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1. Is it possible for you to smell your own breath?

For most of us, the tongue is probably the main source of all those unpleasant odors (which are especially noticeable in the morning). Here’s a quick tip on how to detect your own bad breath, without the embarrassing experience of asking a friend or spouse.

Stick out your tongue as far as it will go, and lick one of your wrists with your own saliva (trying to lick as far back on the tongue as you can).
Now wait for a few seconds and sniff. You’ll be surprised to learn that even you can detect your own odor, at least to a degree.

Due to the location of the tongue’s largest crevices, it isn’t the front parrt of the tongue that contributes to the odor problem. Instead, it’s the deepest part at the back, toward the throat. Many bad breath sufferers will find a yellowish mucous on the back of the tongue, which fortunately can be collected (and removed) by applying a tongue scraper to the area.

2. Where does the odor on the back of the tongue come from?

Though nobody knows for sure, a common guess is that the foul-smelling material on the back of the tongue comes from post-nasal drip, a very common malady.
As anyone who’s ever suffered post-nasal drip can attest to, most of the secreted mucous rolls down the back of your throat. But some of it, it appears, sticks to the tongue. After a few days, the mucous starts breaking down inside the cracks of the tongue, thanks to the help of millions of bacteria. Unfortunately, part of the breaking-down process involves the creation of foul-smelling sulfurous compounds.

Whether or not the prevailing theory is true, the substance on the back of the tongue is a major cause of bad breath, and the odor it emits has an unpleasant character all its own.

3. Bad Breath from the Stomach! Is it true?

Though it’s true that some reported cases exist of bad breath coming from the stomach, these cases are very rare. The esophageal tube, which connects the stomach with your mouth, is closed the great majority of the time, which seals off the transmission of any odors from your stomach or intestines.

That isn’t to say that it’s impossible for the stomach or intestines to give rise to bad breath. After all, every bite of food you swallow moves slowly down to the stomach, and sometimes give rise to small bubbles of air, which may sometimes emerge as a belch. If things aren’t perfectly copasetic in the stomach, this belching incident may be accompanied by a foul-smelling gas. Even so, it’s probably a rare occasion that bad odor flows from your stomach.