This week tennis player Iga Swiatek of Poland, ranked No.1 in the world, took to the court with lips sealed by tape.

Was this a political protest? Punishment for talking back to her coach? A weird new sponsorship deal?

None of those. She was building endurance, and in a way that took less out of her legs.

By taping her mouth shut, and able to breathe only through her nose, she was effectively putting her body under a similar stress as that of high-altitude climbers, who need to operate in thinner air.

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“For sure you can see the difference in how everything you do on the court is getting more and more hard with that tape on your mouth,” Ms Swiatek said, via the Women’s Tennis Association blog.

“So I guess it’s the way to kind of work on my endurance by not having me run so fast and do extreme things.”

It was quirky and interesting. Expert opinion was mixed, but whatever safety concerns that might be had, Ms Swiatek was to an extent supervised.

We wouldn’t recommend it to our tennis-playing readers and their middle-aged hearts.

But in the wild west of TikTok

Along with the teeth-shaving and the mole removal challenge, mouth-taping at bedtime is trending well on TikTok.

It has not been adopted there as a simulation of climbing Mount Everest, but as a means of getting better sleep and escaping the shame and medical consequences of being a natural mouth-breather.

The fact is, breathing through your nose is better for you, night and day.

And breathing through your mouth in the night time carries some embarrassing and legitimate health risks. It can be very serious in children, even potentially deforming.

Don’t try this at home. World No.1 Iga Swiatek was trying to boost her endurance.

But you wouldn’t – must not – tape their little mouths up.

And you’re better off leaving your own mouth untaped at night.

A host of experts – see here, here and here – say that mouth-taping is potentially dangerous if you have breathing issues such as sleep apnea.

If you or your child tend to breathe through your mouth at night, and want to change to nose-breathing, talk to a doctor.

Pulling out the sticky tape from the bottom drawer, or the duct tape from the tool box, is not the way to go.

The problem with mouth breathing

In the main, people breathe through their mouths because they can’t breathe easily through their nose – due to an allergy, a cold, chronic sinusitis or a deviated septum.

Another reason is stress and anxiety. Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system leading to shallow and rapid breathing.

One of the big issues with habitual mouth breathing at night is dry mouth. Which leads to thirst that wakes you up. You have a drink. You wake up again to go to the toilet. Rinse and repeat.

But dry mouth also leads to bad breath and gum disease. According to a Harvard explainer, this is because “open-mouth breathing can dry out your gums and the tissue lining your mouth, leading to a change in the natural bacteria, which can promote gum disease and tooth decay”.

Mouth breathers also tend to snore and then wake up feeling hoarse and with a scratchy throat.

Inevitably, mouth breathers suffer with poor sleep and wake up tired, irritable and with a soggy pillow. And dark circles under their eyes.

With all that going on, time to have a chat with your doctor.

Mouth breathing in children

Mouth breathing children, especially when that’s how they breathe for most of the day, can indicate that they’re growing at a rate that’s slower than normal.

Mouth breathing can affect a child’s facial development, causing what’s unfortunately known as ‘mouth breathing face’.

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Children with this condition tend to have narrowed faces with receding chins or jaws. They also have crowded teeth.

Kids who mouth breathe often develop behavioural problems that are similar to those found in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Some of the signs of mouth breathing in children are irritability, poor posture, persistent increased crying episodes at night, large tonsils, dry and cracked lips, problems concentrating at school and daytime sleepiness.

The benefits of nose breathing

With mouth breathing you’re exposing your lungs to cold, unfiltered air.

Nose breathing turns that around: Your nasal cavities work to reduce exposure to foreign substances, and humidify and warm the air that is being inhaled.

Nose breathing also increases the oxygen flow to your arteries, veins, and nerves, enabling better circulation and improving lung capacity.

You also breathe at a slower rate, which calms you down and helps you sleep better. It also helps your diaphragm work properly.

The bottom line

Mouth breathing at night carries a number of problems, some of them potentially serious. Taping the mouth shut has probably helped some people, notably younger people, get a better night’s sleep, and no snoring.

If you must do it, don’t use duct tape or sticky tape –  which will chafe your skin and you might have an allergic reaction. Use breathable medical tape.

Don’t tape the mouth completely shut. Instead use a single piece of tape, applied vertically. The aim isn’t to cut off air supply, but to retrain the body to breathe through.

But note this: If you’re mouth breathing it’s probably because you can’t breathe comfortably through the nose anyway. And, restricting airflow will cause your heart rate to increase. That’s not what you want when sleeping.

For some people, especially those with undiagnosed sleep apnea, mouth-taping is dangerous.

Finally, mouth-taping, at best, provides a quick fix instead of treating the underlying cause of your mouth breathing. And DON’T try it on your kids.