realiTEE

Hello and welcome back to realiTEE the blog for real busy people.
Ok, I know what you’re thinking: where the hell have I been? I’m sorry for ghosting the blog for a while, but life has been WILD.
Don’t worry, though; I’m back, and there’s plenty of stuff coming your way.
To kick this blog back off, I thought I’d share my recent experience of trying mouth-taping.

What the hell is mouth taping?
Mouth taping is pretty much how it sounds: you cover your mouth with tape. It’s something I’ve been hearing about all year, I even read the book ‘shut your mouth and save your life’ and although I’ve been tempted to try it first-hand, it sounds pretty scary. Back on the yoga retreat in May, I was talking to one woman who told me she would literally tape her mouth shut at night; this did not sound like a vibe; however, there are special tapes made for mouth taping so you can leave the packing tap in the draw.

Now, before you start thinking you’re going to suffocate in your sleep, it’s nothing like that; it does, however, encourage you to breathe more through your nose and less through your mouth, which can positively affect your health.

Apparently, breathing through the nose is optimal for the human body, but so many of us are mouth breathers (myself included). Mouth breathing is being linked to more and more health concerns, such as asthma, yellow teeth, and sore throats (This is the selling point for me as not a year goes by when I don’t get a sore throat at some point). Whereas the benefits of nasal breathing have been shown to reduce colds, increase blood flow and improve lung functioning (which, as a runner, is a huge plus).

When we’re awake, we can make the conscious effort to breathe through our noses more, but when we sleep, not so much. If you’ve seen people talking about mouth taping, you may have seen a new trend of mouth taping while training, like women’s tennis player Iga Swiatek from Poland, but the thought of taping my mouth shut has me feeling apprehensive at best as even when I’ve nasal breathing walking I struggle to keep it up more than a few minutes as the limited oxygen feels well suffocating so I decided to try this trend overnight as there are specific benefits to mouth taping at night.

BENEFITS OF MOUTH TAPING AT NIGHT
♡ IMPROVED SLEEP:

Although I don’t have any sleep disorders or asthma if you’ve read my early posts, you’ll know I’ve struggled with sleep, my energy levels throughout the day and quality sleep. Although the studies are primarily around how mouth taping impacts asthma and sleep disorders, breathing through your nose can help you establish a breathing pattern, which is linked to falling asleep faster, deeper, and staying asleep longer, all of which help you wake up feeling fresh. It’s worth trying just for that.

♡ IMPROVED IMMUNITY:
Remember in biology class when we learned how the body protects itself against bacteria? Remember being told that’s exactly what the little hairs in your nose do? Well, breathing through your nose means that bacteria and viruses have a harder time getting into your system compared to breathing through your mouth.

♡ REDUCED SNORING:
So I use the sleep app on my phone that says one of us is definitely snoring, and I swear neither of us snored before we moved into (and got lockdown in) a tiny one-bed city apartment with a window that opened all of 5cm. Because I know I’m a mouth breather (TMI, but I also know I sleep with my mouth open, which leaves me very puffy in the morning and also cannot be good for my jaw), I wanted to know that a night on my own wearing mouth tape would there be any snoring? I can confirm no snoring, which definitely contributes to better sleep because I know I’ve woken myself snoring, and I know I’ve been woken by my boyfriend snoring.

Mouth breathing is also one of the most common causes of nasal congestion, and given I am currently spending a fair amount of time in London with way too much pollution, I don’t need anything else contributing to nasal congestion.

So there are plenty of benefits to mouth taping, and for me, they outweigh the cons, but that is for everyone to make their own mind up on, so just to be sure you have all the facts, here are some of the cons:

♡ Irritation caused by the mouth tape (which will almost certainly happen if you risk using just standard tape around the house; if you’re going to try, please buy the right stuff).
♡ Increased anxiety from having to tape your mouth shut, which is completely understandable; it sort of goes against human instinct. Although part of the reason I really wanted to try this is because I heard on a podcast that breathing through the nose uses a specific nerve which is associated with calming your nervous system, but I couldn’t find a study that backed that up.
♡ Some of the tapes I looked at on Amazon had bad reviews where people had experienced discomfort and pain removing the tape the day after, and a couple where people struggled to remove the tape, which probably circles back to increased anxiety.

HOW TO MY EXPERIENCE WITH MOUTH TAPE

So the tape I used goes over your lips vertically, so unlike some tapes, it doesn’t cover your whole mouth because, honestly, the whole coverage ones freak me out a little.
I applied mine after I had (double) cleansed my face and used my LED eye mask. I did my skincare and made sure to use my lip balm before taping up.

As I was worried about whether it would hurt the next morning, I decided to shave my face midweek. I usually only shave my face once a week (with my everything shower on a Sunday), but I opted for a mid-week shave to ensure there was no hair for the tape to stick to. What can I say I’m a wuss about this stuff.

The ones I picked up from Amazon were straightforward to apply and stuck well even after applying my evening face oil. You just peel off the backing and place it over your mouth vertically like a plaster.

It was as simple as that; all that was left to do was go to sleep.

I can’t lie; it was very strange, and I did start to panic a couple of times and had to remind myself that I could still breathe and, worst case, I could just take it off, but I was determined to stick it out (pun intended) just one night.

One mistake I did make was that I’d had a few wines before bed, which meant I did wake a couple of times in need of water, so I had to tear it off for water a couple of times in the night. I can’t say whether it improves sleep or not because one I don’t sleep well away from home and I’d had a few drinks.

As far as the comfort of wear and ease of breathing, I was pleasantly surprised; I didn’t find it uncomfortable, and after the initial 10 minutes, I wasn’t worried about my breathing. I can also report that my face was not puffy when I woke up the next morning! This is a massive win for me as since I had Bels palsy at 16 morning, puffiness has been an ongoing issue.

Since I learnt about all the benefits of breathing more through the nose & less through the mouth, I’ve really been making a conscious effort to change up my breathing habits generally through the day and now at night because I’m definitely going to keep trying this and will report back at the end of the year and let you know if the benefits really are all that.

Speak soon, love tee.