Zzz

A few weeks back, I talked about my snoring.

I heard from more listeners from that episode than I hear from on typical episodes.

And some very good friends of the show, who I won’t name in case they don’t want their own snoring to be acknowledged, but some very close friends of the show were like, I’m surprised you even care.

Like you snore and people have to get used to it.

But those people also said, hey, if you find a cure, let me know.

I found a cure.

Your Daily Lex.

So I had ordered a device called the SmartNora.

It still hasn’t even shipped because they say they’re updating the firmware or the hardware.

I don’t even know.

They’re updating something.

So they haven’t even shipped yet.

I’ve attempted to cancel that device.

It has a big return window once I do get it, but I’m like, don’t even ship it.

I don’t need it right now.

At any rate, when I had been complaining about it, about the snoring issue, and people were listening to the show, a friend of mine named Joe, last name redacted, had written to me on Mastodon and was like, I know this sounds crazy, but take a look at this.

And I took a look at it.

And it was a link to an article, I think from the Art of Manliness, if memory serves, about mouth taping.

And the author was talking about the idea of taping his mouth closed using like medical tape.

I don’t know if there’s any other tape you can get that’s a little bit more sensitive for your lips.

But I just use medical tape because we had some around the house.

But the idea was you tape your mouth closed, leaving some cracks open for breathing on the edges.

But the idea, I guess, is, and I’m not a doctor, as you may know, that this kind of pushes you to breathe through your nose more.

Because despite what people think, the issue with snoring isn’t, it’s not coming from your nose so much.

It’s, at least in some cases, loud breathing from your mouth breathingness.

I’m talking really well.

Sorry, I got a little distracted there.

But you’ve got my undivided attention now as podcast host.

You deserve nothing less.

But so, I was skeptical, but thought, hey, it was worth a try and nothing else I’ve tried so far has worked and that expensive Nora thing hasn’t shipped yet.

So let’s give it a shot.

So I tape my mouth shut.

Now, as I had mentioned on that original snoring episode, and you’d be forgiven for having forgotten, I’ve been having trouble breathing through my nose at night.

I’m not especially congested or anything, but when I would lie down, I would kind of struggle to breathe through my nose.

So I would switch to being a nighttime mouth breather.

So when I put this tape on my mouth, it was a little scary.

I’m not going to lie.

It was a little claustrophobia or suffocating feeling inducing because I wasn’t great at breathing through my nose.

But I knew I was breathing and I was getting air into me, which is good.

But my heart was also sometimes getting a little bit racy the first night.

And maybe the second night, because I was having trouble getting enough air through my nose.

And when it was really feeling like, man, I need more air, I was breathing through the cracks in my mouth.

The first night I did at some point rip the tape off and it was reported that I snored that night.

The second night I left the tape on and the third night I left the tape on and the fourth night I left the tape on.

And the next morning, Lord said, you know, you haven’t snored in a few days.

And I was like, aha.

Then after a few more days of mouth taping, I don’t know why I said aha, but in my storytelling I did at least.

But after a few days of this, I was like, I don’t feel like taping my mouth tonight.

But then the report came again.

I didn’t snore.

I also noted as I was lying in bed after those several nights of mouth taping that I was breathing through my nose in bed, which was exciting.

And that’s it.

That’s the whole story.

I have not snored.

It’s now been several weeks.

I didn’t talk about it right away because I wanted to see, hey, does this thing last?

But it’s now been several weeks of not taping my mouth.

And the thing is, I’m not snoring.

It’s crazy to me that this works.

Now, when I was Googling and researching on this mouth taping thing, I found articles that were like, all the evidence about mouth taping is entirely anecdotal.

So, you know, take it with a bag of salt, but here’s the thing, it is anecdotal, but I did it and I stopped snoring and I tried many other things first that were less, frankly, uncomfortable and even sometimes painful than mouth taping, painful when you remove the mouth tape.

I would use, by the way, the internet showed people using one piece of tape.

I used two pieces of tape, one in what felt like center and then the other on whatever side I had missed a little bit to close the mouth of my mouth.

And again, like I said, I could still breathe through the cracks of my mouth on the left and right edges.

Let me repeat.

I’m not a doctor.

I’m not giving medical advice.

And if you suffocate to death because you taped your mouth shut, well, you’re an idiot.

Don’t tape your mouth shut.

I mean, unless you’re snoring and then kind of do, but don’t do it because I said so and assume all the risk yourself.

I’m not a lawyer or a doctor.

I’m not even a podcast.

Yes, I am a podcaster.

But anyway, I seriously did care my snoring.

If you are a snorer and you are willing to try mouth taping.

And again, I would say give it a few nights because the first night I did rip it off in my sleep.

I am very curious to hear other anecdotal results.

Anyway, that’s all I got.

I hope that didn’t put you to sleep.

See what I did?

Boom.

Pun again.

Love it.

Anyway.

Now I’m thinking about various other snoring jokes, so I’m gonna let them all go.

If I was on a, you know, in a grading curve, I’d give them all Z’s get it.

Okay.

Goodbye.