Lip exercises for mouth breathing
A daily coin-between-the-lips exercise to train lips-together nasal breathing in habitual mouth breathers.
Lip exercises
These are important in habitual mouth breathers and mild to moderate asthmatics.
The aim is to have lips together at rest, the tongue relaxed and in the back of the mouth, and air moving in and out of the lungs via the nose.
Mouth breathing often contributes to
- Dry, cracked and puffy lips.
- Narrow dental/jaw arches.
- Long facial pattern.
- Increased crowding.
- Increased forwardness (protrusion) of upper incisor teeth.
- High palate and poor chin development.
- Tonsillitis, sore, dry throats and recurrent middle ear infections.
- Sniffing, nasal drips, sneezing and early sinus congestion.
Nasal breathing is very important in the final stability of incisor teeth.
The exercise
If the dental base/jaws are not too different and the upper teeth not too protrusive, the following should be done, twenty minutes every day for at least four months.
- At rest (quietly reading, watching TV or studying).
- A clean 20 cent coin is held between the lips (not the teeth) with the teeth together.
- Steady nasal breathing is maintained with some twenty second rests required every 5–10 minutes.
When not doing the exercises during your normal daily routine, the lips should be together and breathing through the nose.