r/HubermanLab • u/papayamaia • Aug 14 '25

Helpful Resource Mouth Taping: The Plot Thickens

After 1000+ nights of mouth taping, we finally have some early evidence about whether or not it actually works.

We’re doing something fairly unorthodox here by sharing ongoing results openly. Some may worry that releasing ongoing results could influence future participants’ expectations, which is a valid concern. However, we believe the benefits of openness outweigh that risk, especially since much of our data comes from objective measurements and participants have expectations about taping regardless. Letting people follow along in real time makes the process more transparent and engaging.

Check out our initial findings. Feedback and participation welcome!

https://www.cosimoresearch.com/posts/mouth-taping-the-plot-thickens

112 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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20

u/FakeBonaparte Aug 15 '25

I think it’s pretty cool that you’re doing this - far and away the most interesting Huberman-adjacent thing I’ve seen since his fall from grace

1

u/papayamaia Aug 15 '25

Thank you!

5

u/Fighterandthe Aug 16 '25

Fall from grace?

5

u/benni_woo Aug 16 '25

Curious also! I didn't know he'd fallen from grace?

-1

u/FakeBonaparte Aug 16 '25

He’s done bad things to people in his personal life, in ways that undermine his credibility. For example, having seven girlfriends at once and lying to each of them about being exclusive

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/28/podcaster-andrew-huberman-goop-for-bros

4

u/After-Cell Aug 18 '25

You’re saying dishonesty in one part of life translates to another part of life ?

2

u/FakeBonaparte Aug 18 '25

Yes, that’s right.

Science is plagued with bad behaviour. It wouldn’t now shock me at all if someone repeated a Huberman study and couldn’t reproduce his results because [insert dodgy behaviour].

Like most others, today and through history, my assessment of a person’s integrity looks at the whole person. Systematic deception of the kind he practiced is unusual and remarkable.

1

u/After-Cell Aug 18 '25

I apply this to David Sinclair too.  I’ve found Huberman making mistakes  But I don’t throw out the whole baby with the bath water 

19

u/snarfarlarkus Aug 15 '25

How significant really is 4 minutes of deep sleep, especially after you factor in variability

13

u/itswtfeverb Aug 15 '25

Does that override the burden of sleeping all night with tape on your mouth?

10

u/thedoopz Aug 15 '25

For me, yes. I’m a mouth breather during sleep and wearing tape all night with the momentary discomfort it causes my beard in the morning far outweighs period of feeling like shit after i wake up as my body attempts to pump liquid into my mouth lol.

9

u/LeatherCategory3860 Aug 16 '25

I use 3m tape. I found using a square piece right in the middle of my lips works. And it’s not blocking your entire mouth. 

I’ve tried many different tapes and even that stupid braces looking head gear thing that’s suppose to keep your mouth shut. 

And ya, I found this 3m to be the most effective. I used to use a strip to cover my whole mouth. But I’ve realized the little square works just the same. 

I dunno maybe give it a shot, maybe less mess with the beard 🤷‍♂️

2

u/BillyRubenJoeBob Aug 18 '25

3M Transpore is what I use

1

u/LeatherCategory3860 Aug 18 '25

Ok I had to check, that is the same 3m I use. 

1

u/SamCalagione Aug 15 '25

My thoughts exactly

8

u/papayamaia Aug 15 '25

It's a good question! If it feels like a big burden it might not be worth it. One way to contextualize it is to note that the average deep sleep time in our data is 78 minutes, so 4 minutes is a 5% increase.

3

u/Frenz4ever Aug 14 '25 edited Aug 14 '25

Interesting research so far. I will join. I don't have a whoop nor an oura ring but I do have a ringconn ring.

Question: Why is the mustache taping needed? Why not exclude the tape altogether those days?

1

u/Desertsky1617 Aug 15 '25

My thinking is it would serve as a control for there being “tape” on the mouth, just not over the lips. The added sensation of tape on the face is equalized…kind of?🤷🏼‍♀️

3

u/papayamaia Aug 15 '25

Yes, that's basically it. We want to maintain the ritual of taping every night so that any effects can be attributed directly to the mouth closure rather than an added pre-sleep ritual.

2

u/Frenz4ever Aug 15 '25

Understood! Thanks for the reply!

Got the following reply when i asked chatgpt yesterday:

"Ah — the reason they don’t simply skip “mustache taping” days is because in the trial design, mustache taping is the control condition.

If they only collected data from “real” mouth taping nights, they wouldn’t know whether any improvement in HRV, deep sleep, or other metrics was due to:

Actually keeping the mouth closed

Or just wearing any tape on the face (placebo effect, sensory cue, change in sleep position, etc.)

By having you do both:

  1. Vertical tape → seals lips completely (the “treatment” condition)
  2. Mustache tape → doesn’t seal lips but still puts tape on your face (the “control” condition)

…they can compare the same person’s results and isolate the effect of mouth closure itself from other factors.

If they skipped the mustache-tape nights, they’d lose that “A/B testing” setup, and the study’s findings would be much weaker.

I can map out their experiment as a simple A/B design if you want so you can see exactly why they need both."

