Let’s face it, getting a good night’s sleep in this day and age often feels like an elusive dream. Many of us struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep, often lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering why sleep seems so hard to come by.
Although stress, anxiety, and the constant buzz of technology all contribute to sleepless nights and tiring mornings, what many people don’t realize is that their breathing plays a crucial role in how well they sleep. Yes, indeed, improper breathing habits can also affect sleep.
This article will reveal the powerful connection between proper breathing and better sleep. We will discuss breathing techniques and tips to help you relax, fall asleep faster, and enjoy deeper, more restorative sleep. With World Breathing Day on April 11, there’s no better time to learn how the power of breathing can improve your nights and energize your days.
The Role of Breathing in Sleep
To understand the role of breathing in sleep, it is crucial to learn about the sleep cycles. Sleep is divided into cycles, each with distinct phases. You generally move through Non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and REM sleep several times a night.
Non-REM sleep includes stages 1 to 3, where your body transitions from light to deep sleep. This phase is essential for physical repair. In the REM stage, your brain is active, and dreaming typically occurs. This is important for emotional regulation and memory consolidation.
During sleep, your breathing naturally becomes slower and deeper, creating a rhythm that guides your body through various sleep cycles. This gentle, effortless breathing pattern ensures efficient oxygen delivery, promotes deep relaxation, and enables your body to perform its essential overnight repair and restoration processes.
This happens as your body’s metabolic needs decrease. For example, your oxygen demands increase during exercise or pregnancy, so it naturally decreases during rest and especially during sleep. This reduction in breathing volume is not only normal but essential for proper sleep.
Normal breathing for a resting adult is between 4-8 liters of air per minute, with 12-14 breaths per minute and a tidal volume (amount of air per breath) of 500-600ml. During sleep, these values should decrease even further, allowing your body to enter the deep, restorative stages of sleep necessary for recovery and repair.
When your breathing is irregular or too heavy during sleep, whether through shallow breathing or the pauses seen in sleep apnea, it triggers repeated awakenings that prevent deep, restorative sleep. These disruptions activate your body’s stress response, which keeps your brain active and alert—making it difficult to fall or stay asleep.
These interruptions prevent your body from entering the deep sleep stages essential for recovery, leading to fatigue. Beyond just causing fatigue, poor nighttime breathing increases your risk of serious health problems, including heart issues and mood disorders.
Mouth Breathing vs. Nasal Breathing During Sleep
One of the most common yet overlooked breathing issues affecting sleep is mouth breathing. Research indicates that about 17% of adults habitually breathe through their mouths, with this percentage increasing with age. If you frequently wake up with a dry mouth, you’re likely breathing through your mouth while you sleep.
Nasal breathing is far superior for sleep quality because:
- The nose filters humidifies, and warms incoming air, optimizing oxygen exchange
- Nasal breathing supports proper tongue and throat muscle positioning, reducing the risk of airway collapse
- The smaller nasal passages naturally limit air volume, preventing over-breathing.
It is clear that nose breathing improves sleep. However, breathing through the mouth during sleep requires 2.5 times more effort than nasal breathing, despite feeling easier. The tongue drops from the roof of the mouth, the jaw hinges downward, and the throat narrows—all increasing the likelihood of snoring, sleep apnea, and other sleep disorders. Studies have found that even partial nasal obstruction can increase apnea episodes more than fourfold.
Furthermore, people who over-breathe often experience disrupted sleep, along with symptoms such as shortness of breath, cold extremities, anxiety, and panic. Over time, this dysfunctional breathing pattern can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, and sleep-disordered breathing.
How Daytime Breathing Habits Affects Your Sleep
The way we breathe during the day can significantly affect our sleep quality at night. Many people habitually breathe too fast, too heavily, and high in the chest, often through the mouth. These patterns don’t just vanish at bedtime; they persist into sleep, disrupting rest and contributing to problems like snoring and sleep apnea. Essentially, these habits signal to the body that it’s in a state of stress, preventing the relaxation needed for deep, restorative sleep.
Our breathing rate and depth are controlled by our body’s response to carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels. When CO₂ builds up in the blood, it prompts the brain to signal for deeper breaths. People with heightened CO₂ sensitivity tend to breathe more rapidly and heavily, even when at rest.
This pattern continues during sleep, increasing turbulence in the airways and resistance, which can lead to snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. Mouth breathing makes things worse by causing the tongue to block the airway and drying out the mouth and throat, leading to further disruptions.
Common Breathing Problems That Disrupt Sleep
Your nighttime breathing patterns directly influence your sleep quality and overall health. When breathing becomes disrupted during sleep, it triggers a cascade of problems that prevent restorative rest.
1. Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea occurs when breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. When you inhale, negative suction pressure can cause your upper airways to collapse—similar to a paper straw collapsing when you suck too hard. This interrupts oxygen flow until your brain partially wakes you with a loud gasp. Sleep apnea affects 26% of men and 9% of women aged 30-49, causing daytime fatigue, morning headaches, and dry mouth while doubling the risk of sudden cardiac death during sleep. This dangerous condition also significantly increases cardiovascular risks.
2. Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome
This condition involves airway narrowing that doesn’t completely block breathing but creates increased respiratory effort. The resulting pressure changes and micro-arousals prevent deep, restorative sleep without necessarily causing observable apneas. Many people with this syndrome experience sleep disruption but may not be captured by traditional sleep studies that focus primarily on complete breathing stoppages.
3. Insomnia
Irregular or fast breathing activates your body’s stress response, making falling or staying asleep difficult. Research shows that slow, controlled breathing before bedtime increases parasympathetic (relaxation) activity and melatonin production, helping to counteract the “tired but wired” feeling many insomniacs experience. Neural circuits in the brain respond to fast, irregular breathing by triggering wakefulness, a defense mechanism that, unfortunately, works against quality sleep.
4. Snoring
Snoring occurs when large volumes of air move through narrowed airways, creating turbulence. While traditional treatments focus on widening airways, addressing daytime breathing patterns can significantly reduce snoring intensity. Switching to nasal breathing often resolves mouth snoring completely, as it’s physically impossible to snore through a closed mouth.
5. Mouth Breathing
Research clearly shows mouth breathing significantly worsens sleep quality. It’s a strong determinant of sleep apnea even in people without nasal obstruction, and mouth breathers experience worse oxygen desaturation than nasal breathers. While nasal breathing filters air, produces nitric oxide and supports proper oxygen utilization, mouth breathing bypasses these benefits and often leads to disrupted sleep architecture and increased sympathetic nervous system activation.
6. Anxiety-Induced Breathing Patterns
Anxiety triggers upper chest breathing and increased respiratory rate, activating the sympathetic “fight-or-flight” response. This physiological state directly opposes the parasympathetic dominance needed for sleep onset. The resulting feeling creates a frustrating cycle where anxiety about sleep itself perpetuates the very breathing patterns that make sleep impossible.
Other signs of sleep-disordered breathing include nightmares, nighttime asthma symptoms, frequent bathroom trips, bedwetting in children, morning fatigue, and dry mouth upon waking.
Effective Breathing Practices to Improve Sleep
If you recognize that your breathing has been affecting your sleep, here are three practical techniques to help transform your nights. These evidence-based practices address both daytime and nighttime breathing patterns to promote restorative sleep.
Adopt better daytime breathing habits
To improve sleep quality, adopting better daytime breathing habits is essential. Focus on breathing lightly, slowly, and deeply through the nose, which engages the diaphragm and activates the body’s relaxation response.
Doing this reduces airway turbulence and helps keep the airways open during sleep, making it easier to achieve restful and uninterrupted nights. Simple changes in how you breathe during the day can have a profound impact on your sleep and overall well-being.
Practice the Buteyko method
One highly effective technique is the Buteyko Method. It is a breathing technique that trains you to breathe properly. The Buteyko Method’s “Breathe Light” technique is remarkably effective for improving sleep quality. This practice involves:
- Placing one hand on your chest and one on your abdomen
- Gently softening and slowing your breathing to create a slight air hunger
- Slowing the speed of air as it enters your nostrils
- Allowing your exhale to be slow and relaxed
- Breathing softly, so about 30% less air enters your lungs.
Practice for 15 minutes before bedtime to activate your parasympathetic nervous system and prepare your body for sleep. The goal isn’t to feel uncomfortable—if the air hunger becomes too intense, take a break for 15 seconds before continuing. You can use a breathing support tool like the Buteyko belt for performing this exercise.
Ensure nasal breathing during sleep
Ensuring nasal breathing during sleep is another critical factor for quality rest. Nasal breathing filters air, produces nitric oxide, and maintains proper oxygen utilization throughout the night. To support nasal breathing, consider using a gentle mouth tape or nasal breathing support like MyoTape, which encourages lip closure while still allowing emergency mouth breathing if needed. Additionally, nasal dilators or strips can be helpful if you have significant nasal resistance. Check your mouth in the morning—it should be naturally moist, not dry, as dryness is a sign of mouth breathing at night.
By integrating these practices into your daily routine, you can create a foundation for better sleep and wellbeing. Remember, consistency is key, and the full benefits often develop over several weeks as your breathing patterns gradually normalize. Be patient with yourself—each night of better breathing brings you closer to the restorative sleep your body deserves.
MyoTape Trains You to Breathe Better While Sleeping
As mentioned, ensuring that you breathe through your nose is important while sleeping to avoid disruptions. And honestly, that is not easy when you are fast asleep. Nevertheless, MyoTape is an effective tool that gently encourages nasal breathing throughout the night.
Developed by Patrick McKeown, a globally recognized breathing expert, this innovative solution offers the safest approach to mouth taping, designed specifically to improve your breathing patterns during sleep. MyoTape guarantees quality sleep by ensuring your breathing remains optimal, thus preventing sudden disruptions and awakenings. It also keeps your mouth closed and stimulates the muscles around your lips so you are able to breathe through your nose.
Adding MyoTape into your nightly routine can transform your sleep quality and make you feel genuinely refreshed when you wake up. You can check out our range of effective MyoTape mouth taping products designed for everyone, including mouth tape for kids, adults, those with sensitive skin, and even those with facial hair.
