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Comment by ein0p | Hacker News Reader

I just learned to sleep with my mouth closed and I watch my breathing during the day too, and avoid breathing through my mouth. This was difficult at first. Idk why, but I’ve read the musculature responsible for breathing gets weakened if you breathe through your mouth, because there’s a lot less resistance. But now it’s fine, and I don’t even snore anymore. Obviously this is down to individual physiology, so I’m not saying this works for everyone, but it did work for me. Costs $0.

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Did you learn this in a temple or what discipline helped you master it?

You can tape your mouth shut when you sleep, and after a few days/weeks of this, you don’t need the tape anymore.

Can you refute this?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/can-mouth-tap....

That's irrefutable by design. It _could_ lead to all those things. But it could also _not_ lead to them. Depends on the person. Besides, it's not like people with obstructive sleep apnea are having great sleep to begin with. FWIW I have facial hair so I did not use the tape. For me merely breathing through my nose during the day turned out to be sufficient to be able to comfortably do so at night.

Refute what? It's just a random doctor giving some general caveats about side effects. Anything we currently use to great effect, from aspirin to chemo, and from leg casts to band aids will have such generic caveats.

"Skin irritation" from some allergic reaction to the adhesive or fastening the mouth tap too hard? Sure.

"hampered breathing" sure, if you tie it wrongly, or have other issues.

It's more like a random physician's advice for caution than some voice of science. Also, they write:

"There's no research to support the measure"

Well, there's some:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9498537/

"Our study provided a simple and effective treatment modality using 3M mouth tape for mild OSA patients with open-mouth-breathing. The AHI and SI were reduced by nearly half after mouth-taping during sleep; the more severe the baseline AHI and SI, the greater the improvement after mouth-taping. For mild OSA mouth-breathers, mouth-taping could be an alternative treatment before CPAP therapy or surgical intervention are tried."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25450408/

Novel porous oral patches for patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea and mouth breathing: a pilot study. Conclusion: The POP is a useful device to treat patients with mild OSA and habitual OMB.

https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202109-105...

Mouth Closing to Improve the Efficacy of Mandibular Advancement Devices in Sleep Apnea. A combination of an adhesive mouthpiece and MAD is a more effective therapy than MAD alone. These findings may help improve clinical decision making in sleep apnea.

They say "could" a lot, and then say that there's no research/evidence to support it - but that's probably just because no one has done and yet. If there was any evidence against it, presumably they'd cite it?

Not a refutation, but then the article doesn't really offer any evidence to be refuted.

Afaik, "mouth taping" is just putting a little strip of fairly low tack surgical tape across your mouth, vertically, to encourage your body to keep it closed and breathe through your nose while you sleep. I've tried this just to see and it seems to work - but if you open your mouth or move your jaw even a little, it just peels off.

As long as you're sensible, it doesn't seem like it's going to do any harm?

I see ads for these devices and the possibility of suffocating in your sleep just terrifies me. Sure most of the time you might wake up but still :/

Fortunately CPAP therapy works fantastically for me, and the CPAP masks have anti asphyxia valves to prevent you rebreathing your CO2 in the event the machine stops working (I wondered about that for a bit).

>the possibility of suffocating in your sleep just terrifies me

If you're to suffocate, in your sleep is the best time to do it!

I guess it's kinda funny

Start breathing exclusively through your nose during the day, and you will be able to do it at night too.

Yeah, no. That's about as useful as saying "just don't snore".

I've never been a mouth breather and yet I'm a heavy snorer with my mouth slacking open at night.

Hence "it won't work for everyone", in the original post. People differ anatomically.

I did the same 25y ago, as prescribed by my allergy doctor. It was called (translation from French) "breathing reeducation", and it was roughly interval training: breathe fully in through your nose, then blow into a pipe (connected to a spirometer) at various speeds.

Before that, I was mostly breathing through my mouth. It was challenging even to eat a sandwich while walking :). Since this reeducation, I only breathe through my nose with no effort. I'm willing to believe it indeed has to do with muscle.