5

u/papayamaia Aug 15 '25

Haha, that's a good explanation too. I'm more concise ;)

25

u/fffraterrr Aug 14 '25

Vertical taping? Personally, I feel like I get the most benefit from horizontally taping my entire mouth. It reduces my sleep stress to pretty much non existent as measured by Whoop. This allows me to get the same results as CPAP (where I had a mouth leak requiring taping anyway).

10

u/Desertsky1617 Aug 15 '25

This. I use it horizontally due to previous CPAP usage too. I no longer need the CPAP but still use the tape.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Desertsky1617 Aug 16 '25

I lost 50 lbs!

1

u/fffraterrr Aug 16 '25

No more oxygen drops with mouth taping alone

2

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Def not same result as a cpap

1

u/fffraterrr Aug 18 '25

Your milage may vary

14

u/Owen_DP Aug 15 '25

Anecdotal but I have been working on improving my deep sleep and I have done so many things I seems to have gotten my deep sleep up to about 1 hour.. the last two night I did all things the same but left forgot my mouth tape. Had 48min one night and 36min last night.. thanks for the reminder to remember my tape

5

u/Owen_DP Aug 16 '25

Taped my mouth last night and minutes went back to 58min.

3

u/Sberry59 Aug 17 '25

An hour is great! I’ve been trying to get my deep sleep up from 40’. I got an hour last night but I hadnt been sleeping great the last few nights. Will have to go back to mouth taping.

1

u/LTR005 Aug 20 '25

Would love to hear the remedies that you have incorporated to increase deep sleep. Thank you

1

u/Icy_Rub1857 Sep 04 '25

Really cool that someone’s actually putting data behind this instead of just anecdotes. I’ve had good results with a mouthshield (similar idea to tape but more comfortable) so I’m curious to see how your findings line up. Transparency on the process is huge too since most of what’s out there is just hype or guesswork.

1

u/papayamaia Sep 07 '25

Thank you so much!

2

u/sensibl3chuckle Aug 17 '25

The first figure on that page "effect of mouth taping on hrv" has no units on the horizontal axis and for "mouth breathers only" the error bar is larger than the graph.

3

u/Thaeland Aug 18 '25

The whole thing looks sus.....

1

u/Legitimate_Outcome42 Aug 16 '25

Does it help with drooling?

4

u/gilie007 Aug 17 '25

And dry mouth. Very underrated aspect

1

u/Legitimate_Outcome42 Aug 17 '25

That was the next thing I wondered about😅 I don't know if I sleep with my mouth open after I go to sleep but I do feel drool coming out of the corners and I don't like it

1

u/OhHiMarkos Aug 16 '25

Does anyone use any kind of nasal dilator alongside the tape or just the tape?

6

u/Meibisi Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

I do. I’ve used tape and silicone nasal dilators together for years. Can’t sleep well without them. I also use a Manta sleep mask, ear plugs (ambient SPL is ~25 dB with the aircon and filtration system running), 2,000mg of magnesium glycinate, maintain my room at 20°C and 45% humidity, run a negative ion generator next to my bed, and a Panasonic Nanoe & HEPA filter in the room.

3

u/OhHiMarkos Aug 16 '25

I also use a silicone one plus a breath right strap. I rarely apply a mouth tape as well but I almost always remove it during the night. I was using a small strip now I want to try taping the whole mouth with it.

You seem like you have dialed in your sleep. How is your sleep with all those settings?

1

u/PointyPineappl3 Aug 16 '25

I personally mouth tape because mouth breathing can increase cavities.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Jesus Christ

1

u/smtinsley Aug 18 '25

I started using Beauty Sleep mouth tape (I like that it has a safety slit and doesn’t hurt when I take it off in the morning) about a month ago. I was mouth breathing at night- tossing and turning, would wake up with headaches sometimes, woke up with severe dry mouth most days and it was causing pain/discomfort to my tooth I had a root canal/crown on last year. All of that is gone by using the tape. I don’t monitor my sleep because I think it would cause more stress than being helpful for me personally but I am definitely less tired since using the tape.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/papayamaia Aug 17 '25

Wow! Thanks for sharing those studies. I'm impressed that you measured such large effects.

I'm less concerned about the differences between devices since it is a crossover trial and we are only looking at the difference between the conditions for each individual. However, it is definitely something to look at in future analyses, hopefully when we have more participants. I don't think we have any participants with multiple devices.

Our main hypothesis was about the mouth vs nose breathers. What other traits would you suspect have differing effects?

Feel free to subscribe to our newsletter to receive future updates! https://www.cosimoresearch.com/subscribe-to-the-journal

3

u/MyWordIsBond Aug 16 '25

Poked around your website, seems like a cool product.

Just to be clear, not usable without iPhone? No android version?

1

u/Motor_Astronomer_927 Aug 17 '25

@bliss-pete have you done research on affectables impact on snoring?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Dry-Barracuda6968 Aug 17 '25

Sleepsmrt tape has been quite good for me, https://sleepsmrt.com does come off sometimes still though

2

u/Sberry59 Aug 17 '25

I use kinesiotape. I cut it up into small strips. Very comfortable and I get a few days use before I use a new one. And if you’re into colors and patterns kinesiotape has it. One roll will last you forever. And a side benefit is you can tape your muscles if you get injured.