Ever heard of mouth taping?
Road trips are not a pleasant experience for me. Why? The bad roads characteristic of a 3rd world country, the sitting for hours upon hours leaves me with a sore bottom, motion sickness and the major highlight, a cold.
By cold I mean a sore throat(the worst), cattarh and the likes. Asides road trips, I'm prone to getting a cold in my everyday life. A little tweak in the weather will have me sick and miserable. Especially If you have the AA genotype, you can relate. The struggle is as real as it gets.
Anyways, I came to a mind-blowing discovery on my last road trip. It is so obvious that it almost isn't.
It was another typical road trip. The night before I got the beginning feeling of a sore throat but shook it off. "It's just a little scratch in my throat", if only I knew what was in store for me. Worse still, I left my windows open and it was the harmattan season.
Opening my eyes in the morning with the realization that I had a full blown sore throat, I sighed. "It can't be that bad", I told myself choosing to be positive since I had a long day ahead.
I remembered a youtube video I watched where mouth tapes were used to prevent mouth breathing during the night. According to the video, people with constantly blocked nose can improve their breathing by taping their mouths while sleeping.
The logic behind this is that if the nose is blocked, the mouth is used to breath by reflex especially when you sleep. But the issue with that is this, the mouth was never designed for breathing.
The nose has hairs which filters air that is taken into the body removing dirt, bacteria and God knows what other germs in the environment that finds its way into our nose. The mouth doesn't have these very important filters that are necessary for breathing. So mouth breathing in itself can cause a sore throat.
Packing my things into the boot of the car, I told myself, "close your mouth no matter what, don't breath through it. Let's see what happens"
My sore throat was manageable through out the journey. It didn't get worse before I got access to medication. My little experiment was an "AHA" moment.
It worked when I had a blocked nose too. Although, that can be a little tricky. I know your nose is already blocked and you can hardly breathe . But it helps if you persevere and are patient.
Taping your mouth when you sleep is an excellent way to get rid of a blocked nose because your body has no choice but to breathe through it so the clog clears up with time.
Next time you have a catarrh or a sore throat, try this out and see for yourself.
Mouth taping is also an excellent way to reduce mild obstructive sleep apnea (snoring). Mouth breathing leads to constriction of the upper airways. This constriction impairs the flow of air causing the individual to snore
Drooling in children with intellectual disability can be reduced to the minimum through simply taping their mouths.
The benefits of mouth taping for respiratory health is still being explored by research. Find out more here
http://bit.ly/3koewFe (Mouth Taping & Snoring)
https://bit.ly/3mb5bB1 (Mouth Taping and drooling)
So how exactly do you use mouth tapes?
Simple!
Surgical tape is the easiest to get access to. A regular tape will not do cause it can damage the skin during removal.
Moisturize your mouth and the surrounding area were the tape will be used to enable easy removal later then spread the tape across your mount horizontally. That's it.
The benefits of mouth taping are:
• Recovery from cold associated illness(Cattarh and sore throat)
• Reducing mild obstructive apnea
• Reducing drooling
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