Why Do I Have Bad Breath When I Wake Up?

Come daybreak, even lovingly flossed pearly whites may end up feeling “furry” and your breath smelling funky. The culprits are the mob of microbes that live in your mouth.

During the day, glands in the cheeks and mouth produce an astonishing one quart of saliva, which contains an armada of microbe-killing molecules alongside tooth-protecting chemicals that clump nasty microbes into harmless flotsam. When you’re asleep, this flow reduces to a tiny trickle and your mouth runs dry, allowing microbes to proliferate and latch onto your teeth—creating a fuzzy film called plaque. As they feast on traces of food and sugar left from the day, they emit foul-smelling gases that cause malodorous morning breath. Sleeping with an open mouth makes the problem even worse, so your breath will smell if your nose is blocked by a cold or hay fever.

Brushing your teeth helps (minty toothpastes mask the smell) and having breakfast early stimulates saliva production. Ironically, testosterone peaks in the morning, making you amorous just when getting up close is least appealing: nature truly does have a mischievous sense of humor!

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Noxious mix

As microbes digest food particles, they produce various foul-smelling chemicals.