Techniques you can learn for proper swallowing pattern that will give you hollow cheeks & lead to facial beauty. You can get ride of tongue thrust & chubby cheeks. Begin to raise the posterior tongue higher in the palate leading to more ideal oral posture.
New walk through tongue training video by Dr. Mike Mew. (DIY Oral Myology)
Click “Read More” for part 2… & my experience with it.
The Problem
We all need negative pressure / suction to swallow, the correct adult swallower accomplishes this by keeping the teeth together and the tongue pressing against the upper palate to create the seal. The tongue will do a wave motion across the palate. Which puts widening, forward, & upwards force on maxilla beneficial for facial development.
If you try to swallow food with teeth together and it feels uncomfortable for you, then you most likely have some form of incorrect swallow.
During the incorrect swallow the teeth is held slightly apart with tongue placed between them, because the seal is inadequate, the lips, cheeks, & chin muscles are used as compensation which suck against the dentition. This is putting constrictive forces on the face and palate.
It is estimated close to 90{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6} of population have some form of incorrect swallow.
(the likely cause is known to be early weaning of baby with puree food that can be suckled down like feeding on mother’s breast which uses facial muscle & introducing it too early before they are ready to learn. The child fails to transition to adult swallow, & continue to keep some of the infantile suckling pattern all the way into adulthood)
I have observed even fine looking individuals that still have some slight lip parsing during swallows.
It is estimated we swallow 2,000 times per day, these improper forces or lack of correct forces add up to affect facial form.
The Buccinator Ring
There’s a whole band of muscle titled the Buccinator Ring which includes your lips & cheeks that become overdeveloped as a result of incorrect swallowing which show as bulges in the face. This results in collapsed dental arch, and it will make expansion during orthodontic treatment much more difficult. One orthodontist back in the day was convinced this muscle was the cause of malocclusion and was crazy enough to cut this muscle in some of his patients. (of course the muscle is not at fault, but the incorrect use of it)
Hollow Cheeks
Using cheeks to swallow also cause chubby cheeks from its overdevelopment. This is why babies have chubby cheeks. When correct teeth together, tongue-to-palate swallow becomes the norm, the cheeks begin to hollow out as the muscle dystrophy from disuse. I am feeling and seeing this as of late, When I touch my cheeks they feel noticeably thinner.
The fact: When you observe good looking people swallow they keep their lips, cheeks, & chin completely still. And only the throat moves.
The stereotypical image is the petite, upper class lady with attractive face & fancy dress swallowing as if they didn’t swallow at all, very passively and politely.
Now the opposite image is someone that swallows with all kinds of movement seen in the face, & possibly even head jerking, seeming animalistic. The image would be of less attractive people.
Unbalanced muscular patterns leads to unbalanced facial form.
Hollowing of cheeks as a result of correction in swallowing pattern.
The Solution
Ingrained patterns takes dedication to overwrite. These video exercises by Mike Mew is the best I have found for this process of unlearning & relearning. It was taught to me personally few months back and I noticed a breakthrough, just this past week he has decided to make these new teachings public.
Pay special attention to the push swallow in part2.
Quick Recap of Push Swallow
You create awareness for the back of the tongue by using the cheesy swallow.
Then with teeth together, lips sealed and face completely passive, you raise the tongue to the roof with the tip on the incisive papilla (bump right behind the 2 upper front teeth) and you swallow your saliva.
While keeping the tongue on the roof, suck up rest of the moisture from your mouth and bring it to the roof of the mouth, this should happen pretty naturally when you simply intend for it. The tip should still remain on the incisive papilla, or partially. But you should feel your tongue roll around and make some strange movements as you suck up.
Swallow again.
Your mouth will be getting dryer and you will feel a vacuum effect taking place inside.
The lips will feel more sealed and feel sucked in.
And with this vacuum you’re to notice that the back of the tongue is raising and now ramming up on the upper palate, the feeling you noticed from cheesy smile should be intensified.
Now try to hold this position, with the vacuum you should begin to feel more of your tongue on the palate and be able to exert more force on the soft palate.
