Mouth Taping For Beginners (Try Ths!)

Chances are you’ve never considered taping your mouth closed before bed.

The idea likely sounds bizarre, uncomfortable, or even dangerous.

However, a growing community is embracing mouth taping as a life-changing hack, claiming benefits from better breathing, easier weight loss, enhanced athletic performance, reduced wrinkles, and—you guessed it—increased productivity.

This increased productivity could help you get that promotion or have the energy to start a side hustle to boost your income.

Intrigued? While mouth-taping won’t be right for everyone, learning about the logic and purported perks may convince you to give it a try.

Read on to discover how simply covering your lips with gentle medical tape at bedtime could boost your energy, focus, and drive throughout your days.

Why We Mouth Tape

Before delving into the many upsides, let’s examine why anyone would voluntarily restrain their mouths shut for hours on end.

As unusual as it seems, the concept behind mouth taping makes physiological sense.

Here’s the gist: Daytime breathing naturally occurs through the nose, allowing incoming air to become warm and moisturized before reaching the lungs.

However, at night many people unconsciously switch to mouth breathing.

This not only bypasses protections provided by nasal breathing but often indicates obstructed airways or poor sleep.

Open-mouth snoring, sleep apnea, or tossing and turning can all signal issues.

Taping gently over the lips avoids dried-out airways by training you to inhale and exhale nasally while sleeping.

This alone brings many benefits. But advocates take it a step further, claiming regular all-night mouth taping enhances sleep quality to actually boost next-day energy, cognition, productivity, and more.

The Science Behind Mouth Taping

What evidence supports using occlusive tape while sleeping to accomplish more while awake? Surprisingly, quite a lot:

Sleep Quality Matters High-quality sleep directly impacts daily performance.

Deep, restful nights facilitate proper hormone regulation, brain detoxification, memory consolidation, and tissue repair.

Skimping on sleep has the opposite effect, decreasing cognition, focus, mood, immunity, and reaction times.

Poor breathing contributes to poor sleep, particularly in those with conditions like sleep apnea.

By promoting nasal breathing, mouth taping could logically improve sleep for mouth breathers.

Even for those without diagnosed issues, keeping lips sealed may align the body more naturally to take deeper, uninterrupted breaths all night long.

This explains why many mouth tapers report waking up unusually refreshed – a feeling that carries over into enhanced moods and mental clarity during their days.

Breathing Techniques Boost Energy

Principles behind mouth taping mirror ancient yoga breathing practices utilizing nasal inhalations and slowed exhalations to reduce anxiety, improve oxygenation, and increase energy over time through CO2 tolerance adaptation.

This aligns with many tapers noticing unexpectedly elevated energy, endurance, and calmer minds.

The Link Between Nitric Oxide and Productivity is perhaps the most direct path between nasal breathing and daily productivity related to nitric oxide.

This molecule produced within nasal cavities dilates blood vessels for cardiovascular benefits, lung protection, and energy level regulation.

Nitrite oxide also crosses the blood-brain barrier to facilitate oxygen and glucose delivery to power brain cell metabolism.

What’s more, some exciting research discovered nitric oxide directly stimulates the release of acetylcholine – a neurotransmitter critical for focus and cognitive performance.

This offers a biochemical explanation behind why steady nitric oxide production from consistent nasal breathing overnight could translate to tangible cognition and productivity gains throughout the next day.

The mounting evidence makes clear why so many are turning to mouth tape for its brain-boosting benefits.

But what exactly can one expect in terms of daily perks?

Potential Payoffs

What the Tape Could Do For You From corporate executives seeking a competitive mental edge, to fitness adherents pushing athletic limits, mouth-taping enthusiasts span ages and professions.

Yet many share strikingly similar feedback on how the practice noticeably enhances their days.

The most commonly reported upsides include:

Increased Energy

A common theme among long-term tapers is reporting uncharacteristically high and consistent energy upon rising – energy that lasts deep into their afternoons without caffeine crashes.

Feel tired? Mouth tape could help skip the coffee and power through your days with amplified efficiency.

Enhanced Focus

Along with energy comes enhanced attention, clarity, and focus.

Think sharper thoughts while working intensely on detailed projects requiring concentration. Feel immersed in complex tasks like data analysis, writing or computer coding with minimal distraction.