A breathing specialist (on a podcast, so take that with a grain of salt) said that breathing through your nose uses less overall muscles than through your mouth. This was focused on athletics training. By nose-breathing, the athletes were getting enough oxygen without heaving their chests so much, which uses more energy. The idea was that when you suck in air through your mouth, it works your chest more than is required, so you are wasting effort doing that. I tried it, nose breathing while working out, and it is incredibly difficult. Another guy on the podcast, the presenter, is an ex-rugby player and said he had to tape his mouth shut to be able to try it, and his nose was pouring with snot while jogging because he was not used to it.

I'm not saying it isn't to do with muscles, perhaps a sort of "muscle memory" due to years of breathing through your mouth, but my feeling is there's also a large psychological aspect to it. I nose breath when I remember, but it has to be a conscious effort to sort of clamp my mouth shut. Otherwise I'm :-O like that breathing. I feel like I'm going to suffocate if I nose breathe, but that's not the case of course when I actually force myself to do it.

Yep, I was not excluding muscle memory when I said it had to do with muscle. It is true that breathing through the nose seems effortless (at least when resting).

The "reeducation" consisted in a few 30 minutes sessions (probably around 5, not sure) and I don't remember having done any conscious effort to breathe through my nose after that. It just seemed easy.

That said, I still have to breathe through my mouth when running.

It’s actually because your oxygen absorption increases when you breathe nasally. Your nasal passages change the temperature and humidity of the air.

Breathing nasally does have positive effects on respiratory systems in general though.

Two books helped convince me this effect was "real" enough to try it: The Oxygen Advantage and Breathe.

A ~year later, anecdotal evidence: it works.

Just to clarify:

You were diagnosed with OSA. You learned this technique, did another sleep study and were told you were all clear. Is that right?

What was your AHI before "curing" yourself? Afterward, was it 0 or just below the diagnostic criteria of 5?

You can wear an oxymeter to bed nowadays, which I do. I don’t need a “sleep study” to confirm my oxygenation is adequate though the night and I no longer wake up gasping for breath like I used to.

So that would be a "no".

Or a “yes” seeing that I do a “sleep study” every night and check the results at least once a week. I don’t see why I need to pay a doctor to tell me if I’m asleep or to monitor my blood oxygen in 2024, much for the same reason why “computer” now means a tiny device you own, and not a room full of people.

A sleep study is more than just monitoring your blood oxygen.

Ok "yes" if you're willing to ignore actual diagnostic criteria in favor of "whatever I decide the criteria is". Oxygen saturation isn't what they use, and lack of oxygen is not the issue with apnea.

Id normally let your comment go unresponded, but you are giving dangerous advice.

Totally right. Also helps with snoring. I'm using a small piece of masking tape to make sure my mouth is closed during sleep. Quite a common recommendation for when learning buteyko method.

>I just learned to sleep with my mouth closed and I watch my breathing during the day too, and avoid breathing through my mouth

It's not something you "learn" if you have apnea.

And if you don't, you don't normally have to learn it, it's natural, though some people might be accustomed otherwise.

It's amazing how many anecdotal folk remedies we're presented with on this forum, which I had assumed would have a more scientific bent.

Science begins from experience, and develops from there.

It's not like religion, which starts from holy scriptures.

Though many think science should just be something we take in as a holy scripture, unconnected to our personal experience, and even when it doesn't match it.

You seem to believe that one can only rigidly do “science” or “religion”.

Much of what people are suggesting in these comments are not just “personal anecdotes”. They’ve proven to be wrong for most people. They’re outright dangerous.

For example, the comment about just taping your mouth shut is awful without even doing anything for the vast majority of people with sleep apnea.

>You seem to believe that one can only rigidly do “science” or “religion”.

No, in fact I wrote explicly the opposite about science: that it starts with experience, and should not be about accepting some rigid dogma.

And I wrote that it's bad that "many think" that science is something we should "take in as a holy scripture".

>For example, the comment about just taping your mouth shut is awful without even doing anything for the vast majority of people with sleep apnea.

That manages to be both wrong and unscientific.

- It's not true it's not "doing anything for the vast majority of people with sleep apnea"

- Mouth taping has been shown to be efficient in preliminary research (not to mention in many people's personal results).

- "Awful" is just a sentimental meaningless term standing for "I dislike it" in this context

- Saying it does not do "anything for the vast majority of people with sleep apnea" is just some personal opinion, since you haven't measured anything or pointed to any research. So the very thing you claim to condemn, pulling stuff out of one's ass.

There's big science and little science.

You can use the scientific method to see what works for you. Those results may or may not be applicable to others.

