103: The Shocking Truth About Mouth Breathing with Alex Neist CEO of Hostage Tape

Extra: I snored so bad that it pushed my wife out of the bedroom for years. So this is what people always do. They'll come up to me and say, Hey, I just want you to know I've been wearing your, your mouth tape for six months. It changed my life. Mm-hmm. My wife and I were on the path to divorce, and your tape saved my life.

Alex Nicet is the visionary founder and CEO of Hostage Tape, the number one selling original mouth tape. That has revolutionized the market and drastically changed how millions sleep. So you're destroying your teeth by mouth breathing. Well, I'll show you the, if you look at the tape here, it's actually, you can see through it here.

Yes, Uhhuh. Okay. It's a flexible fabric tape that it's not duct tape. It's not like literally airtight. Watertight, right. It's a fabric. Flexible, flexible fabric tape. That you can actually, you can ble breathe right through it if you really had to. The company has inspired over 200,000 customers worldwide and formed high profile partnerships with the UFC and Joe Rogan's podcast emphasizing the importance of quality sleep.

Like are you hearing yourself right now? Like really you think taping your mouth out is stupid and the better solution is to go get surgery? First of all, go to hostage day.com. You can get amazing bundles there 'cause don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore. Folks, shut your mouth and change your life.

MK: Welcome to the Primer Shift Podcast. All right. Hey, Alex. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. I know you are the CEO of Hostage Tape, a company that makes mouse tapes. My wife uses you guys, by the way. Beautiful. I stare at a pretty picture every night before going to bed, and, but I gotta ask, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm somewhat concerned about the future of humanity because we have mm-hmm.

About 80 plus heads of livestock on our property that we raise for food, and none of those animals have ever asked us, Hey, what should I eat? How much should I eat? When should I eat, and how should I breathe? Right? Yet humans need to be told all of those things that should really be intuitive. 

Extra: Yeah, 

MK: it's wild.

Why do you think that is? 

Extra: I'd say, I'll tell you why it is. I had a really good conversation with a, he's one of the leading airway surgeons down in Houston, Texas. Mm-hmm. Okay. And I asked him this, we were on a podcast together and I said, alright, why do you think you're one of the leading doctors in the space of airway, sleep, all of that.

I said, why do you think that we're a species now that this has become such a rampant problem of mouth breathing? Mm-hmm. And his answer was actually really simple. So there's actually a twofold answer to this. One of them is, if you've ever read James Nester's book, breath, phenomenal book. Mm-hmm. Great.

Read. Anybody listening or watching should definitely read that book. It's a really easy read, not overly scientific, but one of the, the reasons that he talks about is. Look, we started eating processed foods, way too many processed foods, which I'm sure is something you've talked about a lot on your podcast.

Yeah. Because we, we didn't use to eat processed foods and, and most natural animals don't eat processed foods unless they get into, you know, the big farms and stuff. Right. That's a different story. But we're eating all these processed foods now, which then is causing us, we're not using our, our jaws and our teeth like we should be, which then drastically affects how our jaw sits, how it rests, and then how that affects.

Our airways. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's number one. So that's why when whenever people, people will try to say, well, you know, humans didn't need mouth tape thousands of years ago. Well, right. But they also didn't have a hugely highly processed foods like we have. Right. Okay. That has changed our face in our jaw.

Mm-hmm. Now second, this was the one I'd never heard of before that he brought up. He said it was breastfeeding, a lack of breastfeeding. So if you think about it, and you actually look at the timeline, and I'm, I'm the perfect person that when I grew up, I grew up in the age, I'm, I'm 45, so I grew up at that point, that turning point when all of a sudden the formula got invented.

Yeah. And they started taking the boob out and then putting a formula bottle in the kids' mouths. And so now we have this epidemic of way too many kids not getting breast fed. At least long enough. Right. And then getting a bottle. And the reason that's, that matters and that's impactful is, is when you're not, when you're not teaching a baby to breastfeed, they're not using their tongue, their mouth setting a foundation for this whole area.

Yes. Which then helps set a good foundation of nasal breathing as they get older. Mm-hmm. And so I'm guilty of that, where I was the, the, the baby of my family. And I, you know, in the late seventies, I think it exploded. And, and my mom probably felt like, oh, great, this makes it easy. Yes. And did it. And then as a result.

