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If there’s one popular theme that I get asked about in relation to breath it’s: sleep! Oh boy do we want to get better sleep…or actually what we really want is to wake up better.

There’s countless ways to improve your sleep quality with use of conscious breathing but by far the most simple way is to improve your nasal breathing during the night. Especially if you snore or mouthbreathe, then switching to nasal breathing can help you…

– sleep deeper
– get up with more energy
– have less wakeful moments at night
– stay hydrated better
– start the day with less stress
– have better overall recovery

Sadly though….most of us have blocked nasal airways due to chronic stress, allergies and suboptimal lifestyle. I sure do! To get out of this negative spiral there’s 3 tools that I use every day to keep my mouth shut and my nose open. And I’ll tell you all about them in this video!

Tools mentioned in the video:
https://www.intakebreathing.com
https://faceformer.de/en/
https://www.snorelab.com

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE VIDEO

do you wake up tired with a dry

mouth and a groggy brain and do you feel

like you need to drink

a liter of water and five espressos to

get your brain ready to go

well then i have bad news for you

because you might be doing

one of the worst things for your health

the entire night which is

mouth breathing and in this video i want

to share

with you three very simple tools that

will

allow you to have better quality breath

throughout the night now if you’ve been

following me for a while you know

that i am habitually a bad

nose breather and you know that nose

breathing is one of the

most important factors for optimal

health

so your nose and i’ll just very quickly

go through the benefits of nose

breathing your nose is a filter

it filters out pathogens and fine dust

and all kinds of crap that’s in the air

that you do not want in your lungs it

humidifies the air

so to make sure that you have the

optimal humidity in the air

to be received in your lungs and it also

air conditions the air actually funny

yesterday my daughter

was laying in bed breathing and she was

like hey why is my

air from my nose cold and the air from

my mouth warm have you ever wondered

this well it’s because

your nose makes sure that the

temperature of the air is regulated so

it

comes into the optimal temperature to be

received in the lungs

through your nose and then lastly but

very

very much not leastly is

nitric oxide which is an amazing

chemical that is produced in your nasal

sinuses

that relaxes the smooth muscle tissue in

your airways and opens up your lungs

which is also actually an anti-viral

chemical because it destroys

a lot of pathogens on impact so every

breath through the nose is in all of

these ways

better than a mouth breath which does

none of this

now most people have learned to

habitually breathe through the mouth and

i’m one of them

i used to have allergies for many years

i used to be a smoker

and i’ve just had so many different

inflammatory issues in my body

that have caused my nasal mucosa to

swell up and

to block my airways which has led to a

negative spiral of being

less capable of breathing through my

nose which causes me to do

more mouth breathing throughout the

night and the more you breathe through

your mouth

the less you are capable of breathing

through your nose because your body

adapts to function

right so that’s some of the background

on nose breathing so learning how to

switch to nose breathing is an amazing

way to improve your overall health

chronic mouth breathing snoring and

sleep apnea have been linked even to

neurodegenerative diseases and

less concentration less rem sleep less

restorative sleep

more inflammation more susceptibility to

viruses and all this

stuff that we don’t want now the cool

thing is a lot of people ask me what is

the best way to start with a breathing

practice and if you are a mouth

breathing

during the night then just being able to

sleep with your mouth

closed will give you seven to eight

hours of high quality breathing practice

as opposed to seventy

seven to eight hours of disease and bad

health promoting

mouth breathing practice right so all

you need to do is shut your mouth

the entire night um and then you will

have all of these benefits

especially if you are a snorer or you

have sleep apnea or you wake up multiple

times in the night with a dry mouth and

having to pee then

improving your nasal breathing is the

way to go

now i have three tools that i want to

show you that make this easier

i do want to say that having a breathing

practice and slowing down your breath

and calming down your breath

before you go to sleep is one very

important

place to start but i just want to show

you some of the tools that i use now

first of all

and this is one that people always kind

of giggle about is mouth taping and it’s

becoming more and more popular

you can do it with many different types

of tape this is just

a physiotherapist tape their surgical

tape there’s kinesiology tape just pick

a kind of tape

that is not irritating to the human skin

now

i have in emergencies used duct tape or

a gaffer tape like this

which is not a good idea i can’t

recommend it the glue sticks to your

lips and it

irritates the skin but hey to me it’s

better than a knife mouth breathing at

least

so this is um a very simple

tape that you could even find in a first

aid kit this one’s called omnifix but

there’s also one called kinesiology tape

there’s one called 3m

micropore there’s many different types

so as long as you get one that sticks

easily to skin and doesn’t irritate the

skin you’re good

now there’s two ways to do this

basically i take

so this is a very wide strip and there’s

two ways to do it or multiple ways to do

it but these are my favorites

so one way to do it is to cut two very

small strips and what you basically do