This is the one exercise I repeat most often. It began to correct my swallowing pattern and greatly improve my tongue posture and lip seal.
The more you do, more often the tongue is up there. The goal is constantly leave little bit of upwards force.
Conclusion
After learning tongue push practice…
1 month after, my orthodontist assistant took notice of facial changes taking place.
After 2 month, she noticed even more changes at which point she made a comment on it and asked if I had gotten better with tongue posture.
The beauty of this practice is that it can be done anywhere, anytime. My favorite times as Mike suggested is in the car, with head rest up high, forcing upright head posture with chin tuck and doing the push swallow.
You will be surprised the amount of upwards force you can begin to exert at the back of your mouth and the longer duration you’re able to keep up with the vacuum which also act as reminder to always have these feelings in side the mouth, seemingly inside your throat for most of you that had good bit of vertical growth.
& I am sure it is a quite new feeling most have not felt before. At least to this extent in strength or duration.
You also notice your cheeks suck in little bit after they become more thin, this could explain what’s causing good looking people to really have those hollow cheeks that are almost depressed in. Perhaps not only because the buccinator ring is thin from disuse but they have great tongue posture causing the vacuum to suck in the cheeks and lips. I am confirming this is also the natural way for great lip seal, no need for lip muscles.
Join membership to read more.
-CP
I have been doing this for a while and have felt good pressure on my upper face, some times I wonder if I’m doing it a little too hard.
Outstanding piece, thank you. I’m amazed how few folks know about this stuff. When more people find out orthotropics and the fact that we literally are what we do this stuff is going to explode.
How long would you say it takes to see minor changes in forward growth of the maxilla when applying your techniques? I’ve been tongue-roofing since June (so about 7 months) and don’t really notice any differences to my face. I mean, my mouth is more relaxed, but maxillary position appears to be the same. I mean, 7 months isn’t that long but if you look at tissue mechanics research or any sort of dose-response relationship, providing a stimulus for that long of a time should produce some changes (even if its to tissues such as those in the skull, which may take a longer time to respond).
Also, how long does masse tar hypertrophy take when chewing hard foods and hard gum (e.g. falim)?
Lastly, wouldn’t you agree that facial attractiveness is largely genetic? Bone structure, chin length, eye shape, cheek bone prominence, etc are all genetic. I highly doubt that every highly attractive man you see on tv (e.g. brad pitt, Johnny depp) had hard food diets and chewed gum all the time..that being said, I still buy into your stuff but I think facial attractiveness is largely genetic.
in 7 months you should see noticeable changes, It could be that you still aren’t raising the back of the tongue which was the case for me. Follow those tongue push exercises well.
It is hard to say how long it will take. important to keep chewing. I chew at minimum 2 hours a day.
I have seen dramatic changes in faces when maxilla comes up and forwards, almost a completely different person so we shouldn’t be too quick to assume attractiveness is largely genetic. This is still under exploration. I know for certain even if someone was born from 2 super model parents. If he or she had poor posture growing up, they would not be attractive as adults.
Thanks for the reply. My other question has to do with tooth extractions. I got a root canal last week and unfortunately I still have some tooth sensitivity and am scared that I need to get it extracted (upper left, 2nd tooth from the back). I really want to avoid this as I have heard how tooth extractions can damage the face; my question is can implants save this damage from occurring and will correct mouth posture help with this as well?
I dont have experience with root canals, they say implants do function as a real teeth so… but I haven’t gotten implants yet either so outside my current understanding.
I really don’t think you’ll see any changes.
I mean, it’s like women who do breast exercises hoping they’ll go bigger. The bone won’t move.
Now you can see a difference in muscle tone on your upper face but still, I’m not even sure about that.
begin to practice for yourself and you will begin to see changes.
take a look at this post: http://claimingpower.com/tongueposturefacechanges/
I actually can’t tell if the difference comes from a proper tongue posture or if she just lost weight.
I can see that’s she’s slightly smiling in the picture of the left, thus making the eyes brighter.