I, my jaw underdeveloped and I was a mouth breather my entire life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I didn't know it until I got later in life and I had read James' book and I went, right, holy moly, yes. This is what's been going on, Uhhuh. So those are two really simple reasons as to when people want to criticize it.

Those are the biggest changes that we as a species have caused. That has created issues in just the evolution of our, of our kids and our faces. 

MK: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you can see it with, you know, the need for, for braces and all of, I mean, I had braces and I didn't wear them as diligent as I should have. But also, you know, my, I remember when I was a, well, I don't remember when I was a baby, but from, you know, what my dad and my parents and told me after the fact, you know, my mom apparently had trouble producing enough milk, so they had to supplement with formula and at some point switch to formula.

But I'm like, okay. And, and that's really one of the things you hear a lot. Well, I don't have to milk. Right. And, and for a long time I thought that's 100% bs it's supply and demand. Right? Yep. And it's a lot of work and it sucks. I mean, just knowing from, you know, my wife, when we breastfe, when she breastfed our two kids, everything was around feeding time.

You know, it really from a, from a, um. Routine perspective, it messes everything up that you might have gotten used to before you had that baby. Right? And so it, it becomes like a, I can't do this anymore. I, you know, and then, you know, suddenly, you know, your milk drops and you run into all of those issues, and then you introduce the formula because you have no other choice, maybe at that point.

But I would also argue that. Maybe because of generations of, of, of poor facial structure and all of the things maybe are maybe even born with a setup that's not conducive to maybe breastfeeding and all of the things. So maybe there is already a problem from the get go that they don't latch on properly, they have trouble staying on the, on the breast, et cetera.

Yeah. So it's like a perpetuating kind of problem that needs. Intervention. Otherwise it's gonna sp spiraling down the drain. And, and, and I dunno where this is gonna lead, but it's not gonna be pretty 

Extra: Well, that definitely makes sense, right? So once it's started and you have a couple of parents that have recessed jaws and not good airways mm-hmm.

Of course they're probably gonna pass that on right. To their kids, and then it gets exacerbated because they're not breastfeeding them long enough. Right. And eating too many processed foods. So I think it's, it's all. Definitely interrelated. 

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I mean, we started buying your mouth tapes after I read Nester's book, coincidentally. And so what was for you, like the aha moment where you said, okay, I gotta do something. Was it reading the book or was there were the health concerns leading up to that where you said There is something I can't just, I, I cannot put my finger on it, but there is something wrong and I wanna figure it out.

Extra: Yeah, so I had a pretty profound story of how I started this. And so I had gone 40 years of my life and I, I never knew that I had a problem. Mm-hmm. And like most of us men, I think we've grown up in this culture of like, I don't want to go to the doctor. Mm-hmm. 

Alex Neist: Right. Which 

Extra: is ironic because I come from a doctor's family.

My dad's a doctor, so I grew up in the clinic, in the office. So, but I never ever wanted to go to the doctor. And my wife, she was always like, you should go see a sleep doctor. I think you have sleep apnea, you know, whatever. And I was like, ah, whatever. You know, not a big deal. Right? Didn't think anything of it.

And so then what ended up happening was, is I was, I was an athlete. You can see on my wall here, I was a, I was an athlete my entire life and. Always took really good care of myself. I was always really active, but then when I retired from playing, that's when everything shifted. 

Alex Neist: Mm-hmm. Right. 

Extra: Not as active, not getting in the gym as much, wasn't taking care of myself, and I was focused, I was an entrepreneur, so I was really focused on the business and I just lost care of my health and my body.

And as a result, then my sleep habits went, got really outta whack. 

MK: Mm-hmm. 

Extra: And so then it was, it was into my, my thirties. Going into my late thirties and forties there where I snored so bad that it pushed my wife out of the bedroom for years. Okay. And they call this a sleep divorce nowadays, right? But it's way more common than people think it is, or at least people wanna admit.

And it's not a good thing. Like we shouldn't be doing that. Uh, there's definitely great reasons to be sleeping in the same bed with each other, right? And so as that happened. Just stuff spiraled outta control with the relationship. And I'd hit a rock bottom moment, a after that, that I went, man, okay, I, I need to look at this.

