasn’t so much as snoring as what my wife describes as loud “puffing” or “poofing”… When I’d fall asleep my lips would shut and then my cheeks would puff out and flutter and close again. I was like a damned cartoon, but I wasn’t snoring in the classic sense of sawing wood or throat roaring, but it was annoying and I’d often hear myself and I’d wake myself up.
It was this “poofing” that finally got me to try the mouth tape.
Now here’s where my experience can help you.
When you search on Amazon or wherever you buy stuff for mouth tape, you’re going to come across a whole bunch of options, many of which are small slivers of clear tape or little “Xs” of tape that close the middle of your mouth. They all look like your basic kid’s Scotch tape.
Warning: do not waste your time with those.
I don’t care what the reviews say, if you’re a dude, they will not keep your mouth shut. They’ll either fall off at night or you’ll “poof” them open or even just knock them off when your body naturally tries to yawn.
Or worse, you’ll just breathe out the sides of them from the corners of your mouth.
Totally useless.
The brand of mouth tape you’ve likely heard of through ads and podcasts is Hostage Tape and that’s the one I settled on. There are other versions not called Hostage Tape that look the same, but hey, sometimes advertising works so I went with the one that had some brand recognition.
Two things: I have no affiliation with them whatsoever and it was the only brand that worked for me. I tried 3 others first.
Hostage Tape is basically like KT tape and it’s the size of your mouth. You peel back the paper on one side, stretch it and it will cover your lips. Done. Stays on snug all night long. And it’s kinda permeable so you can breathe through it a little bit.
I thought my mouth would feel confined or that I’d want to yawn all the time or stretch my jaws but that wasn’t the case at all. Once it was on, it was comfortable and despite it being secure, it comes off easily in the morning, like pulling a Band-Aid.
I had a little lip dryness the first few days but it was a small price to pay to sleep straight through the night or in big, long 4 to 6 hour chunks while having deep dreams.
If you sleep fine now, good for you.
If you snore or wake yourself up from snoring or have a dry mouth and wake up thirsty or you’re constantly shifting your head on your pillow because you’re shallow breathing through your mouth, then try the tape.
Like I said, I fully planned to rip on mouth taping as another dumb fad, but the damn stuff works.
