Tape your lips shut when you sleep: A surprising journey to a better life
What if the secret to a better life was as simple as taping your lips shut every night? Here's what happened when I tried it.
Surprising changes
There have been some surprising, impactful, and eye-opening changes, some I noticed right away and some are just beginning to unfold.
Thinking before speaking
I think more before I speak, and I don’t need to say everything that occurs to me. Early on, I found myself wondering if it was worth opening my lips to utter that oh-so-important thought in my head. Now that my trigger response has calmed down, and I don’t audibly spew everything I think, I’m noticing the spacious grace that sitting with my thoughts before responding gives me. When I do open my mouth to speak, what comes out is much kinder, loving, and less self-centered.
Learning new skills with ease
I’m learning new skills and solving problems with more nimbleness and ease than in the past. When challenged by a problem or issue, I spend less time flailing about. Possible solutions appear sooner, and I'm handling thorny stuff with more ease than ever before. In the last couple of months, I've done things I’ve never done before:
Pruned a woody, overgrown hedge twice as tall as me all by myself.
Hauled a 60-pound bale of hay from my car to my garden.
Bought and installed a solar drip irrigation system.
I’m spending more time living life and less time dreading what might happen next (or fretting about what's happening right now).
Dancing again
I started dancing again. I dove into solo swing jazz tutorial videos on YouTube and started practicing the Shim Sham vernacular jazz choreography every day, many times a day. My goal was to be able to go partner dancing again, which is still proving too strenuous for me — I can’t get through a partnered three-minute dance. Yet. Still loving the dance practice though. I’m a better dancer now even if nobody sees it but me. I love really embodying these rhythms and steps.
Less hair falling out
There’s less hair falling out of my head when I shower. Used to be, I’d be standing ankle-deep in water when I showered because of all the hair that was filling up the little mesh strainer in the drain. Now there’s much less hair clogging that thing. That’s dramatic. It makes me really happy because even though my hair is thick and plentiful, I’d like as much of it as possible to stay on my head.
Increased intensity of orgasms
I’m not sure what this says about me, but when I read (in James Nestor’s Breath) “The interior of the nose, it turned out, is blanketed with erectile tissue, the same flesh that covers the penis, clitoris, and nipples. Noses get erections...” I immediately thought, what will happen if I tape my lips shut and breathe through my nose when I have an orgasm? I didn’t wait long before testing this hypothesis, and the results were amazing. Try it if you’d like to see just how much more intense your orgasm can become.
Curious about the why?
Check out my previous article here where I dive into what inspired me to start taping my lips shut at night.
Join the conversation
Have you taped your lips shut? What have you found? Share your experiences and insights in the comments (paid subscribers only — join the safe and spam-free Aging Like a Badass community).
Let’s explore these fascinating journeys together!
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