But yes these little changes occur on the muscles only. If you have a receding chin, you’ll need to get surgery in order to correct the shape (as I probably will).
Now I’d be interested in the areas of the face that the tongue to roof stimulates.
I have a bit of the droopy eye, especially the lower eyelid and you can see a little bit of the white underneath the iris… Can this be corrected?
yea I believe it can be improved depending on your success at getting the posture. receding chin is also affected by muscle tone.
I saw a photo of myself as a baby recently and my face looked normal. My face started to get weird at a pretty young age, I constantly had my mouth really open and on top of that my jaw jutted to the side. My face isn’t too bad as an adult but after looking at that photo as a baby I wonder how I would look had my parents addressed my very obvious poor oral habits. So in my case I think it’s definitely more nurture than nature.
Well if it were up to genetics entirely I would be extremely attractive. Instead Im only average because I was a mouth breather for 12 years of my life (Im 16 now). Both my parents are above average attractive. My mom has extremely prominent cheekbones, model like, and my dad has a jaw and very nice upturned eyes. My brother never was a mouth breather and guess what… he looks great! I on the other hand was a heavy mouth breather and you can see it. Although I have nice wide cheek bones, my mid face is sunken and my chin is receded (even though no one on either side of my family has these issues). Im just starting this stuff so hopefully I can somewhat change my face back to how it was supposed to be.
Johnny Depp is from Kentucky and Brad Pitt is from Missouri, if that is of any help to your question…
Thanks! This is awesome! I’m going to share this post and also watch the videos.
I have been practicing, and sometimes I can and sometimes I FAIL. First waking up, is when it’s worse, after being awake and aware, it’s better.
I can’t find your lip trainer Patakara page on here. And when I get the monies sorted, do you accept Pay Pal?
I’m also going to get the CandyLipz for the fuller lips. It’s a temp solution that after use, esp at night, can become permanent over time.
at the end of the article I mention that with great tongue posture there is no need for Patakara lip trainer for lip seal. This is why I am no longer promoting this product. In fact, I am beginning to understand overdeveloping the lip muscle is not ideal.
Well, I can’t read the end of the article, because I can not afford a subscription.
It’s a huge challenge just to be able to get NCR.
Got lucky and someone gave me a nice unused hockey helmet, so I will be using that and a mouth guard.
Hi CP, as I’ve been practicing this technique, everytime I swallow and the posterior portion of the tongue pushes up onto the soft palate, I feel a very slight “pressure” feeling on/behind my nose bridge, where the bone is, that lasts for about a second each time. Does that mean I’m doing it too hard or is that what is supposed to happen?
I also feel various sensations from time to time, I’m not concerned with it it. any force in the upwards / forwards direction on the palate is good.
Cap during my consult with mike he still told me to look into myo functional therapy. I guess in your opinion there’s no point.?
Also could it be possible Thatbi don’t full feel my posterior tongue touching the throat because of my narrow arch? It’s like the posterior hits the teeth, even though I feel posterior pressure.
it is possible that narrow palate is inhibiting the tongue posture, I began practicing tongue posture after I had expansion. Expansion helps and I would look into it. Now whether or not you will be able to overcome it with consistent practice is something you will have to try out.
I don’t think you need myofunctional if you practice these exercises enough and with enough commitment / watch you facial muscle and oral postures. I certainly have not needed it at this point.
I agree with you CP, I think one should have expansion first then work on the tongue.
I did Myofunctional therapy for three months and kept getting pain in my jaw and the darn tongue would not stay on the spot (upper palate). I honestly think that it is very difficult keeping the tongue there if you have a very narrow palate. So, yes expansion first then tongue exercises.
It does make sense, how can you keep your tongue up there if you have absolutely no room. I saw Dr. Barry Raphael on the East Coast and he insisted that I do six months of Myofunctional Therapy before he would even touch my mouth.
Well, that was a waste of money and I still can’t keep the tongue on the spot. How can you keep it there if there is no room?
Anyhow, I am seeing Dr. Gerald Smith now and he agrees that you have to expand first then you could work on tongue exercises.
