Honest Discussion: Should You Spit Out Mucus When You're Unwell?

Respiratory viruses are spreading across the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that COVID-19, the flu, and RSV cases will jump up over the next few weeks. While some of the symptoms of each virus vary, there’s at least one they all have in common: extra mucus in your throat and chest.

Getting sick with a respiratory virus usually means facing a conundrum over what to do when you have excess mucus production. Should you spit out mucus, or is it better to swallow it? Does either method have any impact on your recovery? 

Here’s what ear, nose, and throat specialists had to say.

Mucus is a substance that lines the moist surfaces of your body, including the lungs, sinuses, mouth, stomach, intestines, and eyes.

“It is mainly a combination of water and large molecules called glycoproteins, which are a sort of hybrid between sugars and proteins that make the mucus [thick] and a bit sticky,” Rakesh Chandra, MD, a professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Health. “There are other components, like salts, as well as molecules comprising aspects of our immune defense system.”

The substance has a few functions in the body. “It is a lubricant and also provides a barrier between you and the outside world as a first line of defense by filtering what you breathe in,” Linda Dahl, MD, an otolaryngologist at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital, told Health.

Mucus traps debris, allergens, viruses, and bacteria that go into your airways, Kanwar Kelley, MD, an otolaryngologist and CEO of Side Health in California, told Health. “It immobilizes those things and helps to prevent you from getting infected,” he said.  

Extra mucus is a major sign that you’re sick and that your immune system is kicking into high gear. Mucus contains some antibodies, which help fight foreign substances, and lysozyme, an enzyme that combats bacteria.

“Your body’s response during an illness is to produce more mucus as a manner of defending itself,” Andrey Filimonov, MD, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told Health. “It’s trying to increase that protective barrier.”

Not only that, the extra mucus production also creates a flow to help wash the pathogens away, Chandra said.

Excess mucus, whether in the back of your throat or lungs, isn’t a good time, and you may have heard that spitting it out will help you feel better. Most doctors agree that this is the case. 

“You should spit it out to clear out the thicker mucus and open up the drainage pathways of your nose and sinuses,” Ramsadeen said.

Chandra also recommends spitting mucus out. “The mucus that is coughed up contains irritants, allergens, and/or infectious organisms that need to be cleared from the body,” he said. 

But he also stressed that there is no evidence that swallowing mucus you cough up harms your stomach or intestines. If you go this route, “it will be eliminated through the gastrointestinal tract,” he said. Meaning your GI tract will break the mucus down, and you’ll eventually poop it out.

There’s also this to consider, per Kelley: “Sometimes spitting it out can make you feel better in the moment.”

But he also stressed that you swallow mucus all day anyway. “During the course of a day, you’re swallowing plenty of mucus,” he said.

Doctors generally agree there’s no “right” way to spit out mucus. Whether you prefer to delicately spit it into a tissue or hock a loogie, both methods achieve the same thing.

However, you can do a few other things to clear out mucus when you’re sick.  

While extra mucus is a normal reaction to a respiratory infection, Filimonov recommends contacting a doctor if you’ve been struggling for more than a week or if you seem to be continuously producing more mucus.