Elevated Moods

Don’t underestimate the impact steady energy and firing cognition can have on overall happiness and motivation.

Mouth taping seems to balance hormones, reduce inflammation, and regulate key neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin to stabilize moods. Venture into your days with a brighter outlook.

Improved Memory

Prolonged nasal breathing enhances slow wave and REM sleep to boost memory retention and learning capability.

Remember more information with less effort – handy for studying facts, memorizing speeches, or recalling client details on the fly.

Increased Motivation

Ambition and drive stem largely from energy and outlook.

With boundless stamina and positive moods, tackle goal setting and productivity hacks with gusto. Knock out tasks others delay and make progress daily.

Heightened Creativity

Associative thinking, idea generation, and creativity partially rely on oxygen-rich frontal lobe metabolism.

With enhanced circulation from steady nitric oxide production, feel creative juices flowing all day for artistic projects or problem-solving insights.

The Devil’s In the Details: Tips for Safe, Successful Mouth Taping

Convinced of potential benefits, yet unsure of implementation? Rest assured mouth taping can be simple, harmless, and surprisingly comfortable when following a few common sense guidelines:

Choose Breathable, Gentle Tape

Never secure your mouth closed with bandages or industrial-strength adhesive! Instead, opt for light paper or fabric medical tape designed specifically not to damage facial skin when removed. Nexcare and 3M Gentle Paper Tape work well.

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate

Nasal breathing avoids drying airflow. However, transdermal water loss remains inevitable overnight. Prevent dehydration headaches by downing plenty of water before bed and immediately upon rising. Peppermint tea also helps some remain hydrated.

Start Slowly

Don’t jump straight to overnight mouth taping. Begin taping in 30-minute increments and incrementally increase over weeks as comfortable until able to sleep fully nasal taped without issues.

This allows adjustment time to overcome the discomfort some initially feel.

Focus on Nasal Breathing

Purposeful controlled breathing may be required at first before nasal breathing feels automatic.

Utilize diaphragmatic breathing techniques to retrain expanded lung capacity ignoring the urge to open your mouth.

Eventually, nasal breathing becomes effortless.

Keep Lips Moisturized

To avoid lip dryness or cracking, thoroughly slather balm across your lips before applying tape. Reapply each night and morning. Discontinue use if irritation occurs.

Remove Gently In the morning, slowly peel tape away from sides of lips first rather than ripping straight off to minimize discomfort. Cleanse skin then rehydrate with balm. Redness should fade quickly.

Ask a Doctor First

While generally safe, any individual risks depend on medical history.

Those prone to sinus congestion or respiratory disorders in particular should discuss concerns with their physician before attempting mouth taping.

Troubleshoot Issues

Ease off if experiencing nasal obstruction, headaches beyond the first day, continued thirst, concentration issues or mood changes. Delve into other root causes or try alternative taping positions.

Stay Consistent

Like any biohack, mouth taping works best with regular nightly use. Notice benefits compound over weeks of steady practice. Track changes to motivate sticking to the routine.

Now armed with practical advice, are you ready to give productivity powerhouse mouth taping a test drive?

Rest assured the peculiar practice can feel surprisingly normal and comfortable over time. In fact, many eventually find going to bed without their trusty tape feels entirely unnatural.

The Takeaway: How a Simple Strip of Tape Could Transform Your Life

Still skeptical that covering your mouth nightly with gentle medical tape could make you healthier, happier and accomplish more each day? Consider the multitude of plausible pathways and scientifically sound mechanisms backing reported benefits:

Mouth taping’s means of improved breathing, sleep quality, nitric oxide production and downstream hormonal and neuronal cascades logically explain increased energy, stabilized moods and optimized cognition. Plus, the sheer volume of positive anecdotal accounts surely hold some weight.

While adapting any new habit presents challenges, those who stick to regular mouth taping often notice dramatically amplified productivity, focus, memory and motivation over time. Not bad payoff for a small nightly investment.

Ultimately, becoming a tape convert could set you on a trajectory toward your best self – crushing daily goals with sudden ease. The next time you feel your energy, concentration or ambition lagging, reconsider dismissing mouth taping outright. Experiment to determine if the odd technique winds up a total game changer.

With commitment and patience, that snug strip of tape may just mask a secret portal to unlocking your ultimate potential.

Why not give it try and discover what enhanced achievements lie under your nose?