is well first of all apparently you lose

the first strip oh i found it

and you take these and you stick them on

both

sides of the center of your lips like

that you could even have them shorter i

could probably even

yeah cut this in half and put it on both

sides but you basically have it like

this on your lips

you stick it and then the thinner that

if you do this

it gives a lot of people peace of mind

because if you just have this as a

reminder to keep your lip shut and

keeping it together

you could still on the side open your

mouth

and breathe through your mouth and talk

if you’re worried that you’re going to

suffocate and that’s kind of the first

worry that people come up with

if they talk about mouth taping they

don’t even worry about the contraceptive

qualities of mouth taping

and all of the things that i’m going to

show you today are great contraceptives

that make you look very weird

and your significant other is going to

have to get used to this but

hey most likely will improve your

snoring

and recently i mentioned this in a

workshop and then a few months later

i got an email from a lady saying you

saved my marriage

my husband started mouth taping or i

think she started

taping her husband’s mouth and now we

can sleep in the same bed again

anyway so you can take these two strips

if you’re worried about suffocation then

you can just put them like this and then

you can still breathe on the side

if needed now i have taped my mouth for

over two years and i know countless

people who do it and it’s always

been completely safe and nobody has ever

called me that they had suffocated

during the night because this tape comes

off fairly easily

now what you can also do is make a

little bit of a wider strip

and this fits precisely over my lips

and it is of course wise to make sure if

you’re worried about suffocation it’s

of course in a way it’s a realistic fear

because you’re cutting your you’re

taping your mouth shut um but

you have to um trust that your tape will

come off fairly easily

so make sure you have a tape that you

can test whether it comes off and the

way you test it is you basically you put

it on your lips like this

and then you try to open your mouth like

that all right

oh

that was pretty easy and it didn’t even

hurt that much so now

if you have your tape and you just do

that and it pops off easily then you

know you have

nothing to worry about and if you ever

feel like you need to

breathe better breathe through your

mouth during the night you will just

open your mouth and you’ll be fine

right now in the beginning actually it’s

a hassle to even keep it on because most

people are so unused to having this tape

on their mouth at the first week

they might keep opening it up and you

wake up with like tape stuck to your

forehead and

you’re like where did my tape go so it

takes a while to get used to

and this really allows you to help your

keep your lips

shut which for most people also gives

you a better

mouth and jaw position where you

naturally keep your lips shut

now there’s many ins and outs of this

but that’s

the basics you can try it out and if you

feel like in the beginning your nose is

still too blocked to be able to use this

to breathe properly then

keep at it that’s the only way uh to

kind of keep going right so

as soon as you you will start to breathe

more through your nose your body will

start to adapt and you’ll start to be

able to breathe

more through your nose and your nose

will slowly start to open up but like i

said

i have mouth taped for two years and my

nasal breathing still isn’t optimal

some nights my nose feels a bit too

clogged and then i have to do

a lot of breathing practice slow hypo

ventilative breathing practice to open

my nose

but i also have another tool for that

which i will explain in the end of this

video

and it just takes a while it takes a

while to adapt but it’s worth the effort

and it’s worth

keeping on so that your nose will open

up and of course go slow

don’t force yourself don’t push yourself

take it easy and you can also go like

you know one night on and one night off

with the mouth taping well that’s one

way to go

but then actually after this whole rant

in mouth taping i must confess that it

didn’t

solve all of my problems apparently i’m

a very very talented snorer

and i can even snore with my mouth taped

shut and actually 9 out of 10 people

that

start doing this practice they have

their snoring disappears right away and

they’re like oh my god you solved my

snoring and i’m like ah

what about my snoring apparently i’m

very good at snoring

so then i found another amazing tool

which is tool number two which is called

the

face former my daughter calls it

daddy’s pacifier because it looks like a

pacifier

and actually one of my followers

recommended this to me who’s an

orthodontist and i was very grateful for

this tip

i have next to mouth taping i’ve also

been

in omft oral myofunctional therapy for

about a year in order to improve

my facial muscles so the sphincter

around my mouth for example that allows

the

mouth to stay shut but also the position

of the tongue

the way that you swallow your swallowing

technique all of that

plays a huge role in the ability to nose

breathe and even in the way that your

skull takes shape so i’ve

been spending a lot of time on these

different therapy therapy forms that

train the facial muscles and in general

it makes you better at breathing which

makes you better at life

it’s also funny to kind of notice that

i’m bad at all the simple stuff like

i thought i was at least you know

capable of doing the basics i’m 35 years

old i run two companies but i can’t

breathe

i can’t swallow and i can’t properly

sleep so that’s when i started really

fixing this stuff now the face former is

a strength training tool

for the muscles in your face which means

that it is

so motorically and neurologically

improving the

quality of your facial structures which