You can use the scientific method on a representative group. Those results may or may not have anything to do with a specific case.

Both are scientific and have their limits.

If you're trying to address an issue related to your own health, you only need a sample size of 1.

We give lithium to folks with depression.

Modern day medicine is at times the same as folk remedy.

Why's lithium a 'folk remedy? We have scientific evidence of the efficacy of lithium as adjunct in depression treatment and anti-suicidal.

“here ya go, eat this magical rock. we have no idea how it works, or why it works, but it’ll make you feel better”

Not understanding the mechanisms of psychiatric medications is the norm, from what I understand with my limited knowledge of psychiatry. The brain very poorly understood compared to the rest of the body. Not knowing how exactly something works doesn't make it any less effective anyways, it's a small miracle there are so many effective drugs for so many disorders with how little knowledge researchers have to work with.

We don’t really understand why anesthesia works, but I’m still going to opt for it if I have surgery.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaesthe...

did you feel you didn't have enough debit at all?

What the?! Who's sleeping with their mouth open?

I specifically hate going to sleep with my mouth open, which only happens when I have a cold or something and my nose is stuffed, which means I HAVE to breathe through the mouth. Which is fine at first but my throat will dry very fast and starts to hurt. During the day I can moisturize it by drinking liquids but at night it's horror time if I can't close my mouth and divert respiration through where God intended: the nose.

some of us have very "stuffy noses". I frequently get blocked nasal passages, and only by religiously using a steroidal nasal spray can I breath through my nose. I've had to travel to another city just to get my nasal spray on two occasions, when there is literally zero stock in my city (just prior to hay fever season), so access to this is not a given.

Obviously yes, mouth breathing sucks for a variety of reasons, but if you can't breath through your nose it is significantly preferable to the alternative.

Not a medicine doctor, but your overuse of steroidal nasal spray is the probable cause of your stuffy nose.

That is entirely dependent on the type of steroidal nosespray. There are types that don't cause dependence or stuffy nose when not used.

Probably not. Steroid sprays are not the same as the OTC nasal congestion sprays that often lead to stuffy nose as soon as you stop taking them.

"Stuffy nose" tends to go away too once you start breathing through it all the time. This, of course, doesn't apply if you have allergies or are sick with a cold or something - those are legit reasons to have a "stuffy nose".

No, not true. I exclusively breathe through my nose all day (unless panting from a workout). The moment I lay down, something changes and my nose stuffs up. This has only gotten worse over time. If I were to, say, tape my mouth shut, I would absolutely suffocate in short order.

You might want to really clean your bed (pillow, sheets etc) and surroundings from potential allergens like dust mites, mold, pollen etc. Ideally with one of these mattress vacuum cleaners. Window sills (even outside, if the window doesn’t seal hermetically) might leak mold spores or other particles into your bedroom. A really good air filter next to the bed might also help.

>>"something changes" When you lay down, blood shifts to your head which can cause your nasal passages to become engorged with blood, causing a stuffy sensation.

It's a self reinforcing cycle, the more you breath through your mouth the harder it is to go back to normal breathing.

It's like saying being fat makes it hard to exercise so you don't exercise, which makes you more prone to stay fat, which makes it harder to exercise, &c.

I highly recommend https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/breath-james-nestor/1134986...

It's unlikely you wouldn't have noticed this if it were the case but my nose tends to block too by some reason if I lay on my back. What I observed though is that if I lay on a side, there's some mysterious movement about where the sinuses are and one nostril gets unblocked, I think the one facing up (not touching the pillow). If I switch sides, the blocked and unblocked nostrils switch places. So oftentimes I breathe though just one nostril but still beats breathing through the mouth.

I assume you are not aware of it, because of being asleep. Maybe it happens in deeper sleep?

Could be but I'm only talking of what I can consciously control. I do know I snore if I sleep on my back, that's probably sleeping with the mouth open.

The tongue and jaw muscles slack and relax when you fall asleep, like much of the rest of your body. For many, this causes apnea and heavy snoring.

>What the?! Who's sleeping with their mouth open?

People with apnea. Ever heard people snoring? Think they do it because they like the sound?

>I specifically hate going to sleep with my mouth open

Which is irrelevent, as once asleep you don't control it. And if you have sleep apnea issues, you can't just will it.

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