A variety of circumstances can cause dark circles under the eyes. Some of the more common causes of dark circles include family history, allergies, and excessive sun exposure. However, another cause of dark circles is exhaustion and lack of sleep. How can someone improve their sleep and make strides toward defeating those pesky dark circles; by improving their breathing habits through lip-taping.
Lack of Sleep and Dark Circles
What about a lack of sleep causes dark circles to form under the eyes? Sleep is supposed to be a time for bodily maintenance and restoration to prepare us for the next day. A lack of sleep prevents these restorative processes from happening as they should. Symptoms like fluid building up beneath the eyes (also known as venous pooling), causing them to appear puffy, are just one of the ways a lack of sleep can impact your appearance. This puffy fluid-filled space may cast shadows on the face resulting in the notorious dark circles.
How Poor Breathing Habits Affect Sleep
One of the reasons people may experience a lack of sleep or exhaustion is because they’re not getting the sleep they think they are. While someone may think they’re getting the usually recommended eight hours, it may come out to less than that due to poor breathing habits. People who snore or experience sleep apnea, for example, may have interferences or obstructions in their airway that keep them from sleeping soundly.
Lip-Taping to Improve Quality of Sleep
While lip-taping may sound strange at first, many people have found it to be quite useful in improving their quality of sleep, not to mention a very inexpensive option at that.
- Place a strip of tape on the mouth at night before going to sleep.
- Because your mouth is blocked, you won’t default to mouth breathing overnight.
- Instead, your body will instinctively resort to breathing through your nose.
- Nasal breathing increases nitric oxide production in the sinuses, which can help reduce inflammation, improve sleep, and improve memory.
- When you wake up, you should feel more well-rested and alert
- Rinse and repeat
Before trying lip-taping for the first time, we recommend patients do a dry run and practice taping their lips shut while they’re awake and breathing through thor nose for three minutes. Over time, this practice can help reduce dark circles by improving your sleep and training yourself to breathe through your nose more instead of resorting to breathing through your mouth, which doesn’t afford you the health benefits nose breathing does.
Fight Dark Circles with Lip-Taping
For more information about lip-taping and how to do so successfully, schedule a consultation with Dr. Pamela Marzban by calling our office at703-323-8200 or filling out our contact form [link id=’50003′ text=’here‘ esc_html=’false’].
