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Sleeping With Mouth Open-Why it’s bad?

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Do you sleep with mouth open? Do you snore loudly or wake up frustrated every day? If yes, then unfortunately, these harmful health concerns are contributing to mouth breathing. You may not realize that sleeping with mouth open can actually be a complex health condition. You must check it out by your dentist and physician.

Read: Here’s why Good Sleep is necessary

How long have you been sleeping with mouth open? Read on to learn about why it’s better to breath through your nose than mouth, mouth breathing causes, how to stop sleeping with your mouth open, and risk factors of open mouth sleeping.

How do you know if you are breathing through your mouth?

Mouth breathing can change your face shape and even jaw posture. This is most often observed in children due to their continued rapid growth. It may lead to narrow, long faces with regressed cheekbones, lower jaw, and chin. As a result, teeth become crooked and smiles look gummier. The condition can also affect your posture due to the facial and skeletal issues connected to breathing issues. To breathe easily, the airway must not be closed.

You will come to know if you are breathing through your mouth with the help of these symptoms:

  • Poor sleep –can cause chronic fatigue
  • Red or inflamed gums
  • Crowded teeth –may become long term if left untreated
  • Brain fog
  • Dry mouth
  • Improper Facial Growth & Skeletal Deformities
  • Digestive upset
  • Cavities –increases your risk of getting cavities
  • Snoring
  • Dark circles under the eyes
  • Morning headaches
  • Dry lips
  • Frequent airway infections
  • Sore throat
  • Cold symptoms
  • Bad breath (halitosis)
  • Hoarseness
  • Waking up tired and irritable

Why You Should Breathe Through Your Nose?

The nose is a seductive organ that deserves to be studied more. It acts as air sludge and traps small patches in the air, such as pollen. It also adds humidity to the lungs and bronchial tubes when necessary. Breathing through nose warms up cold air before you breathe them into your lungs. The nose also makes breathing problematic by adding barrier to the inhaled breath. This helps keep you healthy because maximum oxygen uptake may strengthen lung stiffness.

What are the causes of mouth breathing?

Sleeping with mouth open may lead to compressed lower jaw, and chin.
Sleeping with mouth open

Can anxiety cause mouth breathing? And do allergies cause mouth breathing too? In this section, we’ll address these questions and several more to explore the various causes of mouth breathing.

1. Anxiety

Being excessively anxious and stressed out can make you more likely to breathe through your mouth, both at night and throughout the daytime. When you’re nervous, your breathing is more likely to come quick and depthless as well.

2. Allergies

Whether you are sensitive to pollen, pet dander, or dust, allergies are another common reason of mouth breathing. Allergies develop when the vulnerable system attacks a foreign substance to defend you, even though if that substance is actually safe. It can be really touchy to breathe through the nose when you’re suffering from allergy symptoms like a runny nose or blockage.

Read: Top 8 Home Made Remedies for Skin Allergy and Itching

3. Cold and Flu

When you have a common deep freeze with nasal blockage, it’s necessary to breathe through the mouth to get the oxygen your body needs. Mouth breathing due to a cold or the flu is completely normal and to be awaited. With a deep freeze, the sinuses can become blocked and avert proper air outflow through the nose. Mouth breathing in this circumstance is generally not a cause for concern.

4. Asthma

Asthma is caused by an inflammation in the lungs and repeatedly causes shortness of breath and panting. Individuals with asthma are more likely to breathe through their mouth to conform to these symptoms.

5. Cleft Palate

Cleft lip and palate are birth flaws that affect the structure of the mouth. It develops during the sixth and ninth weeks or gestation and occurs when the tissue of the roof of the mouth doesn’t join thoroughly. Part of the palate can be may not be closed, or both the front and rear of it can be open. Either way, mouth breathing is more common in babies born with this condition until it’s surgically repaired.

6. Nasal Polyps

The growths on the inner filling of your sinuses are known as nasal polyps. These growths are usually painless, delicate, and benign. They’re also said to occur grapes on a stem. Recurring infections, allergies, asthma, and immune diseases can cause nasal polyps. But they can also cause by the breathing problems. To make it easier and preferable, you should breathe through the mouth rather of the nose.

7. Tongue Tie

In this condition, a tongue may abnormally tether in the mouth. It can make moving the tongue more sensitive than normal and lead to mouth breathing. Although, a tongue tie can also forbid you from opening your mouth extensively to eat and speak well, if left untreated. It can also bring about pain in the jaw, migraines, and make you more sensitive about your appearances.

8. Sleep Apnea

This is a medical concern causing you to respire through mouths at night. Obstructive sleep apnea develops when the upper airway in the body is constantly blocked during sleep period. This can limit the air partly or entirely, hence blocking the brain from taking signals that the body needs air.

9. Deviated Nasal Septum

This is a medical condition described by the nasal septum being crooked or off- center. The nasal septum is the cartilage and bone that may break up the nasal hole in half and helps in normal breathing.

Risk factors for mouth breathing

Have you developed a habit of breathing through your mouth? Note that certain conditions are on their way to increase your risk of chronic allergies, hay fever, chronic or recurring sinus infections, asthma, and chronic stress and anxiety.

How to Stop Mouth Breathing?

Have you realized now that you are sleeping with your mouth open? If you are doing it on a regular basis, what should you look for now? It’s better to take action right away to correct the behavior. Make an intentional effort to breathe through your nose during the daytime while you are awake. It will ultimately help practice your body to breathe this way while you are asleep. To help you remember breathing through the nose, you can set a reminder on your phone or smart watch.

Additionally, there are a few ways to stop mouth breathing as well. Let’s have a look on them!

1. Clear the nose blockage

It may feel obvious. But you may breathe through mouth because your nose is blocked. By blowing your nose or using a nasal wash, you can open your nasal route of blockages.

2. Reduce stress

When you are stressed, your breathing is faster. You’re more likely to take deep breaths through your mouth during stressful conditions. You may require seeing a doctor or changing your surroundings. But, remember, reducing stress will help you refine the way you breathe.

3. Practice

Try breathing in through your nose and breathing out through mouth. What has likely cut you off from breathing appropriately may not your lack of knowledge about breathing ways. It’s more probably that you just need to be conscious and practice.

4. Use the right pillows

Even so, you should try making over the height of your head. If you struggle with mouth breathing during sleeping, use the right pillows. Prop your head up with an extra pillow or you can use a thicker pillow as well.

5. visit a therapist

A myofunctional therapist helps by using exercises to retrain your facial muscles to work in a way that improves your breathing.

6. Surgery

Do you feel a problem with how your nose is constructed? If the above indications don’t work, talk to your doctor about the surgeries that are available. It might signify the difference between breathing appropriately and being a mouth breather the rest of your life.

7. Exercise

By exercising regularly or just a day-to-day walk or run, you’ll boost your need for deep breaths. Your nose will naturally take the breathing down from your mouth.

Read: How Yoga Can Ensure better Sleep?

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