Does Mouth Taping Improve Sleep and Health? 4 Reviews

By Dr. Geno Mayes, PT, DPT

In case you missed my first blog on Wim Hof breathing and cold therapy, click here to see how our little book club of three came together earlier this year.

After kicking things off by reading What Doesn’t Kills Us, our crew was ready to read about some other wellness trends and put them to the test.

Mouth Taping

In James Nestor’s book, Breath, the section on mouth taping and the benefits of nasal breathing peaked our interest. Who wouldn’t want to explore the possibility of better sleep and oral health with less snoring and dry mouth?

Mouth taping is what the name suggests…you simply tape your mouth closed at night. It sounds strange and it is!

Here’s what happened when we gave this health hack a try:

Isn’t it romantic…

👍Geno - Mouth Taping & Sleep Quality

We’ve been reading some pretty amazing things about what happens when you begin to breathe more consistently through the nose. The idea of keeping your mouth closed with tape is pretty weird and it looks even weirder...but the potential benefits can be well worth it. 

After starting to use mouth tape every night in May 2021, I’ve personally experienced better sleep overall. Before taping, I would go through periods of waking up multiple times in the night with difficulty falling back asleep, but this has greatly diminished.  

“Training” with the tape at night has also improved my awareness and ability to use nasal breathing more throughout the day. I’m very curious to see it’s benefits as we go into colder months where the air is drier and would normally cause issues when breathing more frequently through the mouth. One of the most amazing benefits has been experienced by my wife Meri who also wears the tape (the picture of romance at our house 😜). 

👍Meri - Mouth Taping and Reflux/Gerd

I thought mouth taping was another one of Geno’s crazy hair brained ideas, but I had been plagued for months with the worst reflux/GERD (welcome to the mid-40s) and was willing to try ANYTHING. I also suffer from allergies / sinus issues so I breath a lot through my mouth and thought it was worth a try. It took a few nights to get used to, but my reflux literally went away after several days of taping. I’ve now been using it every night for over 8 months, and I only have a heartburn/GERD episode once every few weeks instead of every day.

In the beginning I felt like my allergies were better after taping, but ultimately I would say they have stayed about the same. And I’ve never had sleep issues, so that was unaffected, but clearly I’m a big fan of mouth taping.

I prefer the X tape that fully closes your mouth, but Geno prefers the kind that goes around your lips so you can still open your mouth if needed. Both are easy to find on Amazon.

👍👎Carlos - Mouth Taping with Mixed Results

Mouth tape — love the idea! Love breathing through my nose as much as possible. The first few nights I wore it, I think it really did force me to breathe through my nose all night. I think it even stopped my snoring. After that, results have been mixed. Some mornings I wake up and my mouth feels fresh — which means the tape worked — but other nights, I can feel that it slipped and that I definitely did some mouth breathing overnight. I wear it sporadically now.

👍Brian - Mouth Taping and Turkish Gum

Nestor's book gave me a bunch of little hacks that I took with me and continue to use. Mouth taping is the biggest game changer. Everyone I know who’s tried it has said positive things about the results. My snoring is largely gone, and I’m definitely consistently sleeping with my mouth closed now that I wear tape every night...and so does my wife when she uses it. 

I’ve also noticed that I now sleep with my mouth closed when I take naps, and  I've started to incorporate nose breathing into my runs and workouts (with varying degrees of success). I was shocked to see how quickly your muscles crave oxygen when you run holding your lungs empty. 

In addition to mouth taping, Nestor suggests using turkish gum to workout your jaw to help make room for more breath and better dental health. We laughed about how horrible it is, but I actually don't mind it now. It does give your jaw a workout, and I chew a piece almost every day for about an hour--even more consistently now that I've been using some intermittent fasting in the hopes that it helps my sinus cavity grow a little. I'm not sure I'll ever know if that has happened though. While Nestor's book is probably the most interesting book with some very persuasive anecdotes, I have yet to start a daily breathing practice.

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