Don’t try this at home
Ignore social media: mouth taping should be a last resort for a better, quieter night.
It’s all over TikTok: people applying small pieces of surgical tape to their lips – literally taping their mouths closed – before going to sleep. The theory is that this will force breathing through the nose, and encourage a deeper, more restful (and less snory) sleep.
The social media mouth tapers claim all manner of benefits, from clearer skin to improved facial contours. But breathing experts say there’s no evidence for these claims.
What little research has been done on mouth taping has been in people with mild obstructive sleep apnoea and has shown some improvement in snoring.
Though the benefits of nasal breathing are well established, mouth taping is not something breathing experts here recommend as a first fix for sleep.
Breathing expert Tania Clifton-Smith says she’d always take a step back and ask why someone isn’t able to breathe through their nose at night. There can be many reasons, some of which are serious.
“Is it because the nose is occluded or you’ve got inflamed tissue? It pays to check this out with your health professional,” she says.
Physiotherapist Scott Peirce agrees. “Not everyone is just a habitual mouth breather and all they need to do is shut their mouth and then it gets better. There is a group of people who literally have tonsil overgrowth and adenoid growth where they can’t actually use their nose. So, if you tape their mouth, you’re just traumatising them. They’ll basically wake up in a panic, feeling like they’re suffocating. And there will be a real reason for that.”
Both Peirce and Clifton-Smith will use mouth taping with patients in some circumstances. But, they say, it’s a last resort.
“I do use it,” says Peirce. “But it’s after you’ve done all the muscle strengthening, after you’ve built co-ordination and after you’ve been assessed by an ENT [ear, nose and throat] surgeon. It’s the absolute last thing I’d try. Caution is warranted.”
Those looking for better breathing at night could try nasal rinsing or a nasal strip to open up the nasal passages before they pick up a roll of tape. grow and even affecting swallowing power.
Peirce sees patients who are chronic mouth breathers, often a habit that’s developed in early childhood. “It’s a big problem”, he says.
Babies can suffer stuffy and blocked noses from respiratory infections and sinus issues. “That can build this pattern – a kind of vicious circle where they get stuck mouth breathing. They lose the filtration effect that the nose has on airflow and then they pick up more infections, which gets them more stuffed up.”
MOUTH BREATHERS
Kids who are chronic mouth breathers can develop changes in mouth shape because the teeth and palate don’t grow wide enough, and they can end up needing lots of dental work. It’s another vicious circle: “If their nose and palate isn’t wide enough, they
“Breathing cadence is so important, so you’re not perpetually putting yourself into a state of exhaustion.”
can’t breathe through their nose; if they can’t breathe through their nose, they can’t widen their palate enough,” says Peirce.
“Then you can end up with the adult version, leading into sleep issues, dysfunctional breathing or sleep apnoea.”
There are also some people who habitually mouth breathe without structural reasons.
Dealing with chronic mouth breathing – assuming it’s not an issue requiring surgery – involves retraining the patient to become comfortable breathing through the nose. Peirce describes a type of nasal rehabilitation. “I’ll say, ‘I want you to try to do short periods of breathing through your nose. Then I want you to try to work on humming and nasal vocalisation – creating sounds out of your nose. Then I want you to try to chew with your mouth shut.’ And we’ll do other mouth and nose breathing drills to try to change that habit.”
People with sleep apnoea can do quite well by working to improve their facial tone, says Peirce, making the muscles of the mouth and the face stronger. “It keeps your lips together more effectively when you sleep, which helps to keep your nasal airway operating longer.”
COMPUTER NECK
How we sit and stand can have a profound effect on how efficiently we breathe. Sitting at a desk all day, moving rarely, hunching and slumping – none of it makes for optimal breathing, and it can lead to other problems. Caving in the chest and thrusting the head forward while sitting – often called computer neck – is a position Clifton-Smith calls “a disaster in the making”. A caved-in posture means our centre of gravity is displaced to the upper chest, meaning we stop breathing into the diaphragm. We can also get into tense, rigid and restricted postures that do the same thing.
