Do you ever wake up and feel like your mouth is drier than the Sahara?
One of the most uncomfortable feelings is waking up with a dry mouth. Feeling thirsty with a sticky mouth, chapped lips, and a burning sensation in your throat is no fun.
You’ve probably tried drinking water before bed and leaving a glass on your bedside table, but your dry mouth still persists. Before you give up hope, know that preventing dry mouth is possible!
Before we get into all of the ways to prevent dry mouth when sleeping, let’s first talk about the causes.
Causes of Dry Mouth When Sleeping
The key to learning how to prevent dry mouth while sleeping lies in understanding what causes it in the first place.
A dry mouth is the result of a lack of saliva that often makes the mouth and throat feel uncomfortable. This leads to discomfort when speaking, swallowing, and eating.
Experiencing a dry mouth is usually an indicator of another condition that is causing the mouth to dry out. For example, several health conditions such as Parkinson’s disease or diabetes often cause dry mouth.
Certain medications may also be responsible. Up to 80 percent of commonly prescribed medications list dry mouth as a potential side effect, such as antihistamines, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, or blood pressure drugs.
Recreational drug use may also lead to dry mouth. Chemotherapy, radiation, nerve damage, drinking alcohol, and smoking are other common culprits.
Allergies, which are known for plugging up the airway or leading to swelling in the tissues, may also contribute to dry mouth when sleeping.
Yet another surprising cause? Age. As we age past the age of 65, the production of saliva within our mouths decreases by as much as 40 percent.
Something most of us do that dries out the mouth, regardless of age? Breathe through our mouths. In fact, 61 percent of people self-identify as mouth breathers.
Mouth breathing is enhanced by allergies, sleep apnea, sleep apnea treatment machines and masks, and certain dental appliances such as retainers.
Mouth Breathing’s Relationship to Dry Mouth (and Other Health Problems)
If your mouth falls open while you sleep, a dry mouth is sure to follow. Unfortunately, so is snoring. When the mouth falls open, the tissues in the airway fall backward and create an obstruction.
When these tissues vibrate together, they produce the sound of snoring. Due to this, mouth breathers are more likely to develop sleep disorders such as sleep apnea.
That’s not all. Mouth breathing has been known to cause a myriad of health issues, including the following:
- Gum disease, cavities, tooth loss, and other dental complications (with a dry mouth, saliva can’t coat the teeth and protect them from cavity-causing bacteria and plaque)
- Anxiety
- Chronic stress
- Depression
- Chronic bad breath, known as halitosis
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular complications
- Decreased lung function
Why is something seemingly harmless, like breathing through the mouth, such a danger to your health? Because the mouth wasn’t designed with breathing in mind.
The nose, however, is a powerful, effective filter that protects the lungs from germs, bacteria, pollen, and dust. It also moisturizes and warms the air you breathe.
The mouth doesn’t offer filtration, humidification, or temperature control, which is harmful to the lungs and body.
Additionally, breathing through the mouth actually causes us to over breathe and breathe in a shallow manner that puts the body in a stressful state. Mouth breathing activates our fight or flight response and increases cortisol, a stress hormone.
Alternately, breathing through the nose causes the opposite response within the body. The nose produces nitric oxide, which works to fight bacteria, improve oxygenation, lower blood pressure, and reduce stress.
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Now that you know the dangers of breathing through your mouth, let’s dive into learning how to prevent dry mouth while sleeping.
Learning How to Prevent Dry Mouth While Sleeping
Mouth breathing is to blame for most cases of dry mouth. That said, there are some immediate solutions to try that may correct your issues with dry mouth when sleeping:
- Chew sugar-free gum before bed to boost saliva production
- Use toothpaste containing fluoride when brushing your teeth at night
- Reduce your alcohol and caffeine consumption, specifically in the evening
- Use a mouthwash specifically designed to treat dry mouth
- Avoid foods that are overly spicy or acidic
- Quit smoking
- Add a humidifier to your bedroom to add more moisture into the air you breathe
- Talk to your doctor about switching your medication to reduce the chances of dry mouth
- Up your water intake throughout the day to reduce dehydration
- Address mouth breathing and snoring with mouth tape
If you want to prevent dry mouth while sleeping, switching from mouth breathing to nasal breathing is the quickest way to get started.
While all of these potential solutions may be helpful, mouth tape is the only one that ensures you won’t breathe through your mouth at night.
With mouth tape, the lips remain physically sealed thanks to adhesive tape that prevents the mouth from opening during sleep.
With this in mind, the tape you choose to use matters. Most tapes are made with harmful chemicals within the adhesive that can irritate the skin, causing rashes and discomfort.
SomniFix, on the other hand, was created with your sensitive lips and skin in mind.
Prevent Dry Mouth While Sleeping With SomniFix
Dry mouth is uncomfortable, leads to bad breath, and is just plain miserable to deal with. The largest culprit that leads to dry mouth when sleeping is breathing through it.
Making the switch from mouth breathing to nasal breathing can’t happen overnight...or can it? With our Mouth Strips, it can.
SomniFix offers skin-safe ingredients that you can wear with comfort and peace of mind. Our strips are gluten-free, latex-free, and hypoallergenic.
The best part? There’s little to no effort required to wear our Strips. Just place a strip over your lips before bed to keep your mouth full of the moisture it needs to coat the teeth and protect them from harmful bacteria.
You’ll wake up refreshed, rejuvenated, and free from a sticky, scratchy, dry mouth.