I call it my Jocko moment of like extreme accountability, right? Saying what do I need to do to get better, to become a better man, better father, better husband. Like all these things. And so I started looking at my sleep. 'cause I'm like, okay. I shouldn't be snoring like this bad, right? Mm-hmm. Like is this normal?

This can't be normal. 'cause I think most of us are kind of trained to think like it's normal, it's not a big deal. Whatever, you're gonna snore. Yeah, that's just normal as we get older, but it's really not normal and we shouldn't be doing, right? Mm-hmm. So as I went down this rabbit hole of just, you know, you go into Google and you search like, okay, how do I stop snoring?

And you go to Amazon and there's pillows, there's these mouth guards, there's all these different things that. I tried and they didn't work. And so then I went, okay, I gotta go further. So then I went to page six and seven at Google, right? Mm-hmm. You dig deep, right? You could really far down the rabbit hole of the stuff that's not ads.

You have to get past all the ads. 

MK: Right? 

Extra: And then I realized there was an excerpt from this book from James Nestor's book mm-hmm. Where he talked about the experiment, where, I'll explain it again for everybody. So. This whole, the premise of the whole book that James wrote was they wanted to do an experiment where they would go to Stanford Medical Center, they would plug their nose for 10 days.

Mm-hmm. And over those 10 days, they wanted to see what would happen. And both anecdotally and also with doctors from mm-hmm. Stanford Medical Center. And so when they did that, they developed sleep apnea. They snored off the charts and their blood oxygen just went through the floor. Mm-hmm. And they just felt so bad that just were like, they felt like they wanted to die.

It was that bad. And then when they unplugged their nose, they mouth taped to force nasal breathing. Everything went away after like a day or two. So everything went back to normal. So when I read that, it was like, I found that Konami cheat code. Mm-hmm. From Nintendo back when we were, it was just like, oh my gosh.

You mean to tell me. That I've been mouth breathing my whole life and that's the problem. That's why I snoring. That's why I feel so unrested. Mm-hmm. Holy crap. Yeah. And so then I went to Amazon and then at the time, I mean this was like six years ago, right? At the time, mouth taping wasn't really what it is today.

It is. It is what it is today because I'm the, I'm the one that spent all the money marketing it and now it's really started to like take off and everybody. It's starting to really know what it is now, but at the time, it really didn't exist. Mm-hmm. And so I just bought like some 3M tape, skin tape. Yeah.

You know, surgical tape, like all the, there's plenty of different tapes Yes. That you can try. Doesn't mean they work well or feel very good. So I got that. And then when I, the first night that I had it, this, this thought went through my brain that everybody has, even, even you or your wife probably had it when you tried it for the first time.

You went, wait a minute. What if my nose gets stuffy, right? Like, am I gonna die? That's a normal thought process that everybody the mouse tapes for the first time has. But then I realized, well, no, I'll be fine. I mean, James was fine. The book was fine. And then you see Dr. Andrew Huberman talks about it all the time.

It's like, no, like I'll be okay. So I practiced a bunch of different ways to put it on, and for me, I. Put it all the way across because I felt like for me, I've got a strong jaw. Mm-hmm. Anything else, I would've just popped it right off. So I, I taped all the way across and then I went to bed and before I went to bed, I'm like looking up the ceiling line.

Okay, here we go. Light goes off. And then when I woke up the next day, that's when I knew. Mm-hmm. I could not believe just the energy that I felt. I felt rested. I felt like I was my 15-year-old son. And I knew in that moment that my life was gonna be different and that I had found something that I could do something with, that I could build and inspire other men like you and me.

That are our age to tape their mouth shut and to change their lives. Yeah. So that was the moment. 

MK: Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Yeah. And maybe from a customer perspective, what was like the most inspiring story that you've heard? I mean, it was obviously, you know, game. Yeah. Game. I mean, I used the word a lot, but a game changer for, for your life.

Right? What have you heard from others who might have even been in, in a worse situation before they began taping their mouth? 

Extra: Well, I don't know if, if it gets any worse than my situation. Okay. I actually went through a divorce Uhhuh. We went through a divorce. All right. And then we ended up getting back together.

