The Best Mouth Tape for Sleeping and Sleep Apnea
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So you’re gonna shut your mouth shut? About time!
I’ve gone through the hard work of taping my mouth shut with all kinds of tape so you don’t have to. And while there are many overpriced options popping up everywhere, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel here.
The best options are still plain old medical tape. And my favorite options are listed below.
One accessory for mouth taping you really can’t live without is a dispenser. It will save you so much time and frustration trying to find the end of the tape.
What’s the Best Tape to Use for Mouth Taping?
There are a lot of “fancy” mouth tape products coming out on the market today, and while they all work, they’re way more expensive than they should be.
And since they’re functionally the exact same thing as medical tape, why not just buy that?
For example, let’s look at the monthly cost of three kinds of mouth tape:
Fancy tape: $30/month
Silicone tape: $0.45/month
Micropore tape: $0.02/month
My goodness!
Micropore tape is 1500x cheaper than commercial mouth tape brands. It’s so cheap it’s almost free!
But which kind of medical tape is best?
Medical Tape Adhesive
Almost no one talks about this, but some tape leaves behind adhesive residue, and when we kiss our partners, eat food, and lick our lips seductively, we can accidentally ingest that!
So what we want is not only the least toxic adhesive but also a tape that has good adhesion, and doesn’t leave a lot of its adhesive behind on our skin.
Silicone vs Acrylic Adhesives
The cheaper options tend to use acrylic adhesive, which is made from methacrylates which can definitely be toxic.
While silicone adhesives are more stable and are made from less toxic ingredients.
How Do You Use Mouth Tape?
Using your mouth tape is super simple. Just rip off a single piece about a half inch to 1 inch long, and firmly apply it to dry lips.
It will come off from time to time, this is to be expected. When you first start you may even take it off at night without noticing.
Fun fact: When I first wore a retainer at night as a kid, I would take it off, put it back in the case, and put it in my nightstand drawer all without fully waking up, I could never remember doing this.
So keep your tape nearby so you can reapply a piece easily when you need to.
This is another good reason to get a dispenser for your roll! It’s indispensable!
Tips for Using Mouth Tape
- Wear it during the day: If you’ve never taped your mouth at night, wear some during the day so that you can get sued to the sensation before you try to fall asleep like this.
- Dry your lips: If you have any moisture under the tape it will likely come off during the night, so make sure your lips are dry first!
Mouth Taping for Beards
Beards definitely make things harder, there’s no way around that, just the nature of the beast.
Here’s what can help:
- Puff out your lips a little bit: This can give you a bit more surface area to work with. It really all depends on how much skin you have both above and below your lips.
- Make sure everything is dry! Since you don’t have quite as much room to work with, again, ensure that your lips are dry by dabbing them with your shirt or your teddy bear or something.
- Go easy on the beard oil: If you oil up your beard around your lips too much the tape won’t stick as well, so keep that in mind!
FAQ
What Are the Benefits of Mouth Taping?
Mouth taping at night can help with:
– Bad breath
– Sleep-disordered breathing
– Dental issues
– Dry mouth
– Sleep apnea
– Snoring
– Jaw development in children
– Better oxygenation
– Slowed breathing rate
Does Taping Your Mouth Help You Sleep Better?
Yes, mouth taping helps you sleep better by reducing the chances of sleep-disordered breathing such as snoring and sleep apnea episodes.
What’s the Purpose of Mouth Taping?
The purpose of mouth taping is to promote nasal breathing by preventing your mouth from opening at night.
How Can I Sleep With My Mouth Closed Naturally?
There are many ways to sleep with your mouth closed naturally, such as sleeping on your side, developing better tongue posture, and sleeping slightly elevated.
