People who walk with mouth open vs closed

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve only recently realized that during conversations most people look me in the eye most of the time and that I could be doing it back instead of avoiding eye contact.
Then I realized that almost everyone walks around with their mouth closed but I have it hanging open. This makes my lips get dry making me lick my lips but I think it would stop me getting bad breath. Anyway, I tried spending a long time with my mouth closed, but after a while it is hard to breathe through my nose since I’m so used to breathing through my mouth.
I want to try keeping my mouth shut basically for cosmetic reasons. It might be hard to remember to do it though.

So what do people here do when you’re walking around? Is your mouth completely shut and you just breathe through your nose? Or is there a little gap in your mouth and you breathe through your mouth a bit?

I wonder why people walk around with their mouth shut in the first place… maybe it is taught when their a kid - that they shouldn’t keep their mouth hanging open. BTW, I also used to stick my tongue out when I was concentrating but I was taught to stop doing that.

I found this:
“I think people who breath with their mouth open look like morons. (colds or allergies don’t count) Normal?”
(68% Normal) i.e. 32% think it is abnormal
http://isitnormal.com/comments.php?sId=390
“Slack-jawed yokels!”
“To cure those idiots of their symptoms just flat out tell them what you think about their fish-out-of-water looks. A friend of mien did it to my other friend and it worked, he stopped!” etc
I never knew some people thought that way…

2

Mouth’s usually closed. However, I only realise it’s open when I’m about to walk through a cloud of small flies in the summer. Turns me into a nose-breather in seconds.

3

By any chance, do you snore? If you are having trouble breathing through your nose then you should get yourself checked out. I would much more believe that an inability to breath led to mouth-openness than the other way around.

4

Mouth closed. Absolutely.

It really makes a big difference in appearance if people (men or women) have their mouth shut. The whole facial structure improves, everything has more “muscle tone”. It makes the whole face more animated: facial muscles with a bit of tension to them move much more easily, giving the face much more expression and making it look more lively, more intelligent, confident, more " there". A mouth hanging open reduces visible IQ with about 40 points.

It’s the same with posture: having your mouth hanging open is the equivalent of sloping shoulders, a hollow back, a protruding belly and slouching knees, the typical “ape-stance” .

I’m a girl, and when a guy has his mouth hanging open, that’s an absolute dealbreaker for me. It is fundamentally unsexy. If it is just a habit, it is one that can be easily changed and it makes a LOT of difference.

You might want to ask your doctor to check if the breathways through your nose are open and okay. Some people have obstructed airways, and that’s the reason they started to breathe through their mouth in the first place.

5

Yeah I snore sometimes

thanks for the tip

6

Hmmm… it’s a big deal then since I’d like to be successful with girls…

7

You might want to check out this thread as well, on sleep apnea.

8

Sometimes my mouth is slightly open as I chat to myself or smile about something I am thinking about. But yeah, keeping your mouth hanging open is a little disconcerting. I don’t think it would do enough in the way of keeping your breath fresh (bacteria will grow anyway, right?) to make it worth it and the dry lips.

Don’t overdo the eye contact either; a good amount is nice but don’t STARE! And when you have your mouth closed, keep your tongue inside your mouth. I have a friend who is a wonderful guy but is a close-talker who sticks his tongue out while listening to you. It’s endearing if you already know him but may be offputting to a stranger.

9

Actually, having your mouth open all the time tends to aggravate bad breath due to drying your mouth of saliva. Saliva inhibits the growth of bacteria.

I agree that it is far more cosmetically appealing to keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose. If you can’t breathe through your nose, definitely get it checked out.

10

Other related threads:

I’m a mouth-breather ! Am I at risk ???

Why Is Mouthbreathing Associated With Stupidity?

Why is “mouth-breather” a pejorative?

11

Yeah - my wife’s mentioned it out of the blue.

Between that and the eye-contact thing (which I have problems with myself), maybe you want to get a good friend to honestly assess your non-verbal social cues.

12

Yeah, you generally look stupid when you have your mouth hanging open. I regularly call my boyfriend a slack-jawed yokel when he’s playing video games because his mouth is usually hanging open. He doesn’t walk around with his mouth open though, otherwise I’d probably think he was some kind of weirdo.

I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry about bad breath if you brush your teeth regularly. Or chew gum or whatever. Just don’t chew it with your mouth open if you’re goal here is to try and keep your mouth shut.

I used to work with this girl - dumbest girl I’ve ever met in my life. Seriously, she would ask me which sauce was hot and which sauce was mild and the sauce containers were LABELED! Anyway, she walked around with her mouth open all the time. Now whenever I see someone with their mouth hanging open I think of her and how dumb she was.

13

Interestingly, I had just the opposite reaction yesterday, and I’m a guy.

A girl I haven’t seen before got on my bus. She was younger than I am, but not a teenager – definitely an adult.

She was tall, pale-skinned, with long, dark hair and large, slightly wounded-looking eyes – she looked a little unsure of herself. A slight smattering of freckles. Her lips were not large as in Aneglina Jolie, but they were full, and they…projected a bit, as if she still wore braces and was sensitive.

While not glamorous at all, she looked like a younger, only slightly plainer Jennifer Connelly . With freckles. And she was, uh, similarly built.

And her mouth was open.

Her lips were gently parted, the upper lip a bit curved, as if she was about to frown. She was distracted by some thought, and her eyes looked far away.

She sat there on the bus with her mouth slightly open and I tried like hell not to stare.

Maybe it was the way her lips were held out slightly that made me think of braces and gave me first-kiss associations. Maybe it was the way she dressed conservatively…while not being built conservatively, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was her distracted air. Or those big, troubled eyes. Perhaps just the way her mouth appeared to be poised to do…something…frown, speak, kiss?

She was a dynamite package, and apparently completely unaware that she was, which always makes that orders of magnitude more attractive. And she looked like she needed cheering up.

What else could I do?

I went home and took our dog for a walk. The dog my I had agreed to adopt as an anniversary present for my loving wife .

Sailboat