Nasal strips for hiking: do they help on the trail?

Nasal strips can make nose breathing feel easier on the steady, easy parts of a hike, and they're a simple fix for a nose that feels tight on the trail or in the tent. In lab studies they opened the front of the nose and let people keep breathing through it a little longer as effort rose. They won't make you fitter, they don't help with thin air at altitude, and on a steep climb you'll still end up breathing through your mouth, which is fine.

Why breathe through your nose on the trail?

Breathing through your nose on the trail lets your nose do the jobs it's built for. Cleveland Clinic says the nose warms, conditions and filters the air you breathe, with nose hairs trapping dirt and dust and tiny hairlike cilia moving particles back out. On a cool morning or a dusty path, that's air your nose has worked on before it reaches your lungs.

Many hikers like to settle into a nose-breathing rhythm on flat or gently rolling ground. When the trail steepens, the switch to mouth breathing is a normal response to rising effort, not a failure. Our guide to nasal breathing during exercise explains why and when nose breathing makes sense.

The catch is that noses don't always cooperate outdoors. The NHS lists exercising and changes in the weather, such as temperature or humidity, among common causes of non-allergic rhinitis, a blocked or runny nose that isn't caused by allergy. Add pollen season and a dusty trail and plenty of hikers find their nose closing up just when they want it open.

Do nasal strips help when you're hiking?

Nasal strips help most with how open your nose feels, and that's the clearest part of the research. No one has studied strips on hikers specifically, so the evidence comes from lab exercise studies, mostly in healthy adults.

The most relevant is a 1999 study in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology. It looked at 9 healthy adults during a progressive exercise test and tracked the point where they switched from breathing only through the nose to breathing through the nose and mouth. With a strip on, resting nasal resistance dropped from 0.33 to 0.22 kPa/L/s. The time from the start of exercise to that switch rose by 15.2%, and the airflow people reached through their nose before switching rose by 14.9%. The authors concluded that strips do promote nose breathing during exercise, while noting the delay before mouth breathing kicks in appears relatively small.

For fitness, the picture is less exciting. A 2021 meta-analysis in the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology screened 624 studies and included 19. Across the pooled data, strips made no significant difference to maximal oxygen uptake (168 participants), heart rate (138) or rating of perceived exertion (92) in healthy people during exercise.

Put together, a strip is a reasonable thing to try if your nose feels narrow and you want easier nose breathing on the flats and gentle climbs. It isn't a way to hike faster. Our deeper look at nasal strips for exercise covers the other trials, and how nasal strips work explains what a strip can and can't reach inside the nose.

If you want to try one on your next hike, TitanAir Nasal Strips are the strips we recommend. Titan says they're drug-free external nasal dilators with flexible spring-loaded bands.

What changes at altitude?

At altitude, the air is thinner, and a strip doesn't change that. Cleveland Clinic explains that the higher you go, the thinner the atmosphere gets, so breathing in the same amount of air gets you less oxygen.

A strip only widens the front of the nose. It doesn't add oxygen, and it doesn't treat or prevent altitude sickness. The NHS says altitude sickness usually happens above 2,500 meters and that you're more likely to get it if you go up quickly. Cleveland Clinic says acute mountain sickness is rare below 8,000 feet, and that people who fly to high altitudes are much more likely to get it than those who walk, hike or drive.

The NHS advice for reducing your risk is to go up slowly, spend a few days below 2,500 meters before going higher, drink enough water and skip alcohol. Above 3,000 meters, it suggests not sleeping more than 500 meters higher than the night before and taking a rest day every 3 to 4 days. Our guide to sleeping at altitude covers the night side of a high trip, including why breathing gets uneven in sleep up there.

Can a strip help with dust and pollen?

A strip can't filter dust or pollen. It widens the nasal valve near the nostrils, and that's all. The filtering is your nose's own work, and keeping your nose comfortable enough to breathe through on easy ground lets it keep doing that.