He said you could work on the tongue all you want but if you don’t have the room the tongue will not stay there.
P.S. CP, I asked your opinion about Dr. Gerald Smith and you never replied.
I know Ian Hedley flies in to see him because Dr. Smith is known to be the best.
Thank you for all that you do!
Sincerely,
B. 😉
best of luck to you, I will look into him thanks for sharing
Yes back when I had narrow palate and getting expanded I didn’t know about just how important tongue posture was, so I never tried it. I only began after I was expanded. But I have seen people expand their palate with tongue alone. They say ideally you want 34-35 mm of inter-molar width to comfortably adopt posterior tongue posture. Problem is most people with issues are much narrower than that. But with dedication it could be possible with narrower palate, I can’t say for sure because I never tried it when I was narrow.
Very interesting post about proper swallowing and posture! Thank you!
Hey when u say teeth together is it molars or the front teeth? I bite on my molars since i have an overbite. Of course i can bite on my front teeth but that will make my jaw protrude further than it already is. Please help
its difficult to give proper diagnosis with just this explanation alone but I would just work on keeping your mouth closed. teeth together in whatever is most comfortable for you. good chance that you are currently leaving your mouth open.
do you have pictures of your improvement?
Also, for people who have a thyroid issue, you should get that solved first before attempting to do Myofunctional therapy.
If you have a thyroid problem exercising the tongue swells it up and makes it even more difficult to keep the tongue to the roof of the mouth.
Theoretically, how much do think the jaw can hypertrophy? A few millimetres or would it be genetic dependent?
also, have you ever posted before and after pictures of yourself? Never seen any…
in the membership posts I have. It’s difficult to say “how much jaw can hpertrophy” because this is new and we have only just begun. I am seeing noticeable difference however…
How come u dont show ur improvment pictures? U said there was noticable difference… Mind showing us?
I do in the membership section of the site
May i know why we have to pay to see that? Alot of us have been unfortunately plagued with flat cheekbones and the cruel society that looks down on us.
LOL! Claimingpower does a lot of hard work (researching, talking with the experts, writing, answering questions, posting his picture, etc), and you expect him to give all this to you for free? Do you go to a restaurant and expect them to provide you with your meals for free as well?!?
Seriously, it’s only like $10 a month for access to claimingpower’s membership for pete’s sake!
I mean i would definitely subscribe if there were definite pics of his improvement n. even pay more if it works but now i am unsure
How about try it and see what happens? Its not very hard.
Where in the membership section?
I pay for membership and I can’t find any of this.
I’ve been putting the tongue on the roof (completely, back too) and the change is 0, plus i think that your theory about hollow cheeks is wrong, it may be actually the opposite, babies on the whole are chubby not just their cheeks and it seems that those that breastfeed have less chubby cheeks, plus if you think that the tongue exerts an outward force and remodels the bone why do you think the Buccinator which puts inward pressure causes puffy cheeks? Even if you do “the duck face” which puts lips outward and sucks the cheeks in you get hollower cheeks,
The buccinator is reponsible for cheeks suction which probably cause hollow cheeks, models suck their cheeks all the time.
This was a theory based on anecdotal evidence, what i found is this study done on pigs.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920343/
if you put the data on excel and use the correlation functions and see if there’s a correlation between Buccinator resting posture and Buccinator thickness you’ll find a NEGATIVE correlation, basically a greater buccinatore pressure means a thinner buccinator.
The buccinator in my opinion is the muscle that gives the hollow look, not certainly the tongue, that doesn’t makes sense, even if you see all the pictures of weston price of people with wide palate you won’t find anyone with hollow cheeks this means that there’s little correlation betweed tongue posture and hollow cheeks probably they are antagonistic as tongue exerts and outward force and cheeks exert an inward force so if you find people with a very wide palate it probably means that their buccinator is a lot weaker than their tongue force thus people with the widest palates probably have the most roundish and puffy features IF the tongue plays a major role in palate widening, not even mike mew himself which practices your theories long before you has hollow cheeks, on the contrary is face looks roundish and not concave.
Does it make sense?
