Professional athletes and celebrities alike have hopped aboard the mouth taping trend. But it’s more than just a popular fad – mouth tape is here to stay! Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Graham, and professional athletes Erling Haaland and Iga Swiatek swear by mouth tape for a reason. Mouth taping promotes nasal breathing, the most efficient method of oxygen delivery. Nasal breathing is key to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Moreover, it leads to enhanced sleep quality, so you’ll wake feeling more refreshed than ever if you sleep with tape over your lips. Although it sounds outlandish, the idea has roots in ancient somatic breathwork practices that rely on nasal breathing for parasympathetic activation. Nitric oxide produced during nasal breathing shifts the body into a relaxed, restful state for improved general health.

Have you noticed that your ribs protrude more than they used to? A flared rib cage (AKA a rib flare) is easier to develop than you may think – and it’s nothing to ignore. If left unaddressed, rib flares lead to neck and back pain and may even cause further injury. Rib flares develop due to an underdeveloped Zone of Apposition, or ZOA, where the diaphragm and abdominal muscles meet. This happens for a variety of reasons, but shallow, poor breathing patterns are a huge contributor. Just like any muscle, the diaphragm weakens if you don’t use it. Nasal breathing not only properly engages the diaphragm, but it also activates our rest and digest response to help the body and mind de-stress. Moreover, the nose warms and filters the air we breathe. Our mouths, on the other hand, provide no filtration or humidification features for breathing. Moreover, mouth breathing places us in a stressed fight or flight state. The development of proper tongue posture is key when it comes to making the switch from mouth breathing to nasal breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing exercises further assist with strong breathing patterns and a stable core. Mouth tape ensures nasal breathing while you sleep, which prevents open-mouth snoring and promotes quality rest.

Stress is an everyday part of modern life. That said, the stress levels of today’s adults are swiftly on the rise. We’re seemingly feeling more anxiety and stress than ever before. Emerging research suggests that sighing helps to lower stress levels quickly. Cyclic sighing, also called the physiological sigh, has shown the most promise as an effective practice for reducing stress. A physiological sigh consists of an inhale followed by a second short inhale. A lengthy sigh exhaling all of the breath concludes one physiological sigh. Practicing three of these cyclic sighs may be all that’s standing between you and significant stress relief. Andrew Huberman recently put cyclic sighing to the test by comparing it to other breathwork and mindfulness techniques. The physiological sigh came out on top as providing the largest benefit for relieving stress – even beating out traditional mindfulness meditation.

Do you sleep on your back, stomach, or side? Sleeping on your stomach benefits your airway health by preventing snoring more than sleeping on your back. But it also places the spine in an unnatural position that leads to neck and back pain. Moreover, stomach sleeping may worsen wrinkles and skin irritation, as one side of your face is typically smashed into your pillow in this position. If you’re pregnant, stomach sleeping only intensifies your already aching joints. Sleeping on your side offers superior benefits for spine alignment, reducing pain across the body while offering the most support for an open airway while you rest. (Pregnant or not!) That means a lowered risk of snoring, which boosts your overall sleep quality. That said, if you breathe in and out of your mouth, snoring is still possible. Mouth tape provides an adequate lip seal that prevents open-mouth snoring. Therefore, side sleeping and mouth tape are a perfect match for achieving your best sleep yet.

Chances are, you were repeatedly told to sit up straight as a young child. Proper posture helps prevent back pain and misalignment throughout the body. That said, did you know that the posture of your tongue influences the positioning of your head and spine, too? Poor tongue posture leads to forward head posture, slouched shoulders, jaw pain, headaches, and more. But what makes or breaks tongue posture? A proper tongue posture includes sealed lips and slightly parted teeth with the tongue suctioned against the roof of the mouth at the front, middle, and back. This ensures nasal breathing over mouth breathing – which is great news for our airway health. Nasal breathing is the method of breathing we’re designed to use, but many of us are habitual mouth breathers, only worsening forward head and body posture. By maintaining proper tongue posture during the day, improved breathing and body posture follows. You can even work toward correcting forward head posture while sleeping by nasal breathing during the night with the help of mouth tape. While it may sound intimidating, mouth taping during sleep reinforces the proper lip seal and tongue posture required to keep the body in alignment.

Believe it or not, snoring isn’t normal. It’s usually a sign of sleep-disordered breathing that may lead to sleep apnea, which increases the risk of many harmful health conditions. Moreover, it interrupts our sleep (and the sleep of anyone we may share a bed or room with). So why has snoring become so popular? It’s the same root cause as the reason dental problems have become so commonplace: our jaws are shrinking. Over time, our skulls and airway have decreased in size due to our soft, processed modern diet. As a result, narrow palates, underdeveloped airway muscles, and improper tongue posture have become a modern epidemic. Without enough space for our tongues to rest, our mouths have fallen open more often than not, leading to mouth breathing. Mouth breathing causes over-breathing and leaves our air unfiltered, full of harmful pathogens and bacteria that wreak havoc on the immune system. Nasal breathing, on the other hand, leads to efficient breathing and nitric oxide production for better oxygenation. But as chronic mouth breathers, does mouth breathing treatment exist to help us make the switch?

Breathing exercises have gained popularity in recent years, but they’re actually rooted in ancient cultural practices centered around deep, controlled breathing. When we use our abdomen, or diaphragm, to breathe instead of our chest, our breathing transforms from shallow, fast breaths to slow, deep inhalations and exhalations. As a result, our bodies and brains shift out of a state of stress and into a state of relaxation. Countless abdominal breathing benefits follow, including improved mood, lessened pain, and even better digestion. Moreover, the more often you practice abdominal breathing, the stronger your lungs become. As the lungs strengthen, oxygenation improves, and boosted productivity and performance follow. If that wasn’t already exciting enough, deep breathing is linked to improved immunity and better sleep. Long story short, abdominal breathing is the quickest, most effective way to shift your mindset and physical body into a state of greater well-being.

It’s no surprise that we’re all chronically stressed. Our world is faster-paced than ever before, and it only seems to be moving quicker and quicker by the day. The majority of adults report that chronic stress impacts their physical and mental health. High stress is proven to cause depression, anxiety, heart problems, and more. Therefore, learning to manage our stress is key to managing our health. It may be as easy as breathing, according to recent research. Certain breathwork patterns are known to shift our mental states and invoke calming emotions. When we’re happy, we breathe slowly and deeply. Therefore, breathing slowly and deeply during periods of stress can shift the body and mind from overdrive into a relaxed state. Using breathing techniques to de-stress is not only simple to implement into your daily routine; it’s backed by scientific research as an effective tool for stress reduction.

Our circadian clocks run on a 24-hour rhythm. Disrupting this rhythm causes fragmented sleep, insomnia, grogginess, and more. Nobody likes feeling sleepy while trying to get everything done on our checklist during the day. That’s why an evening routine checklist is just as important as your daily calendar of tasks. The hour before bedtime is especially important, as it can either make or break your sleep quality if you aren’t utilizing it to relax and prepare for the night. Getting your eight hours is important, but if your eight hours aren’t full of quality sleep, you’re missing out. That’s why we’ve gathered seven things to do in the hour before bedtime to improve your sleep quality, duration, physical well-being, and mental health.