Sleep / Myth or fact?

Does taping your mouth shut reduce snoring?

Introductory · 2 min read · ■■□□ low evidence

Not enough evidence. A few small studies suggest that taping the mouth may reduce snoring. But they were done with few people and weak methods. So we can say neither "it works" nor "it does not work". For now the most honest answer is this: it has not been tested well enough.

What we know

• The idea behind it: if the mouth stays closed, you breathe through your nose and snore less. This is an expectation; a claim that needs testing.
• A systematic review published in 2025 (a study that brings together all the research on a topic) found only 10 suitable studies¹.
• Only two of them showed a significant improvement in pauses in breathing; the others found no difference¹.
• The review pointed to a risk of suffocation in people with a blocked nose, and considered the indiscriminate use of this trend a serious risk of harm¹.

What we do not know

• What happens with long-term use is not known.
• It has not been tested in children; whether it is safe in this age group is not known¹.
• People with a blocked nose were left out of most studies. So we also do not know what happens in the people most likely to try the tape¹.

No evidence is not the same as not working. The problem here is not that the tape has been shown not to work; it is that it has not been tested properly. But using an unproven method every night, especially with a blocked nose, may be a needless risk. If you want to know where snoring comes from, When does snoring matter? and the How snoring happens series are a good start.

@misc{nefesly2026doesmouthtapingreducesnoring,
  author = {{Nefesly}},
  title = {Does taping your mouth shut reduce snoring?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://nefesly.com/en/guide/does-mouth-taping-reduce-snoring/}},
  note = {Last updated 2026-10-29; accessed 2026-10-30}
}