Mouth Taping

What It Is

Taping your lips shut at night so you breathe through your nose.

Why It Matters

Mouth taping is sold as a way to sleep better,¹ and the evidence is very uncertain about whether it changes how well you sleep at all. Boddy grades sleep advice on efficiency, the share of your time in bed spent asleep, and no study we have found measures what taping does to it in people without a breathing disorder. A systematic review of taping and other ways of holding the mouth closed found studies only in people with sleep apnea or its symptoms, or on a breathing machine, and judged every one poor quality.¹ The only randomized trial we found outside a clinical population, in otherwise healthy women with signs of dysfunctional breathing, added taping to a breathing program and measured heart rate variability, breathing, and stress, not sleep.²

Two small studies in people with mild sleep apnea, neither with a comparison group, saw fewer breathing pauses on nights with tape, and both either left out or first treated people with a blocked nose.^1,3 That matters because blocking the nose during sleep, which leaves the mouth as the only airway, raised breathing pauses even in people who started without sleep apnea,³ and several of the reviewed studies' authors warn that sealing the mouth over a blocked nose risks suffocation.¹ In some people with sleep apnea the mouth is also the route around a blockage at the soft palate, and closing it during sedated sleep reduced their airflow.⁴

None of this shows that taping harms a healthy sleeper: the one small trial in otherwise healthy women reported no problems, though it was far too small to call it safe.² What the evidence cannot support is a promise that it will make your sleep more efficient, which is why it sits here rather than as advice under Efficiency. If you snore, wake with a dry mouth, or have been told you stop breathing in your sleep, get assessed for sleep apnea rather than sealing your mouth, and never tape it while your nose is blocked.

• 1 Rhee, J. et al. (2025). Breaking social media fads and uncovering the safety and efficacy of mouth taping in patients with mouth breathing, sleep disordered breathing, or obstructive sleep apnea: A systematic review. PLOS One. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323643
• 2 Zaliene, L. et al. (2025). Breathing interventions improve autonomic function, respiratory efficiency and stress in dysfunctional breathing: a randomised controlled trial. Advances in Respiratory Medicine. doi.org/10.3390/arm93060056
• 3 Alshehri, N.A. et al. (2026). Impact of nasal obstruction and mouth taping on sleep apnea indicators: systematic review and meta-analysis. OTO Open. doi.org/10.1002/oto2.70294
• 4 Yang, H. et al. (2024). Mouth closure and airflow in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a nonrandomized clinical trial. JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. doi.org/10.1001/jamaoto.2024.3319