Neuroscientist reveals real reason people are ‘getting uglier’

According to experts, we're making a series of easily fixable mistakes that are, on the whole, making us less conventionally attractive.

Mouth breathing can also worsen snoring (Getty Stock Image)

While some social media users have long pointed out the effects of 'mouth breathing', which is, simply, using your mouth to breathe instead of your nose, a neuroscientist has also weighed in.

Mouth breathing is usually brought on by anxiety or a blocked nose, some people just do it out of bad habit.

It's believed that mouth breathing can make changes to the way your nose, eyes and jaw looks.

Dr Andrew Huberman, American neuroscientist and podcaster, has given his take on the widely spread theory.

On the podcast Modern Wisdom, Huberman said: "People, and in particular children, who over-use mouth breathing as opposed to nasal breathing have changes in the structure of the face that makes them far more unattractive than if they were to mouth breathe.

"The characteristic change in the face when one over-does mouth breathing is that the chin starts to move back towards the neck and the eyes become droopy because there is less use of the sinuses."

Huberman advises that we should all be able to place our tongues on the roof of our mouths without feeling our teeth with ease.

If you struggle, you may be a mouth breather - which can also cause under-eye bags and a downward slant of the eyes.

We should all be trying to breathe through our noses (Getty Stock Image)

Breathing through your mouth allows less oxygen to be breathed in - which can cause these side effects.

Huberman added: 'Deliberately nasal breathing through most of your cardiovascular training will help dilate the sinuses which leads to better air flow which makes nasal breathing easier."

Practice makes perfect.

The author of 'author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art', James Nestor, told the Daily Mail that he was informed a health issue he had was the result of not nasal breathing.

He said: "I thought she was insane. I fixed it. And I have not had one of those issues since. That was more than 10 years ago."

He added: "We should breathe the way we have naturally evolved to breathe.

"There is nothing really fancy about it, just look at a healthy infant breathing into its belly and through the nose in a slow-paced rhythm."

According to Nestor, approximately 60% of people mouth breathe when they sleep - which, as per the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association, can worsen snoring.