The Internet Is Lying to You About the Benefits of Mouth Taping

Sorry to provide factual evidence that runs counter to whatever nonsense health fad your favorite TikTok influencer is peddling this week; according to actual scientists who published their findings in actual scientific journals, taping your mouth shut as you sleep isn’t doing you much good.

If you haven’t heard of it, mouth taping is a recent-ish health trend wherein people buy little strips of tape specially made to be put over your mouth to prevent it from hanging open at night as you sleep. They are touted to cure everything from bad sleep to bad breath and even bad attitudes, likely caused by a bad night of sleep.

Search “mouth tape” on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram, and you’ll find countless videos of people looking like they are willing participants in their own kidnappings claiming that tape helped them get some much-needed rest.

The influencers who promote the trend, who were all suspiciously good-looking, say mouth tape can do anything and everything with little, if any, actual scientific evidence to back up any of those claims — claims that are unlikely to become fact anytime soon if the results of actual scientific studies are any indication.

According to a new review published in the respected scientific journal PLOS One by researchers from the London Health Sciences Center and the University of Saskatchewan, most of the supposed health benefits of mouth taping are underwhelming, to say the least, with only a couple showing mild improvements in sleep apnea metrics.

The team sifted through 10 research studies centered on the effectiveness of mouth tape. They found that out of 213 patients across all studies, only those with mild obstructive sleep apnea saw any potential benefit. And even that came with some huge caveats: the data was shaky, follow-ups were rare, and in some cases, risks like asphyxiation were noted, especially in people with nasal blockages.

If you’re prone to severely stuffy noses, sealing shut your mouth’s ability to act as a secondary breathing orifice is essentially dooming yourself to some late-night unconscious choking. If you’re wearing the mouth tape in the hope of cutting back on sleep apnea-like instances of mid-sleep suffocation, your stuffy nose paired with the mouth tape will ensure that you’re going to suffocate in the middle of your sleep anyway, and the episode could be a lot worse than it would’ve been had you not been wearing the tape.

None of this is to say that mouth tape is completely useless. It might be helpful in some very specific, doctor-monitored situations. It’s probably best that you talk to your general practitioner or, even better, your ears, nose, and throat doc, before you start sealing your mouth shut every night. For most people, mouth tape is a literal and figurative Band-Aid that only masks a problem rather than solving it at its core.

Also, probably stop getting medical advice from 22-year-olds with ring lights and actually go speak to one or more people with doctorates, particularly ones who specialize in sleep health.