If you begin to practice posterior tongue on the roof posture, you will notice the vacuum effect sucking in the cheeks. Which is why I believe we see the models with cheeks sucked in. It is evident of tongue to roof posture. If tongue is in between teeth like most people, then the tongue will cause the cheeks to bulge out. Also if you have incorrect swallowing the cheek muscle become larger which diminishes the hollow cheeks look.
Hollow cheeks always means that the buccinator muscle is thin from disuse. I have seen this myself and if you practice correct swallowing and tongue posture you too will also begin to see “hollowing” of the cheeks. Did you not see the children in this post that got more hollow cheeks as a result of correct oral posture & function? even if the palate got wider.
Sadly i always had a good swallow, but no hollow cheeks, the buccinator merits further analysis in my opinion
But what if i have flat cheeks , then will tongue on roof make them worse?
When I consulted with Mew last year, he told me that my inter-molar width was 42mm. Does this seem like enough for proper tongue posture? It seems like about 50mm is ideal as that is what ancestors apparently had. The issue I have with my palate is that the molars are an ok width apart, but the palate narrows as it flows towards the front teeth. The incisors for example seem to point more inwards, while the very back molars are more outwards facing.
Mike said I tend to have tongue “between the teeth” but never elaborated on this when I asked what he meant in an email follow up. I think I can guess but can you give your input? I have noticed that my palate is like a high cave, so when pressing on the ‘spot’ behind the teeth with the tip of my tongue, it feels like there is still so much roof above it that the tongue is not in contact with. In other words the roof of the mouth is quite high, higher even than tooth level.
I can actually do the posterior lifting action fairly well, but then I struggle to find a place for the tongue tip. It’s like the entire palate is too far back, and the tongue too far forward. If I move the tongue tip into what I feel is the ideal place for roof coverage, then it feels like its curling back on itself, and the posterior drops as a result. It’s a real predicament.
This is the exact same problem I have. I’m getting abfractions on my upper incisors from tongue thrust, because even though I have decent palatal width (35mm in the back) and room for all my wisdom teeth, the whole maxilla is set too far back and the roof of the palate is too high. My tongue wants to push forward, past my incisors. Trying to hold it back gives me the same problem you have, it makes it much more difficult for the tongue to flatten out enough to get the posterior part pushed up.
Interesting you should mention the abfractions – Mike said I had “marked dimications” on my incisors (not too sure what it means exactly but probably what you have). I also have marks all up the size of my tongue from where it hits the teeth. I had 4 incisors removed for braces, which is likely the reason why the maxilla is set back a bit from ideal. Dr Mew also said my tongue volume was low.
I am beginning to think that maybe different people have individual issues with tongue posture ie. “posterior tongue up” is maybe not a one size fits all solution. It’s certainly very important, but if Mike said that posterior force is just as important as anterior, then vice versa must also be true. With us, perhaps our posterior function is good, explaining the good palate size, but maybe we don’t put nearly enough pressure on the front. The anterior tongue not being up on the roof behind the teeth I think explains why my palate gets narrower at the incisors.
When I focus on just pressing on the front palate a lot, I feel like my facial posture looks a lot more natural. It also certainly feels like i’m pushing the bone out a lot more, as the teeth move ever so slightly despite me not pushing the teeth themselves. I have noticed that my whole mid-face, especially cheekbones, improves a ton when I pout as if i’m kissing someone on the cheek, which would further suggest my issue is that the palate just doesnt project forwards enough. Cheeks naturally get sucked in when I do this, almost like a hammock between the cheekbone and lips.
although I agree we need front as well, the back seems to hold most duration and power, just google search cow tongue and see how thick the back part is. its when I started focusing on posterior tongue posture that I began seeing more results and so did my orthodontist assistant.
if you really have 42 mm that is plenty and your actually wider than most ppl. You need 35 mm to start rolling with tongue posture. Tongue between teeth means you are leaving your teeth slightly apart and tongue is low in between them.