All back together again. All right, so good for you. It doesn't get any worse than that. Yeah. Okay. But the most common, a awesome story that I get told, and I'll be out and about, like I go to, I go to the gym Lifetime gym a couple times a week, and mm-hmm. I'm always. I'm always branded. Right. And I'll always get people that come up to me and say, Hey, are you the Hushes tape guy?

Or I'll be out And again, I'm always on brand 

MK: uhhuh, 

Extra: and so this is what people always do. They'll come up to me and say, Hey, I just want you to know I've been wearing your, your mouth tape for six months. It changed my life. Mm-hmm. My wife and I were on the path to divorce. And your tape saved my life.

Mm-hmm. It saved our marriage. That is a regular. Story that I hear from people. 

MK: Yeah. 

Extra: And that, especially given that that happened to me. Mm-hmm. I actually went through a divorce. Right. And then we got back together. And now we sleep in the same bed again. 

MK: Right. 

Extra: I can relate to that. Yes. And so that one, that one, those are the stories that Yes, definitely get me.

MK: Yeah, no, I, I, I hear you. Um, have you experimented with mouse taping during exercise? You say you go to the gym? I have, and I'm asking you this because I do CrossFit and I'm like, you know what? I think I should really be. I should be nose breathing in a, in workouts. Yep. If I cannot breathe through my nose, then I, I'm pushing too hard, kind of, you know.

Exactly. I need to be able to sustain that. 

Extra: Yeah. In order to train. 

MK: Go ahead. 

Extra: Here's the thing. Uh, so what most people, 'cause when you say that and you go, well, maybe you should try some mouth taping when you're doing a workout or you're going on a run, and then most people's response is, just keep your mouth shut, idiot.

Like, duh. But here's the thing, you would be surprised at how much you actually. Breathe through your mouth. Yes. During a run, during a workout that you just subconsciously don't even think about. 

MK: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Extra: So absolutely tape your mouth when you're doing a, a CrossFit. Doing a run, like sometimes it's like I don't do it anymore.

I used to experiment with it and do it, but I've gotten so good at nasal breathing when I work out. Mm-hmm. That I don't necessarily need to, but very early on, you might need to to train. Mm-hmm. 'cause it's hard. Yes. Especially if you're running. It's hard to get into a pattern, a pattern of breathing through your nose when you're, when you're moving.

Mm-hmm. And so it's, it's getting used to this new mechanism, this new pattern. Which is the most difficult part, and then just how it feels in your body. 

MK: Yeah, and I think it's also kind of a little bit counterintuitive because you feel like you get more air in through your mouth, but that delayed exhale I guess is more what the more, the higher resistance that you have that can, that actually helps you build that CO2 tolerance.

And so over time. Your performance goes up even if you get less volume in Right. But you retain it longer. So you, I guess you use that fuel, if you wanna call it more efficiently than just in and out, in and out, in and out. That's at least the experience I've had. 

Extra: Yeah. And it's, it's, you, you naturally have this air hunger in your body.

Yeah. So your body feels like it needs air. So then you feel like, well, I need to breathe through my mouth. But it's, it's actually not what's really happening. It's an illusion. And so I'll explain it like what you're kind of talking about. Mm-hmm. There to everybody is, so there's this, there's this concept in our body where when we breathe, when we breathe through in and out of our mouth, what we're doing is we're exhaling more CO2 mm-hmm.

Than when we breathe in and out of our nose. And we actually need CO2 in our body, right? Mm-hmm. We need CO2 one, CO2 for every oxygen, right? Oxygen comes in a CO2 goes out. So if I don't have enough CO2 in my body. Then the oxygen that comes in doesn't get used. 

MK: Mm-hmm. 

Extra: Right. So by keeping my mouth shut and breathing through my nose, now I'm not exhaling as much CO2.

So the air that I'm, that I'm bringing in, which might not be as much as in my lungs, I'm more efficiently actually pulling the oxygen out and using for energy in my body. So it's called the bore effect. Mm-hmm. That's actually what's happening in our bodies. That feels and sounds very counterintuitive.

MK: Right. Yep. That's a very good point. And, and I, I've noticed, I mean, now I'm fairly, I don't take my mouse for working out anymore because I've, I've gotten into a habit. I know that once I have to open my mouth, I've crossed a threshold and my performance mm-hmm. Is going to go down. So either I back off or I just enjoy the right downhill.