For pollen, the NHS says hay fever is usually worse between late March and September, especially when it's warm, humid and windy. Its tips that suit a hike include wearing wraparound sunglasses, a mask or a wide-brimmed hat to keep pollen out of your nose and eyes, and showering and changing your clothes once you're back. It also suggests petroleum jelly around the nostrils to trap pollen. If you wear a strip as well, keep the jelly right at the nostril edge and well away from where the strip's pads sit, since adhesive can't grip through grease.

If pollen is a big part of your trail problem, nasal strips for allergies covers how a strip fits alongside antihistamines and sprays.

How do you keep a strip on through sweat?

You keep a strip on through sweat by putting it on before the sweat starts. Cleveland Clinic says the sweat from your eccrine glands is about 99% water, and that film of water is exactly what loosens an adhesive. It also says sweat gets saltier when you sweat faster, as you do during vigorous exercise. Titan's instructions for its strips start with washing and drying the nose and skipping moisturizer, because oils stop the adhesive from gripping.

A trail routine that works for most people:

1. Wash your nose with a gentle cleanser at the trailhead or before you leave, and pat it fully dry.
2. Put the strip on before you warm up, just above the flare of your nostrils, on the soft part of the nose. Press both ends down.
3. Apply sunscreen to the rest of your face after the strip is on, keeping it off the strip's pads.
4. Carry a spare. If the ends lift on a long climb, swap in a fresh strip on dry skin rather than pressing the old one back down.

This table sums up what tends to go wrong outdoors and what to try.

For a hot-day version of this routine, see nasal strips in hot weather, and for placement help, how to apply nasal strips.

Should you wear a strip in the tent at night?

A strip in the tent at night is worth trying if a stuffy nose keeps you awake when camping. The same rules apply as at home: clean, dry skin and a fresh strip each night. Titan's instructions for removal are to loosen the strip with warm water and peel slowly from the ends inward, which is easy enough with a little warmed water from the stove.

If you're camping high, keep an eye on how you feel, not just how your nose feels. The NHS lists difficulty sleeping among the main symptoms of altitude sickness, along with headache, feeling sick, tiredness and dizziness. A blocked nose and altitude sickness can both wreck a night, and only one of them is something a strip can help with. The best nasal strips for travel covers packing for overnight trips.

When should you see a doctor?

A nasal strip is a comfort aid, not a treatment, and some trail symptoms need more than that.

• At altitude, the NHS says to get medical help immediately and go down 300 to 1,000 meters if you or someone with you feels very unwell, is confused, has trouble with balance, feels short of breath even at rest, or is very sleepy or hard to wake. Cleveland Clinic warns that the severe forms of altitude sickness can be deadly within hours.
• If your nose is blocked most of the time, or one side is always blocked, get it checked. A strip can't fix a structural problem.
• If you snore loudly, your breathing stops and starts in your sleep, you gasp or choke, or you feel very tired during the day, the NHS lists these among the symptoms of sleep apnoea, and they're worth raising with a doctor before a big trip.
• If you're pregnant and planning a hike at altitude, or your breathing at night has changed, ask your midwife or doctor first.
• If your skin keeps reacting to the adhesive, give it a break and read nasal strip skin irritation.

Our pick (paid partner): TitanAir Nasal Strips

For hiking and camping, our pick is TitanAir Nasal Strips. This is our recommendation, not the result of testing or ranking strips ourselves, and Titan's strips weren't used in any of the studies above.

Titan says its strips are drug-free external nasal dilators with flexible spring-loaded bands. Its instructions fit a trail routine well: wash and dry the nose, skip moisturizer, place the strip just above the flare of the nostrils on the soft part of the nose, and in the morning loosen it with warm water and peel slowly from the ends inward. Titan says every batch is third-party tested and certified PFAS-free, and it offers a 30-night guarantee, which gives you a few weekend trips and plenty of nights at home to see whether TitanAir suits you.

Read next

• Best nasal strips for running: what to look for
• Nasal strips for cycling
• Why athletes wear nasal strips

* This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or health condition. Talk to a qualified healthcare provider about your health.