All I can say is keep practicing with tongue, I also sometimes find it strange but it seems that its changing the more I do it. you tongue is a powerful muscle, start playing with it alone, and raising it higher in the palate can be creating change overtime, as we were not doing any of this before.
Also one more question – is sucking in the cheeks different from the buccinator action of the cheek when swallowing? I am struggling to understand how the vacuum-like suction where the cheeks adhere to the teeth creates the hollowness as the buccinator wastes from disuse, when this seems to be the same action causing the narrowed palate and large buccinator in the first place..
There are two functions of the buccinator muscle blowing and sucking and they probably affect the buccinator and the cheeks in different ways. Imo we should start sucking our cheeks at rest, hollow cheeks are more commong among long time smokers.
I had a thought earlier today – maybe the key difference is whether the buccinator is pressing against closed teeth when its sucked in, or whether it tucks BETWEEN the teeth as you swallow? I imagine doing the latter would overdevelop the muscle as it goes between the teeth – and then when that developed muscle is rested back onto the teeth, maybe that produces the ‘chubby’ look? If the buccinator pressed against the teeth, that might both suck it in, as well as limit its activation.
I think it all comes back down to what Mew originally said – keep teeth together, especially while swallowing. Narrowing of the palate as a result of doing that shouldn’t be an issue, as long as the tongue is also pressing on the roof of the mouth and fighting against the suck (haha) from the other side of the teeth. In effect, creating the ‘balanced zone’ orthotropics supposedly tries to find.
Is this the eureka moment or just gibberish at this point? lol
Yes teeth together when you swallow, ensures the cheek muscles don’t active or “suck in”. It happens pretty quick so hard to notice for most of us. but try to swallow slowly with teeth held apart, you will feel the cheek muscles begin to suck inwards. Where as if you swallow slowly with teeth together, cheek muscles don’t move.
thank you for this post ^^
about the soft palate, i was wondering, when my tongue pushes against the soft palate i can’t breath anymore so I kind of have to lower the tongue there but still keep the rest of it firmly pushing against the ”hard” palate, if that makes sense. Am I doing it wrong ?
difficulty in breathing indicate your getting the back of the tongue up, keep working at it.
Is it the front teeth or molars that need to touch?
You mean I should keep that part of my tongue up even if it makes breathing hard and sound like snoring ?
heyfirst question is does the front teeth or molars need to touch cos only 1 of them can at a time for me. second, how do u eliminate menalis activity when swallowing? thank u cp
deactivating mentalis comes with improving lip seal at rest as well as improving structure over time. Touch teeth at what is comfortable and try to practicing keeping the mouth shut at rest with tongue against the palate
I must say that my swallowing is improving. It’s more difficult upon awakening, but swishing with water or mouthwash seems to make a difference.
Oral posture is much better, and I believe it’s because I am consciously aware of it, and even think about it when asleep as I dreamed about it before. My cheeks are sometimes sore due to the constant pressure on them, and it’s not much either, just holding it much longer than I used to.
I’ve been trying to do the correct swallow for over two weeks now and already I can feel my cheek muscles thinning on the side of my face.
Whenever I drink now I am constantly checking to make sure I don’t use any of my facial muscles in the swallow. Soon enough hopefully I’ll be able to have that wide smile I’ve always wanted instead of a fatty faced smile where my buccinator bushes up at the side of my mouth.
Whats the process on gathering saliva?
keep the tip of the tongue on the spot and suck in the saliva while keeping teeth in contact.you will feel your tongue do motions.
I also wonder about gathering saliva because I observe that when I suck saliva, then I move the lips and that exerts inward pressure to the front teeth that will in time move them to the opposite direction than desired.
Hi CP,
I have been trying to modify my tongue placement to achieve the wider looking face that I want. My face is leaning towards long and narrow, and I want it to be wider. Without any prior knowledge from your site, I was actually chewing gum practically daily a year ago and stopped when I thought that chewing gum would tone my cheeks and make my face thinner … so my problem upon reading from this article is that chubby cheeks will be toned down with proper tongue alignment? But I want a wider face to balance the length, and I still want to retain whats left of my chubby baby fat cheeks to look young. How do I go about with this predicament? Thanks!
its hard to say what you mean by chubby baby fat cheeks, any good looking adult have hollow cheeks and they do not look old. Enlarged cheek muscle is dysfunctional and causes narrow palate so it is not good for the face. When the face is shorter and wider structurally, it appears more youthful, its not necessarily the “chubby cheeks” that gives that appearance. People do not need large cheek muscle to look youthful and pretty as adults.