Uh, but nonetheless, I, up until that point, I can I keep my mouth closed? Uh, maybe, you know, just to elevate the discussion a little bit. And you alluded it to, uh, to it already, but what is the big deal with breathing through our mouth? I mean, at the end of the, we have the capacity. Why not use it, right?

Yeah. What is the mouth? What is it for and what is it not for? From a primary and secondary perspective? Look, 

Extra: our mouths are, Andrew Huberman says, is all the time our mouths are for talking or eating. That's it. 

Alex Neist: Mm-hmm. 

Extra: Right? So here's what happens when we mouth breathe. We are again, we're the, you're the unbalance of CO2 and oxygen.

That's one of the primary problems with it. Okay. But also, when you breathe through your nose, what's happening is this air comes in and it's getting filtered. Mm-hmm. 

Alex Neist: Right? 

Extra: Think about all like if you drank a bottle of dirty water like your stomach and your body's just not gonna like it, and your nose does the same thing for air.

It's filtering out bacteria. Viruses, crap. Allergens, all those things in the air, so you're getting clean air in your lungs. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, that seems very obvious when you think about it. Go, oh yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And secondly is it's warming and humidifying the air. Our lungs can pull oxygen in much better when it's warm and humid rather than when it's really cold and dry.

Mm-hmm. Okay. It spins through the, these things called turbinates. Mm-hmm. Right. And then it comes down in. And then again, that's why when you breathe through your nose, you don't need to take in as the volume of air because it's more efficient mm-hmm. 

Alex Neist: Than 

Extra: pulling in the oxygen. 

Alex Neist: Right. 

Extra: And then also the, uh, when you breathe through your nose, you're triggering the release of nitric oxide.

And nitric oxides of vasodilator opens up the blood vessels, helps get the blood moving, keeps you calm, relaxed. And also, here's another thing about mouth breathing that. It's kind of one of the, the last things that most people don't think about is, so when you breathe through your mouth, you dry out the saliva.

MK: Mm-hmm. 

Extra: And that saliva in your mouth is good bacteria. It creates a good microbiome, right? That protects your teeth. But when that dries out, bad bacteria forms, cavities start to form. Bad breath. Right? So you're destroying your teeth by mouth breathing. Okay. And more and more dentists and natural dentists now are acknowledging that.

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. You should be mouth taping. Like, I, I haven't seen one single, like natural dentist. You're seeing more and more natural dentists now than like old traditional dentists. Mm-hmm. Because I think, I think they're just starting to realize that dentistry is, it's more about all these other things than what maybe they were taught in traditional dental school.

Yeah. And so. They're one of the best people that can identify mouth breathers and they're, they're some of our biggest supporters of mouth tape. Mm-hmm. 

Alex Neist: Like 

Extra: some of the biggest natural dentists on like Instagram and TikTok are like Absolutely. Should be mouth taping. Totally. Right. So, yeah. 

MK: Um. Are there any concerns taping your mouth?

What if someone says, but I, I cannot, I don't get enough ear. I don't, you know, my, my nose is congested all the time. I, I, I can't do it. Yeah. Maybe you are, you have already, you know, a, a crooked septum or, I mean, you see my nose is not straight either, you know? Yeah. What is in those cases, what, what would you recommend?

Yeah. 

Extra: Okay, so let's, let's take, there's two things in there. Let's separate out number one. Let's say you have an impacted nose. Let's say you, you can't breathe out of your nose. Well, in that case. Yes, you may need to go in and get it fixed. If you can't breathe through your nose and they're like, you had your nose punched in, or you got into an accident or something crazy, then that's one of the very small cases where you probably shouldn't tape your mouth.

In fact, we're partnered with the LA Center for ear, nose, and throat, and what, what they tell their patients is like, all right, if you lie down and you kept your mouth shut and only breathe through your nose. Can you breathe through your nose or do you gasp? Mm-hmm. Open feeling like you have to open your mouth, because if you can keep your mouth shut and breathe through your nose just lying down, then it's perfectly safe to mouth take.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Now secondly, you talked about the congestion. So here's a counterintuitive thing that most people don't know. When you mouth breathe, it creates congestion in your nose. When you nose breathe it decongest. Mm. Your nose. Why is that? Because your brain, when you breathe through your nose, your brain, or I'm sorry, when you breathe through your mouth, your brain tells your nose to create mucus, and then it fills up.

