I used to snore.
Not loudly.
Not loud enough that I was desperately looking into ways to fix it.
But loud enough that it bothered my wife while she was trying to sleep.
Now I don't snore at all.
What happened?
Well it was a total accident actually.
I read a book called "Breathe" by James Nestor.
As the title suggests, the book is all about the breathe and breathing.
It talks about how important it is to our health to breathe correctly.
The main focus on the book is mouth breathing - how terrible it is for your health and how it creates all sorts of issues.
He actually does an experiment in the book where he only breathes through his mouth for 30 days, and his health deteriorates so rapidly they consider stopping the experiment early.
Within days of the experiment ending and breathing through his nose again his health has returned to normal.
So what does he conclude we can learn from this book?
Well first of all, if you breathe through your mouth 24/7, stop. Immediately.
However, most of us don't breathe through our mouth 24/7, so that doesn't help.
A few mouth breathes here and there during exercise won't hurt you either, so that doesn't help.
However, we sleep 8 hours a day. 1/3 of our life.
And if you are like I was before reading this book, you breathe through your mouth while you sleep.
8 hours of mouth breathing each day.
Terrible.
Certainly something that can be improved.
A few side effects of mouth breathing while you sleep can be, waking up with a stuffy nose, sore throat, dry mouth, dehydration, needing to pee during the night, bad breathe, getting sick more often...
...and of course snoring.
So what can we do about it?
Well to save you reading the entire book, the biggest, and almost only actionable insight from the book is to tape your mouth closed while you sleep.
The entire book is basically all about how bad mouth breathing is and how good nose breathing is.
By the end of it you never want to breathe through your mouth again.
So after finishing the book, I started taping my mouth closed while I slept.
The first night was pathetic.
The tape lasted around 10 minutes before I ripped it off.
The second night wasn't much better, I lasted around 30 minutes.
Then the next night I lasted a couple of hours.
By the end of the week I was going the full night.
I have now been taping my mouth closed while I sleep, every night, for well over a year.
I can't sleep without it.
I no longer wake up with a stuffy nose, sore throat, and bad breathe
Well maybe that last one was a lie but I really do sleep better, get sick less and feel better in general.
I also don't snore anymore.
However, there was one issue.
There wasn't a tape designed specifically for taping your mouth closed while you sleep.
Regular tape is not strong enough to stay on all night.
And tape that is strong enough to stay on all night has another issue, it hurts and can pull the skin off your lips when removing it.
So this story is a little bit like our sleep mask.
I wanted to start sleeping better on night shift with a good sleep mask and couldn't find one on the market.
I also wanted to help other night shift workers like my wife sleep better.
So I created the best sleep mask.
Well now after sleeping with mouth tape for over a year, and seeing first hand just how much my sleep and health have improved, I want to share it with my favourite group of people who want to improve their sleep and health - you!
So after struggling for a year to find a good tape, I created one for myself, and for others who want to tape their mouth while they sleep.
It's strong enough to stay on all night.
Porous and breathable.
And comes off without damaging your lips.
It includes 30 easy to use strips so that you don't need scissors next to your bed.
Just peel a strip off, apply it and you are ready to sleep.
The strips are shaped perfectly to cover your mouth, but also allow you to breathe out the sides of your mouth if needed so you aren't suffocated like a hostage.
If you want to try them you can view them here:
Click the button above to view our mouth tape designed specifically for sleeping.
