Nose breathing vs mouth breathing: is taping safe?

How can you try nose breathing, safely?

If you just want to breathe through your nose more, you don't need tape. Here's a gentle version.

1. Sit comfortably. Close your mouth lightly. Don't clamp your jaw.
2. Breathe in and out through your nose, slowly and quietly. The NHS breathing exercise for stress, for example, suggests breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, for a count of five each, for at least five minutes. NHS
3. If your nose feels blocked or you feel short of breath, stop and breathe the way that feels easiest.
4. Build up slowly. Dallam and Kies suggest that comfort with nasal breathing during exercise may need a period of adaptation.
5. Don't tape your mouth, and don't force yourself to breathe through your nose when you can't.

I couldn't find a trial that says how many minutes of nose-only breathing help with anything. So there's no evidence-based dose. Let comfort be your guide.

Is nose breathing better than mouth breathing?

Two reviews I opened look at nasal versus mouth breathing.

Dallam and Kies reviewed 30 articles (7 descriptive and 23 experimental) on nasal breathing during exercise, found through one search engine. They concluded that breathing only through the nose is workable for most people at moderate aerobic effort, and may be possible at harder effort after a period of getting used to it. They report that nasal breathing was linked with less exercise-induced narrowing of the airways, better ventilatory efficiency and a lower physiological cost for a given workload. They say more research is needed. Dallam and Kies, 2020

Bayrak and colleagues reviewed 11 studies (313 people in total, mostly healthy) on how nasal and oral breathing affect breathing muscles and the brain. They found nasal and oral breathing involve different brain areas and affect breathing muscles unevenly. In one study, oral breathing went with lower oxygen saturation, which the authors suggest might explain some brain differences. They say the studies were mixed in design, most participants were healthy, and larger controlled trials are needed. Bayrak et al., 2025

So nose breathing isn't nonsense. But these are small studies of short-term effects, mostly in healthy people. They don't show that switching to nose breathing will improve your health or your sleep. They also don't show that mouth breathing causes harm to otherwise healthy people. I didn't find a systematic review in what I opened that tested a nose-breathing habit against a mouth-breathing habit over months.

Does mouth taping work?

The main evidence is a 2025 systematic review in PLOS ONE by Rhee and colleagues, titled with the phrase "breaking social media fads". They searched medical databases from 1999 to February 2024 and found ten studies. The paper gives the number of people as 213 in its abstract and 233 in the body, so I'll just say "about 200 to 230". All were adults, with average ages between 38 and 64, and each study had between 9 and 71 people. Rhee et al., 2025

Here's what matters most:

• Not just tape. The studies used mouth tape, oral patches or chinstraps, in people who already had mouth breathing, snoring or sleep apnea (a condition where breathing pauses during sleep). They weren't tests of tape on healthy sleepers.
• Mixed results. Only two studies, both in people with mild sleep apnea, reported lower apnea-hypopnea index (the number of breathing pauses per hour). Others found no clear change. Some snoring measures improved in a few studies.
• Quality. All ten were rated "poor" on a standard quality scale. There were six cross-sectional studies, one randomised trial and no pooled analysis.
• Safety. The authors say four of the ten studies raised serious risks, including asphyxia if the nose is blocked and aspiration if someone vomits.
• Conclusion. The authors conclude that mouth taping may pose a potentially serious risk of harm if used indiscriminately, and that more studies are needed. The data don't support it for the general population.

One of the studies quoted in the review said mouth taping was not recommended for moderate or severe sleep apnea.

Is mouth taping safe?

Cleveland Clinic's article on mouth taping reaches a similar place. It says the evidence is weak, quotes a pediatric sleep medicine specialist, Dr Brian Chen, who doesn't recommend it, and lists possible harms: difficulty breathing, skin irritation or allergic reactions, anxiety and trouble sleeping. It says people with a blocked or congested nose, allergies, sinus infections, enlarged tonsils, a deviated septum or heart issues should never use it. It also notes that snoring can be a sign of a bigger airway problem, so a doctor should be consulted. Cleveland Clinic, mouth taping

The research in a nutshell

How strong is the evidence? Weak for mouth taping, early for nose breathing. There are no good trials showing that taping your mouth in healthy people improves sleep.