So then it creates this vicious cycle. Mm. 

Alex Neist: Where then 

Extra: you feel like you have to keep your mouth open to breathe, and then your nose, your brain keeps telling your nose to create more mucus, so you keep doing it. Right? So just by keeping it shut. Because think about it this way, right? It's kinda like what you alluded to earlier where we have this amazing, beautiful body that does all these amazing things that we just can't understand how it does.

MK: Mm-hmm. But 

Extra: if there's one thing, it knows, it knows how to to breathe if you do it properly. Yeah. And we're supposed to, we were designed to breathe out of our nose, not our mouth. And so if you keep your mouth shut, it will breathe out of your nose. You will breathe perfectly fine out of your nose. And here's a good example, anecdotal story.

So I've been mouth taping now for six years. Mm-hmm. And I've never, not mouth taped even when I've been really, really congested sick. Okay. Because again, when you keep your mouth shut, the nose will open up. Mm-hmm. Even if you feel like you're really congested, just no way, like No, your, your nose will open up.

I guarantee it. 

Alex Neist: Okay. 

Extra: Unless, yeah. Maybe you're, you have allergies. Mm-hmm. That, that's, that's one thing where, okay. Certainly allergies could cause flareups that, you know, are outside of that control. But even then, mm-hmm. What the nose is doing, it's filtering out allergens, so your chances of having an allergic reaction and, and allergies are, are a lot less if you're focusing on nasal breathing than if it's going in your mouth.

You breathe in your mouth, all the allergens go right in your lungs and then you flare up totally. 

MK: Mm-hmm. It's even worse. Right. Makes, makes a lot of sense. And, and I can, you know, confirm, I occasionally, I think it's, might be related to certain foods that I, you know, get triggered maybe by, you know, the wrong type of dairy, if it's like, you know, pasteurized dairy or whatever, and it can feel or 

Extra: anything that causes inflammation really.

Right, right. Exactly. 

MK: And I can feel like, okay, my, my nose is getting stuffy, but then I lie down, I close my mouth and I start breathing through my, my nose. And suddenly I can breathe, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and maybe the other nuance, so this you, you're probably aware of this, but there is like this cycling going on between, you know, one nostril might be congested and an hour later it's the other one.

Right. And that's a perfectly natural. Cycle 

Extra: and that you will notice. So when I am sick, I do notice that it'll go Woo booboo Uhhuh, 

MK: Uhhuh.

Um, alright, um, maybe one more thing, you know to, for people you know that who are concerned about, you know, taping their mouth and then maybe, you know, waking up in the middle of the night, gasping, not being able to breathe. You could actually, there, it's not that. It restricts all airflow, right? There are, I don't know if there are holes in there or if the fabric is just a little bit breathable or whatever it is.

Yeah. But you could theoretically breathe through the fabric. 

Extra: So I'll show you the, if you look at the tape here, it's actually, you can see through it here. Yes. Uhhuh. Okay. It's a flexible fabric tape that it's not duct tape. It's not like literally airtight. Watertight. Right. It's a fabric. Flexible, flexible fabric tape.

That you can actually, you can breathe right through it if you really had to. And when you actually look at it up close, and then you put it on, you realize, oh, this is actually really, it looks really safe. Feels really safe. Mm-hmm. Feels really comfortable. Yeah. And it almost is very soothing when you put it on your mouth.

And once you get used to. It feels very soothing and it almost kind of like triggers your body to say, Hey, it's time for bed. 

MK: She's forward to bed. Yeah. I, I remember in the beginning when I used it every night and my wife said, you know, I tried. I, I couldn't, you know, it feels so odd and whatever. And now she's the one using it every day and or every night I should say.

Yeah. Uh, without, without any issues whatsoever. Um, cool. Um, so you started this company how many years ago? So going on three and a half, four years, three and a half, four years. All right? Mm-hmm. What have you seen in terms of how the market responded to this from the beginning, you know, over the years, has there been a major trend line upwards, or has it been relatively steady from the beginning?

