Last spring, wellness mogul Gwyneth Paltrow took to Instagram to announce she’d discovered that the secret to optimum sleep was taping her mouth shut before bed.
“Breathing through your nose at night apparently creates alkalinity in the body and promotes best quality sleep,” Gwyneth declared. She shared a photo of the tape she uses ($37.50 for 90 strips) and unleashed an army of copycats who echoed her enthusiasm across the internet.
Sleep expert Dr Carmel Harrington says the kernel of science at the heart of this viral craze is that when you breathe through your nose, you humidify and warm the air before it hits your lungs. But you don’t need to spend almost $40 on designer tape to reap the benefits. “We are all natural nose breathers,” Dr Harrington says. “If you’re not a nasal breather, there might be a reason, so don’t go and tape up night after night, and ignore the underlying issues.”
Using a thin piece of surgical tape to keep your mouth shut can provide short-term relief from some sleep conditions, Dr Harrington says, but sealing your mouth shut horizontally with a big strip of tape is pointless at best, dangerous at worst.
As a sleep researcher, Dr Harrington gets frustrated when