Many of us have developed the habit of holding our breath while working at computers, something Clifton-Smith terms “screen apnoea”.
“When you get too involved working on a screen, you breath-hold. Over time, this can play havoc with your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels; it drops your oxygen in a way that’s equivalent to sleep apnoea.”
It also causes tension in the muscles, leading to longer-term pain and stiffness.
She offers posture and tension-relieving breathing exercises in her book. And she recommends regularly taking breaks to move and breathe.
“Awareness is the thing. You want to be not too rigid and not too flexed. Stretch, put your arms above your head, take a breather, let the air out, be aware, be conscious of having a couple of really efficient, effective breaths. Every hour – or ideally, every 20 minutes – just stop, move, get everything working. Be aware of a nice loose alignment and then just breathe within that alignment.”
HOLDING IT IN
Some of us have trained ourselves to habitually hold our stomachs in, or we wear clothing that physically holds us tight. Both of these can lead to poor breathing, again by restricting the diaphragm.
“Look at women with corsets; the only thing they could do was stand there,” Clifton-Smith says. “And then they’d faint because they had no oxygen going to the brain – they literally were quite brain dead.
“We’ve got to take a lesson from that. Don’t wear anything tight around the waist.”
She also warns against the “fab ab syndrome” – holding in the stomach to conform to an Instagram-perfect silhouette.
“If you’re holding your tummy in, let it go. Even sitting, let it go. Because you need nasal abdominal breathing to have that nice pumping diaphragm.”
Clifton-Smith’s motto is, “If in doubt, breathe out.”
Beck agrees. He starts his breathing training with awareness of the pelvic floor, the muscle at the bottom of the pelvis where, he says, a lot of us hold too much tension.
“Breathing has a natural reciprocation. The diaphragm and the pelvic floor are working together: as the diaphragm contracts to allow those lungs to fill, the pelvic floor relaxes; as the diaphragm relaxes, the pelvic floor naturally compresses, contracts and holds tone.”
GET WITH THE RHYTHM
Whether we’re weekend warriors or daily walkers, developing good breathing habits when exercising can help us get the best from our activity. Clifton-Smith says developing effective, efficient breathing patterns whether at rest or moving can have a big impact.
“You can have an elite athlete who’s not quite performing to their best because they’ve got an inefficient pattern for the sport they’re doing. But if you just tweak a few things, it can make the difference between really purring and being a little bit clunky.”
Working on breathing cadence – matching the breath to the movement – is beneficial.
“Try to get a rhythm”, she advises. “We know that elite athletes have a natural breathing-movement cadence. And some of us are quite clunky and we don’t.
“I have a lot of people say they get so breathless going up stairs. And we find out that they’ve held their breath from the bottom to the top of the stairs. Of course
Thrusting the head forward while sitting – often called computer neck – is “a disaster in the making”.
they’re breathless. So, try breathing four steps in, four out. Try and get into a rhythm of breathing to your movement.
“That cadence is so important, so you’re not perpetually putting yourself into a state of physiological exhaustion.”
YOGA WITH CAUTION
Peirce and Clifton-Smith both love yoga and other practices that involve controlling breathing. But there are some caveats. Peirce says there’s no evidence yoga helps with developing diaphragm strength. And Clifton-Smith recommends learning to breathe well and efficiently before diving into yoga.
“Yoga encourages big breathing, and it’s an exercise,” she says. “If you’re a big breather at rest, it’s just going to make you feel yucky.
“Get the breathing right first, then go and do yoga, then go and do Pilates, so that you can come back to what your baseline effective, efficient breathing pattern is. Yoga and Pilates are exercise; they’re not what you should be doing all the time.” ▮
How to Take a Breath, by Tania CliftonSmith (Random House, $35)