will not only make you look better over

time but will especially train you

to naturally keep your mouth shut and be

better at nose breathing

instead of relying on a piece of tape to

keep it

together with this thing over time you

will train to keep the thing

in the correct position it’s very simple

it costs 20 or 30 euros

you wear it like this again great

contraceptive

oh god and um but what you basically do

is you contract your

uh your mouth muscles to squeeze this

thing together like that

and you do it a few seconds on a few

seconds off

one set of training takes four to six

minutes depending on

your training you do it three times a

day and in the beginning your mouth gets

really sore it’s a really intense way to

train

and it really makes you realize how weak

these muscles are but over time you

notice your muscles getting stronger you

can start to wear it at night and i’ve

been wearing this at night

and since the first uh night that i

started wearing this i actually uh

snored well nothing the first few weeks

and every now and then i have

a few minutes of snoring and i keep

track of my snoring

uh in an app that i forgot the name of

but i’ll

post it down below but there’s different

snoring tracker apps that

record your snoring during the night and

then you have feedback you can quantify

it

so this has been a great tool for me the

cool thing is that it doesn’t have to

stick

so as soon as you’ve done enough

training with these phase muscles your

facial muscles will naturally

keep this thing in place keep your mouth

shut improve your facial

facial muscles improve your nasal

breathing improve the entire structure

of your

face which is good news because we like

faces don’t we

so that’s another great tool and then

lastly i have over here the

intake breathing tool this is uh

something that i got really excited

about i supported that kickstarter way

back

by the way i’m not affiliated with any

of the any of these companies this is

just stuff that i use

literally every day what this is is

it is a bunch of wipey cloths and then

there is an

applicator tool and then there’s this

bridge that will go over your nose

and then there’s some band-aids with

little pieces of metal in it

and then these pieces of metal they

click into the magnets on this bridge

and they open your nose and i just want

to quickly show you

how much that opens nasal patches

because my main issue

is that my nasal passage is blocked i

have tried

thousands of things i’ve had balloons up

my nose cameras up my nose i’ve had

surgeons who wanted to cut my nose open

and i believe in

constant practice relentless forward

progress on the thing you want to

achieve and not in quick fixes

so i’ve been training and practicing

it’s getting better and better

every month but i still use this because

it gives me so much of a better nasal

airflow

so i every night this is part of my

evening ritual i take this applicator

with a magnet on it and then take off

these little

bend eddy thingies and then i stick this

on the side of my nose

like that see if i can get it on the

right position without a mirror yep

that works and then of course i’ll do

the other side

now most people will over time very

quickly

improve the space in their nose

significantly

enough at least to start to do more

nasal breathing through the night

or in general but i apparently need more

help and i have some other treatments

and experiments that i’m working on

but check this out so this is this is my

nose you’ve been looking at for a while

it’s not very wide it’s quite narrow

actually

and then i stick this on and look what

happens

boom airflow airflow

baby good stuff and again great

contraceptive

i look like a weirdo i have a pacifier

like this i have a nose bridge and then

i also wear a mask

to block out all the light i have many

more sleep hacks that i’ll do more

videos about

but these are the three ways that you

can start to

work to increase your nasal

airflow during the night and to keep

your mouth shut and the combination of

those will allow you to have

however long you sleep hopefully seven

to eight hours of blissful

nurturing health promoting um high

quality

nose breathing which will allow you to

wake up with less moisture lost

with less of your immune system

challenge with less sympathetic tone

more parasympathetic tone more rest in

your nervous system

and just a much better oxygenation

feeling better rested

having higher quality sleep and being

ready to kick ass

in your day so you can try these things

out

simple mouth taping it’s basically free

this thing

is whatever 20 or 30 euros or dollars

it’s cheap tool

and then the intake is a little bit more

expensive and one downside

about this is of course that every day i

have to discard

band-aids and you know the the

discardable parts of this

are really something that are bugging me

um

and to me for now it’s a necessary evil

i live completely like flat

plastic free and i try to live as waste

free as possible and this is the only

thing left in my life that is not

in line with my waste free way of living

which bothers me a lot but

um yeah definitely the amount of better

nasal breathing that i get through the

night is

worth it now like i said i’m working on

some other experiments to

massively increase my nasal breathing

capacity and in the future i will share

more about this

but for now thank you for your attention

i hope you will be happily nose

breathing

tonight and that your significant other

will accept all this weird stuff

on your face in um as a trade for

less snoring and just more peaceful

nights so i hope you enjoy that

let me know in the comments what your

thoughts are and if there’s any way that

you are improving your nasal breathing

through the night because i’d love to

learn more

and i hope to see you soon peace out

 

Written by Kasper

“The Breathwork Biohacker”

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