Nasal strips

External nasal strips open the front of your nose a little. They may help snoring from a stuffy nose, but they don't treat sleep apnea.

• Evidence: Weak
• Low effort
• Low cost
• Works: tonight

Why it matters

The narrowest part of your nasal airway is just inside the nostrils, at the internal nasal valve. It can partly collapse when you breathe in [3]. An external nasal strip is a sticky band with a springy plastic strip inside. Placed across the bridge of the nose, it pulls the sides of the nose outward and holds that area open.

That much works. A review of over-the-counter nasal dilators found that external strips relieve blockage at the nasal valve [3]. In a trial of 50 healthy volunteers, all three strips tested increased the size of the nasal passage and airflow. That trial was run by the strip’s manufacturer [4].

The question is whether a wider nose leads to better sleep. For most people, it doesn’t change much.

How to do it

1. Use them when your nose feels blocked at night, for example with a cold or hay fever. That’s where they’re most likely to help.
2. Put it on clean, dry skin, across your nose as the package directs.
3. Try it for a week or two. Ask a bed partner whether your snoring has changed, or record yourself.
4. Remove it gently in the morning. In a 7-night trial of 82 people, no skin irritation was seen [4]. Stop if your skin gets sore.
5. Look for what matters, not a brand: the right size for your nose, and a gentle adhesive if you have sensitive skin.

Common mistakes

• Using strips to treat sleep apnea. They don’t. In a meta-analysis of 14 studies, nasal dilators didn’t change breathing events, lowest oxygen level or snoring in people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) [1]. A 2026 meta-analysis of 17 studies (496 people) agreed and said dilators can’t be recommended on their own for sleep-disordered breathing [2]. Loud snoring with daytime sleepiness, or someone seeing you stop breathing, needs a doctor. See a doctor.
• Expecting strips to fix all snoring. A wider nose doesn’t stop every kind of snoring. In a placebo-controlled trial of 18 heavy snorers, real strips widened the nose but didn’t change how long or how loudly people snored [5].
• Living with a blocked nose for months. A strip treats the symptom, not the cause. NHS advice is to see a GP if sinus symptoms aren’t better after 3 weeks of treating them yourself, or keep coming back [7]. See a GP too if you have trouble breathing, symptoms are getting worse, or your sense of smell changes; these can be signs of nasal polyps [8].

Effect on your sleep score

We found no study measuring nasal strips with consumer wearables.

• Wake-ups and efficiency: in OSA, no measurable change in breathing events [1][2]. The 2026 meta-analysis also found no change in sleep time or sleep stages [2].
• Oxygen: in a subgroup of 6 snorers with very narrow noses in the morning, strips improved overnight oxygen levels. In the other 12, breathing events got slightly worse [5].
• Daytime sleepiness: in 35 snorers without apnea, partner-rated snoring, dry mouth and sleepiness improved over 14 nights. There was no placebo group [6].

How confident: moderate that strips don’t help apnea; low for anything else.

Evidence

Rated Weak. Strips clearly widen the nose [3][4]. But for sleep, the better-controlled studies show little or no benefit [1][2][5]. The positive snoring study was open-label, with no placebo, so people knew they were using a strip [6]. Most studies are small, short and old. The best guess from current data is that strips may help a subgroup of people whose nose is clearly blocked at night [2][5].

General information for healthy adults, not medical advice. If you have a sleep problem that lasts, read when to see a doctor. Sources checked 4 October 2026. Spot a mistake? Tell us.