There is a long list of reasons why people breathe through their mouths at night, said Dr. Steven Park, a surgeon with a specialty in sleep medicine. “The most common reason is if your nose is stuffy,” Park said. “From allergies, or if you have a deviated septum. Lots of medications can also cause nasal congestion.”
People may sleep with their mouths open because it is a habit, but mouth breathing at night may also be a sign that something is interfering with normal breathing, particularly if it is accompanied by snoring. Nasal congestion or blockage is a common cause of mouth breathing.
If your mouth opens during the night, mouth taping can literally stop this from happening. Mouth taping involves placing a small piece of tape over your lips to keep your mouth closed while you sleep. It could be useful for those who are able to breathe through their nose, but have a bad habit of mouth breathing.
Some people breathe through their mouths almost exclusively, while others may have a medical condition (like sleep apnea) where they breathe through their mouths mostly at night. Occasional mouth breathing can be due to a temporary illness like a cold or other illness that has blocked the nasal passages.
Breathing through your mouth at night puts you at higher risk for sleep disorders including snoring, sleep apnea and hypopnea, the partial blockage of air, scientists have found. Each of those, in turn, can lead to daytime fatigue.
How does mouth breathing affect people? People who breathe through their mouth and not their nose are more likely to develop sleep disorders, including sleep apnea. Children who have mouth breathing are more likely to have dental problems like malocclusion and facial differences.
Long term mouth breathing can lead to a myriad of oral issues including crowded teeth, cracked lips, caries (or cavities), gum disease and more. But the issues don't stop at the mouth. Mouth breathers are also more likely to experience digestive issues, chronic fatigue, morning headaches and sore throat.
Causes of mouth breathing
Nasal blockages causes by cold, flu or allergies. Deviated septum or the cartilage divider between the nostrils is abnormal making it difficult to breath through the nose. Sleep apnea caused by enlarged adenoids or tonsils that indicate the collapse of soft tissue in the throat.
Anxiety. Being overly anxious and stressed out can make you more likely to breathe through your mouth, both at night and throughout the day. When you are anxious, your breathing is more likely to become rapid and shallow as well.
Minor problems include chronically dry lips, mouth, and teeth (which increases the propensity for cavities). More often, however, mouth breathing leads to crooked teeth, an underdeveloped jaw and poor development of the face. When the mouth is left open to breathe, the muscles in the cheeks become taut.
Facial structure: mouth-breathing can actually lead the bones of the face to develop differently, yielding flat features, drooping eyes, a narrow jaw and dental arch, and a small chin, gummy smiles, dental malocclusion, including a large overbite and crowded teeth, poor posture.
Mouth opening during sleep has been associated with increased upper airway collapsibility even in healthy subjects 7. This effect is thought to be mediated via a combination of upper airway narrowing and decreased efficiency of upper airway dilator muscle action 7.
They say it will stop you from snoring, give you more energy, deepen your sleep, boost your immunity, lower your blood pressure and even improve your appearance. Taping your mouth shut is designed to encourage you to breathe through your nose rather than your mouth.
Known as “tongue positioning,” there is a right and wrong way. When closing the mouth, the teeth should be slightly apart while the tongue rests on the roof of the mouth but not against the teeth. Not only does this correct form of tongue positioning ensure better oral health, but it also prevents teeth from shifting.
Snoring and mouth breathing are also potential indicators for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which are incidents where the body stops breathing very briefly, which will cause the body to wake up enough to start breathing again. Understandably, this is very disruptive and significantly impacts the quality of sleep.
“More than half of the people diagnosed with ADHD are mouth breathers. That is too significant a statistic to be a coincidence.” Understanding the connecting between mouth breathing and ADHD can help your child get the treatment they need.
Constantly breathing through the mouth, especially while sleeping, can be a sign that you can't get enough oxygen through your nose. Chronic mouth breathing is also associated with oral health issues like dry mouth, gum disease, and increased cavities.
OMB elongates and narrows the upper airway, which negatively affects the severity of OSA [6]. Therefore, a higher percentage of mouth-breathers is found among people with OSA. Humans preferentially breathe through the nasal route during the daytime and while sleeping for the benefit of physiological functions.
People with asthma tend to have a hard time breathing and feel as if they can't get enough oxygen with each breath. Because of this, many asthma patients will breathe out of their mouths instead of their noses, since they can get more air into the lungs this way.
For one thing, the nose is designed to capture moisture and those who breathe through an open mouth have a 42 per cent greater moisture loss. More moisture loss equals more dehydration, which equals more fatigue. "You cannot have a good night's sleep if you breathe through your open mouth," he says.
Nasal obstruction, nasal congestion, and a deviated septum are some of the most common reasons why you can't breathe through the nose at night.
Specific symptoms, including mouth breathing (all or much of the time), snoring, pulling/poking ears, ears going red, hearing being worse during a cold, and rarely listening, were significantly tied to high scores on all 15 autistic traits tested and with diagnosed autism.
Tests to detect sleep apnea include: Nocturnal polysomnography. During this test, you're hooked up to equipment that monitors your heart, lung and brain activity, breathing patterns, arm and leg movements, and blood oxygen levels while you sleep.