It would be tough to find a person who has never suffered from morning breath. We wake up in the morning feeling as though our mouths have been immobile all night long. Indeed, they probably have been. The oral cavity is either parchment dry, from breathing through the mouth (worse if you snore), or glued together from a lack of free flowing saliva. We force our lips to move: the first word is a croak.

Morning breath is actually a consequence of naturally decreased saliva production: the body produces less saliva while we sleep. Since saliva is a potent force against the oral bacteria that produce bad breath, a decrease in saliva allows those bacteria to proliferate during the night - and proliferation of those bacteria means production of volatile sulfur compounds (VSC), which smell really bad and are the main component of bad breath.

Fortunately, morning breath is a transient thing - once we are up and around, and have brushed and rinsed, the higher daytime flow of saliva resumes and all is well in the mouth (unless there is a chronic problem with VSC-producing bacteria). For most of us, a regular program of oral hygiene is all that's needed: brush and floss regularly, and clean the tongue, especially if you notice a white or yellowish coating on it in the morning. Morning breath should be easily vanquished.

There are a few things that make morning breath worse: coffee, alcohol, smoking, snacking during the night, poor oral hygiene, and sinus congestion, to name a few. In addition, many drugs cause a dry mouth, and this effect is accentuated when saliva flow is naturally decreased. These things affect morning breath for different reasons. Some decrease saliva flow; some directly support the proliferation of VSC-producing bacteria by providing nutrients. What's important is that we know they make things worse - avoid them if possible.

If your morning breath bothers you so much that you want to do something significant about it, try stepping up your oral care first. Are you brushing your teeth and rinsing your mouth out first thing in the morning? Are you cleaning your tongue? If these measures seem inadequate, use a good oral rinse that kills or removes VSC-producing bacteria on the tongue. Perhaps you want fresh breath before you even get out of bed - a difficult order to fill, but there are products on the market that claim to stop morning breath from happening at all. Of course, you'd add these into your routine in the evening, before going to sleep.