Or how is, how is the mouse or the mouse taping market? 

Extra: Well, okay, let's be honest. Everybody watching this right now is thinking, why the hell would you call it hostage tape? Right? That's going through everybody's brain, right? And so when I launched a mouth tape brand called Hostage Tape, you can imagine the three and a half some four years ago, the kind of reaction that I got, okay?

There was a wild mix of people who could not believe I would have, how dare I use that word? Or other people were like, that's cheeky, that's fun. I get it. Mm-hmm. Right. And so the, the challenge for me was, is fighting through that, fighting through all of the negative feedback of people who were so triggered by it and realizing like, don't you just gotta keep going 'cause I'm building something bigger here.

I'm, I, I have a brand that's changing lives. It's not like it's. A joke or something that's hurting people. It, no, this is changing people's lives. And when you actually understand it and you use it and you realize what it's doing, like, so that's my mission, that's what I'm on. Mm-hmm. And it just kept pushing through.

So the first year, I mean, we had an amazing first year. I mean, we almost, we did, uh, almost, uh, almost seven figures in the first year. Mm-hmm. And, and then after that it really took off. And, you know, we do eight figures a year now. And I think what's happened after the first two years, all of a sudden everybody started to go, whoa, wait a minute.

Because there, there was a lot of objections to mouth taping out of the gate, just in general. Like people just thought it was stupid. It was crazy. There wasn't a ton of documentation online about it. And any of the doctors that, like if you, you could Google search, is mouth taping safe? Look, you can find whatever you wanna find.

If you wanna find positive, great. You'll find, if you wanna find negative, you'll find it, right? Mm-hmm. And it's almost like there's anybody that does that has published or posted like medical things about it. It's almost like the medical industry. Um, in general up to the last couple years, has frowned upon mouth taping, and they, they can't explain why other than just to try to say it's dangerous.

Alex Neist: Mm-hmm. Well, 

Extra: why is it dangerous to breathe outta your nose? Well, you could have major irritation from the glue. Really. It's like they, they can't ever really, and then they'll always fall back on. Well, there's no peer reviewed studies right. Okay. Do we need a peer reviewed study for mouth taping? Mm-hmm.

Like, really, you know, like we're supposed to breathe out of our nose. We, we all accept and acknowledge that that's a great thing and that's how we should be breathing. So why is mouth taping bad? Mm-hmm. Um, and so you can find all that, right? But now what I'm, what I am seeing is a huge, I think I, I've spent enough money.

That it's gone viral on TikTok. It's, it's just everywhere now. And there's certainly plenty of copycats out there who are mm-hmm. Trying to, to mirror what we're doing. But the reality is, is nobody's authentic, like really, truly as authentic as what we created, the way that we created the story behind it, and then the actual brand itself.

Mm-hmm. 

Alex Neist: Like, 

Extra: we're all real people, whereas most of the copycat, they're just. Some, somebody in China or Yeah. Some kid who's trying to drop ship or like, it's just no real company. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And but what's happening now is I feel like in the, just the overall opinions of mouth taping from the medical community and just experts, it's shifting.

Mm-hmm. Hugely shifting. Yeah. 'cause one of the biggest responses that I see, so I do a, a. A, a post checkout survey when people buy the amount of people I see saying, oh yeah, my doctor recommended hostage tape. Mm-hmm. Or my sleep doctor recommended it, or my dentist recommended it. Or my ENT, like the amount of medical professionals mm-hmm.

Pointing people to mouth tape and hostage tape. It's growing bigger and bigger than I ever expected it. Yeah. To, but. It just goes to show you that I think that with more awareness and more people looking into it and more seeing just real life stories. Yeah. Because that's the thing about mouth taping, right?

Is Yeah. There's not a ton of studies. 'cause it's like, do we really need to spend all that money on studying malt taping? Like Yeah. Is that nobody wants to spend the money on that. That's why. Yeah. 'cause studies are expensive. Yeah. Right. Of course there's studies on CPAPs because there's a ton of money behind CPAPs.

Yeah, yeah. Right. But there's not really that many studies behind mouth taping because you're looking at the biggest mouth tap brand in the world, and we are only three years old. 

