Yes, taping your mouth shut at night sounded awful to me too. Read on.
A good way to start this daunting drill is to start small. Get some Micropore tape – the best for this task is the brand Fortuna, available from independent chemists. Others are too weedy and just slide off.
Shut your mouth and place a small bit of tape vertically over the centre of your lips and go to bed. Whilst you fall asleep breathing through your nose, during the night you will probably breathe out of the corners of your mouth. However your mouth can’t hang open like a basking shark, so the snoring will be less and the tongue can sit higher within the mouth.
As you get used to this, increase the amount of mouth you cover, working up to covering the whole mouth so you have to breathe through your nose all night long. And now you get the benefits of nasal breathing – the warmed air passing through the mucus membranes, our first line of defence. When we get very stressed, we mouth breath. Therefore, breathing through the nose is interpreted by the brain as low stress levels, hence why it is calming. When we are asleep, we fight bears! At least we fight them calmly. And so nasal breathing will help improve the quality of your sleep.
It may also help teeth grinding and sleep apnea. Nasal breathing is far more efficient, and one theory is that it is lack of oxygen that makes the teeth snap shut for a good grind, or wakes us up briefly to take a good breath.
Before you begin this, if your remember, notice how fast you are breathing when you wake up. (Also notice if your mouth is dry) As time goes on, with the full mouth taping, notice how your breathing is much slower on waking – and the mouth no longer dry. This is an excellent result! Slow breathing is both efficient and extremely calming. Fast breathing is panic breathing. A good resting breathing rate is 12 – 16 breaths per minute, less is even better. When I was a singer, I only took 4 breaths per minute! Between each in breath, everything is super relaxed. Lovely.
Of course, one problem can be a deviated nasal septum, meaning one nostril is occluded so you can’t breathe through it properly. You’ll probably cope well with the small bit of tape placed vertically over the lips, and this will still have a good effect on snoring and sleep quality.
No, mouth taping won’t cure everything. But it’s a good move in the right direction for minimal outlay and a moment of time, plus a handful of courage. I promise it really isn’t as bad as it sounds!