10 Reasons You’re Drooling While You Sleep and What It Could Mean (Page 2 ) | May 21, 2025

When you sleep at night, your mouth produces extra saliva to help protect your gums and the inside of your mouth. The muscles of your body also relax during sleep, including those of your face and jaw. If you sleep on your side or stomach, drooling may be more likely to occur as excess saliva escapes from the sides of your mouth. This is more likely to happen if your nose is more stuffed up, because you will subconsciously sleep with your mouth slightly open in order to breathe better during the night. For this reason, you may notice you drool only during an allergy flare-up or when you have a cold.
2. Medication Side Effects
Certain medications, including sedatives, antipsychotic drugs, and some antibiotics, can lead to drooling as a side effect. Interestingly enough, some NSAIDs (aka ibuprofen) can also lead to drooling while sleeping. This is not a reason to stop taking your prescription medications, however, if it is bothering you, speak to your doctor about it. They can maybe prescribe you something else or change your dose so that this stops happening.
3. Nasal Congestion
Sick black woman suffering from running stuffy nose and sore throat. Upset ill African American lady lying in bed, blowing her nose using paper napkin tissue, banner. Cold And Flu Concept
As already mentioned, if your nose is stuffed up, then you will be forced to sleep with your mouth open. This congestion can be caused by cold or allergies and everything in between. There are medications that can help with allergies and also alleviate stuffy noses, however, make sure to consult your doctor before taking them. These conditions are, after all, temporary, and therefore so will be the drooling. It is not always worth it to take medications just to stop something that is not really affecting your health and vitality and that will stop as soon as your cold clears up or allergy season passes.
4. Deviated Septum