I see. Thanks for this! Really appreciate it!
I manage to swallow properly but I have this issue with saliva gathering around my tongue and outside my teeth. I try to hit my tongue on the soft palate and wriggle it but despite the vacuum effect I can’t get any of it on my tongue and have to suck to get it through.
Is there anything I am doing wrong? How can I fix this?
I’m really glad that i found this page because i have always thought that sucking in your face and doing facial exercises would have slimmed down your face but oh have wrong i have been… I found about Zyzz a few years back and instantly became obsessed about him. I wanted to have a body like him and later i started to notice how perfect his face was so i began to search how to get a square jaw and such. A lot of the articles advised on doing facial exercises so i did. At this time my body was already looking aesthetic as fuck and i noticed that i have really good genetics when it comes to bodybuilding but something was not right, my face did not slim down. Even my mom and one of my friends said that my face looked a bit rounder or puffy and i was of course very upset but they were right, i did not look good. And now i know the reason why, by doing these facial exercises i had been increasing the size of my facial muscles and especially my Buccinator and that had caused my cheeks to look puffy/fat. Now i will learn on how to swallow correctly and stop with the face sucking. And to the end i would like to say, thank you Mike Mew, you deserve a nobel prize in aesthetics!!
Hey CP,
I really want to work on that now? I have a question.
When you drink? Do you drink and have your teeth in contact the whole time and the tongue on the roof of your mouth or do you open your teeth so that water can pass? I hope you understand what I mean, I have problems with drinking.
Thanks
your over thinking it, during the swallow teeth comes in light contact.
will wearing the retainers i got after i got my braces removed be detrimental and basically slow down my progress?
When I started placing tongue on roof, I found that my retainers were moving my palate back to being smaller. So I stopped wearing them.
If I’m having trouble breathing when I’m swallowing and trying to get the back of my tongue on the roof of my mouth, what does this indicate? Also, will the feeling of not being able to breath go away?
Hello
Whenever I place my tongue at the roof of the mouth, I actually can feel my neck muscles and not the face muscles. Do you know what’s wrong with that? Unless I do it correctly..
By the way, can I get your email adress? I’d like to ask you a private question about the subject of this page.
Thanks and have a great day !!
I’m not sure if I fully understand, when I try to maintain the posterior part of the thing on the roof of my palate as my neutral posture it is physically impossible to breathe. if I followed this correctly, what I believe the posterior swallow is – is after the cheesy swallow I would hold that feeling in the back of my throat with a now neutral facial expression after the swallow – so basically holding the entire muscle position…leading me to be unable to breathe.
Am I doing this correctly or have I misunderstood? I’ve never been a mouth-breather before and my facial structure is about average really. I’ve noticed if I were to try to hold this position indefinitely as a natural resting position it does place a lot of pressure on the masseter muscles over time.
Wow you peiple are so obcessed with looks that your willing to believe that a bit of suction is going to make you lose fat in your cheeks.. pay to see the results?! are you kidding me… has no one ever heard of a money grab or scam? if you want hollow cheeks lose some weight and then the cheek bones will be more pronounced!! another thing the size of your cheek bones will have a huge effect on this! Quit believing everything you read on the Internet just because it looks like the site is professional!
What happens if you can’t breathe when you have the tongue on the roof of your mouth? It seems like I have a very narrow airway that prevents me from doing this exercise without suffocating myself!
Hi there , just wondering what was the source of the swallowing image with marking paste on palate ?
Can someone explain for me the exercices ? I don’t speak english very well, I couldn’t understand him. Please.