MK: Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, 

Extra: so you look at that and now that you start to see just the amount of people who are, have been impacted by it and it, it's just logical and.

Nobody's ever been hurt by mount tape. 

MK: Yeah. And, and you know, one thing that, yeah, despite on, on, on, you know, all the, the fearmongering that's going on. But, you know, I always tell people, look, if it's something that's relatively inexpensive, if it's something that can be easily tested, just test it. You know, don't listen to, you know, whoever you know tells you, gives you an opinion.

Just try it out and see how you feel with it. 

Extra: You know, the worst one is this, the 

MK: worst 

Extra: one is this. People will say. Oh my God, that is so dumb. Why would you do that? You should just go get surgery. Like, are you hearing yourself right now? Like really? You think taping your mouth shut is stupid and the better solution is to go get surgery.

Yeah. Uh, in fact, the, the ENTs that we work with, they say you should not, your first step should not be going to get surgery. Mm-hmm. Because number one. The amount of people who come in and they do surgery around for like snoring and stuff. He goes, it doesn't fix the problem. Right. It usually doesn't fix it.

Alex Neist: Mm-hmm. 

Extra: And two, it's really expensive and it's not covered by insurance. Right. So he goes, I always, our ENTs always tell people, let's try some mouth taping. Let's see if that helps you. Yeah. Either maybe it solves a problem entirely or they use it in conjunction with whatever procedures or things they might be doing with them.

Right. 

MK: Right. Have you done any, like, any work in terms of strengthening your, your muscles in your mouth and, and jaw and stuff, has that helped at all in combination with mouth taping or otherwise? I haven't, I 

Extra: haven't done any sort of like regular exercises, but what I try to do, what I'm, what I try to be very aware of is keeping the tongue on the roof of my mouth mm-hmm.

MK: At 

Extra: all times. So when I'm not talking. I, I'm always trying to think like my checklist of things that just, you know, it's like when I'm throwing a football, right? There's a checklist I go through right of when I throw of my, my biomechanics and, and I've started to train myself of whenever I'm not talking, put the tongue on the rip of my mouth, uhhuh.

And I don't, I don't close my teeth either. I keep my teeth open, my mouth open with the tongue on the roof of my mouth. So just that in itself I think is a huge starting point for people of just, you could start with that, of just focusing on putting the tongue on the roof of your mouth. That's where you should be resting.

Like if I'm just sitting here at my computer, tongue on the roof of my mouth, uhhuh 

MK: like 

Extra: that, 

MK: I, I never realized that this is the natural resting position of the tongue. Yeah, until I, I read about it, I'm like, interesting, because I thought the, the tongue would be on the bottom right, resting on the bottom, but no, it's resting up, you know, against your, your gum, I guess.

Or the, we're looking at our dogs too much. It's not like that. Yeah, that's right. All right. I, I didn't ask you this before, but. If you have any sort of, you know, discount or whatever you wanna share, uh, with the audience, we can include all that information in the show notes. Um, you don't have to answer now.

You can, we can then, you know, add it in once we air the episode. Um, if, you know, and maybe also tell us where can people find you maybe more information about, you know. All at what you do. And obviously then, you know, on hostage tape, um, you know, the, your shop page, I'm sure there's plenty of resources for people to read up.

But if there's anything in particular you want people to read other than the Nester book, um, you know, you can, you can share this as well with me and that'll include all of that in the show notes. 

Extra: Well, first of all, go to hostage tape.com. You can get amazing bundles there 'cause don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore, folks, shut your mouth and change your life.

All right, and you can find me. On Alex. Nice. I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter, some of those places, but most of all the interesting con I'm not that interesting. Most all the interesting content is on, on all the, the hostage tape handles. So you can find hostage tape on all the socials. 

MK: Okay, cool. Yeah, we actually purchased that just a year worth of tape.

Um, have it on our drawer, you know, whenever we need a new pack, we just open it and you know, we are good to go. And that's, that's how we roll. Beautiful. Love it. All right, cool. Well thank you so much for joining me on the show, really appreciate it. Um, I'll let you know once everything airs and send you links and clips and whatnot.

And, uh, again, thanks. Thanks for making the time appreciated. Beautiful. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely.