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You can secure your business with a  3-month trial using the activation code “scishowoffer” at nordpass.com/scishowoffer  for a limited time. If you’re active on certain  social media platforms, you may have heard claims  that taping your mouth shut can cure all sorts of ailments, from  snoring, to morning breath, to asthma.

The people making those claims  aren’t necessarily scientists or medical professionals, but even if they were, that kind of cure-all seems  a bit too good to be true. And in some cases, it is. But for others, it turns out  there is peer reviewed research that suggests this mouth taping  trick might actually work.

So we’re here today to dispense the details: what’s fact and what’s fiction about mouth taping? [♪ INTRO]

Technically, the type of tape you’re using to seal your mouth shut shouldn’t really matter here. But before any of you start  reaching for the duct tape, you should know that the researchers  investigating mouth taping use more gentle supplies like 3M  silicone hypoallergenic tape. Which you can find at the drugstore.

So pretty much anyone can use mouth tape. The question is: should you? And the answer depends on a few things.

Like, why do you want to use mouth tape, and whether you’ve talked to  your doctor about it first. People try mouth taping to solve a variety  of problems, from snoring to bad breath. But whatever their ailment,  mouth taping is thought to help because it forces them to breathe through  their noses instead of their mouths.

That’s because research has suggested  that breathing through your nostrils is better for a variety of reasons, from having a little extra filtration to keeping things moist. And given the fact that most people  can breathe through either hole, or set of holes, it makes sense to  assume that when one is blocked, your body will switch to the other easy peasy. But research suggests it  doesn’t do that perfectly.

For example, one study published  in March of 2022 found that mouth taped participants started  to mouth puff while they slept. In other words, they were  breathing through the nose, but that air didn’t go straight  into and out of the lungs. Some of it also spent time in the mouth,  puffing out the participants’ cheeks.

It was trying to get out the usual way that was now blocked by a bunch of pesky tape. And ultimately, that’s just a less effective way to get oxygen in and out of your body. So the foundation of mouth  taping might be a bit unstable.

But that hasn’t stopped people from doing it. For example, some have tried  using it to treat asthma. Because if breathing through your  nose does a better job of filtering, warming, and moistening the  air going into your body, it seems logical that it  should also do a better job at blocking the irritants  that can provoke your asthma.

Unfortunately, a trial published in the  journal Respiratory Medicine found that mouth tape didn’t help people with  asthma improve their symptoms, whether they were mouth breathers or not. So, knowing that it doesn’t do much for asthma, it might not be surprising to hear the effects of mouth taping on athletic performance. Because some people use mouth tape during exercise to get more oxygen through their body.

The idea is to increase the amount  of nitric oxide formed in your nose, which widens up the blood vessels and helps pump oxygen more efficiently through your body. But will slapping some tape on your mouth actually lead to a boost in athletic performance? Well, one peer-reviewed case study  did find some positive results.

But it was only looking at a single triathlete. And another study failed  to reproduce those results with its whopping nine participants. In fact, that team of researchers  found that mouth taping increased their participants’  heart rates while they exercised.

So you might breathe through your mouth when working out to keep your heart from  feeling like it’s about to explode. And in the end, the team concluded  that, given the pros and cons of mouth breathing and nose breathing in exercise, you really should just go  with whatever you prefer. But that’s not the only research  with inconsistent results on the benefits of mouth taping.

Because it’s the same situation for sleep apnea. People diagnosed with sleep apnea don’t  breathe consistently while they sleep. Especially when their mouths are  open, the soft palate can move back.

That narrows their upper airway, so  it’s harder for air to get through. And that makes their breathing  stop and start over and over. Now if that sounds like it’s  bad for your health, yeah.

It can definitely be dangerous. Especially when you consider  that most of the people with some stage of sleep apnea are undiagnosed. Researchers estimate that as  many as one in five adults experience at least a mild form of sleep apnea.

So this is a condition that’s potentially  serious and affects a lot of people. And if we had a simple solution like mouth  tape, it would be a huge game changer. See, many people with sleep apnea breathe  through their mouth while sleeping, which aggravates their sleep apnea.

So mouth taping could hypothetically  help stop that vicious cycle. Unfortunately, there’s conflicting  data on whether mouth taping helps with sleep apnea or makes it worse. So right now, researchers don’t  recommend trying it when you have moderate-to-severe sleep apnea.

The risk is just not worth it. Which is a shame, because there  is evidence that mouth taping can manage the snoring that  comes along with sleep apnea. According to one study  published in September of 2022, mouth taping helped most of their  participants snore at least 50% less.

Granted, that study only looked at 20  people total with mild sleep apnea. But it’s nice to know that, at least in this case, there is some truth to the mouth taping claims. And here’s one final report that could maybe lend some support to what people are  saying about mouth taping online.

Except technically, it’s not a  study on mouth taping at all. If you experience halitosis, or bad breath,  you might breathe through your mouth. That’ll both dry out your mouth and  prevent it from cleaning itself.

A bunch of stinky volatile compounds will stick around and build up,  leading to an unpleasant odor. In fact, one study assessing 55 children  found that only 10% of the participants without halitosis breathed through their mouths, while 57% of those with halitosis  breathed through their mouths. So there’s a significant  association between breathing through your nose and a lack of bad breath.

But we can’t say mouth taping specifically helps fight bad breath until  there’s a study that tests it. Evidence on the benefits of mouth  taping is often mixed, often missing, and often based on very small sample sizes. So health outlets like the Cleveland Clinic and Harvard Med have raised  concern about the practice.

They say you should talk to  your doctor first and make sure you don’t have something  you might not be aware of, be it undiagnosed sleep apnea or something blocking your nasal passages  like a deviated septum. The most important thing is that  you’re getting enough oxygen, whether it’s from your nose or mouth. As always, here’s a reminder that I’m just  bringing you the findings from research.

I’m not a medical professional, and you should definitely talk to one before  you try anything I’ve covered. And if they tell you to  stay away from mouth taping, you should definitely stick with that. This SciShow video is supported by Nord

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Thanks for watching SciShow. [♪ OUTRO]