Hi,interesting article,I’ve just discovered (at the age 56 🙂 that I swallow wrong,it all began after my whole mouth restoration(prt crowns over implants and part crownls on my own teeth),I had a very pleasant face for my whole life,even when was partially edentoulous ,but after the restoration crowns began breaking (zirconia crowns which are sipposed to be as hard as metal!) and falling,and after some warrantee fixes and 6 years of this dentures all my facial muscles crushed,face trasformed into an old withc face,mouth corners looking down ans lower jaw retruded respect how I had it for my whole life…Fact is that i was happier when without teeth..Many gnatologists I contacted told me my disfunction is due to a too much retruded jaw respect to my physiological occlusion ,and lack of vertical dimentions because the doctor who made the denture used a very old and incorrect approach for centric occlusion(pushed my jaw too much backward to register the bite) and thus my tmj could not adapt any more and muscles too do not work…I can not keep my back teeth together when swallow,always have a feeling they are too short and can not meet…I wonder whether I laways had the incorrectmswalloing habit or just developed it while adapting to my new denture? Any idea?Thanks.
What if I have an overbite? Its really hard to put the teeth together when swallowing. Is this normal? I’m 16 by the way in case if this make a difference.
Can a SLIGHT receded chin be corrected with tongue posture?
Hello, my name is Liam and I am a 16 year old boy from Ireland. I recently discovered this site alongside the whole concept of craniofacial dystrophy and orthotropics aswell as Dr. Mike Mew’s tips for improving facial structure.
It was about last week some time when I decided to start practicing tongue posture and correct my tongue posture although I have been chewing mastic gum for about a week before then. I noticed I had very flat cheeks, a slightly curved nose and slight craniofacial dystrophy as well as average maloclusion. I have been breathing through my mouth since I was ~4 years old due to a deviated septum I got after (I think anyway) I fell from my tricycle onto my face after coming down a hill at high speed, this could have damaged the septum or caused inflammation of the nasal cavities leading me to developing mouth breathing and not exercising my nasal breathing muscles. I recently underwent surgery to correct the deviation but I have noticed it is slightly coming back (they just bent it back they didn’t remove any tissue) and I noticed that in one of Dr. Mew’s videos he mentions how craniofacial dystrophy can cause a deviated septum. Anyhow, I’m getting off topic here, since I have been breathing through my mouth my palate is very narrow and I have a high dental arch. I have tried doing the exercises Dr. Mew recommends to help widen the palate and bring the maxilla up and forwards, although that’s where my problem is. I am unsure whether or not I am doing the exercises correctly, up to this point I have been: lifting the whole tongue to the roof of the mouth in the correct posture (with the tip at the incisive papilla and the posterior third of the tongue pushing on the soft and hard palate) doing a swallow, then doing a sweep swallow and pushing the whole tongue up after the sweep swallow while the vacuum is present with the chin tucked and back straight. But here’s where the problem arises, I can hold that position with the tongue pushing on the roof of the mouth for a decent amount of time but when i feel the urge to take a breath, I must lower the tongue from the soft palate to allow airflow, thus breaking the vacuum making it very difficult to do these exercises as regularly and for as long as I would like to.
So I have a few questions regarding this issue:
Am I meant to hold the tongue pushing up on the palate for the whole 10 seconds before doing another sweep swallow?
Am I meant to take breaths between each 10 second interval or am I expected to be able to breathe while doing the exercise?
Am I doing them right?
Dr. Mew says that the tongue should be balancing the pressure exerted by the jaw muscles, is this in everyday life when the tongue is in correct resting position exerting a light force, or during the exercise when the tongue is being pushed into the palate, or both? Should I be clenching my teeth? Because he says that the jaw muscles should be activated while just out of contact while doing the exercise but mine never are regardless of how much I try.
He says that the posterior third of the tongue should always be exerting some force on the soft palate but if mine ever is, I can hardly breathe, does it become easier over time? Is that what the exercises are intended for?
So sorry for all of these questions I really do hate asking, but I really have watched all of his videos on tongue posture and swallowing including an hour long talk about it but there are some things I just can’t grasp, any help whatsoever is so greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
– Liam