If you’re struggling with bloating, gas, or digestive discomfort, you might be looking in all the wrong places for answers. Most people don’t realize that myofunctional impairments—like poor tongue posture, mouth breathing, and untreated tongue ties—could be the culprits behind their gut issues. As a myofunctional therapist, I see digestive problems in nearly all my clients, young and old. Let’s connect the dots and uncover why your digestion might be suffering due to myofunctional dysfunctions.
Gas and Guts Gone Wild? Blame Your Mouth Breathing Habits
1. Tongue Posture: The Key to Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Your tongue does more than just help you talk and eat. When it rests correctly against the roof of your mouth, it stimulates the vagus nerve—the body’s “chill out” button. The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in digestion, regulating everything from stomach acid production to gut motility. Poor tongue posture means poor vagus nerve stimulation, leaving your digestive system sluggish and causing bloating, gas, and discomfort.
2. Mouth Breathing: A Chronic Stressor for Digestion
Mouth breathing puts your body in a constant state of fight-or-flight, flooding it with stress hormones. And guess what? When your body thinks it’s running from danger, digestion takes a back seat. Your gut isn’t prioritizing nutrient absorption when it’s busy preparing to escape a threat. This leads to poor digestion, discomfort, and nutrient deficiencies that can leave you feeling exhausted and bloated.
3. Tongue Ties and Posture: A Hidden Cause of Compressed Digestion
An untreated tongue tie does more than restrict tongue movement—it affects your entire posture. A restricted tongue often causes forward head posture, rolling the shoulders forward and compressing your digestive organs. Imagine your stomach squished like a pancake instead of being able to function optimally in an upright position. This compression can lead to acid reflux, bloating, and indigestion.
4. Rushing Through Meals: A Digestive Disaster
Fast eaters, listen up! If you’re scarfing down your meals without properly chewing, you’re skipping a crucial part of digestion. Chewing releases saliva enzymes that begin breaking down food before it even reaches your stomach. Eating too quickly, especially without adequate chewing, leads to poor digestion, bloating, and fermentation in the gut—cue the gas and discomfort.
5. The Importance of Proper Chewing
Chewing might seem like a minor detail, but it’s a major factor in digestion. If you have an untreated tongue tie, your tongue may not move correctly to help with chewing, leading to improperly broken-down food. Combine this with mouth breathing and poor tongue posture, and you’ve got a recipe for digestive disaster. Your stomach is left working overtime, struggling to break down food, which can lead to fermentation, gas, and discomfort.
Breaking the Cycle and Healing Your Digestion
If digestive issues have become your “normal,” it’s time to rethink what’s really going on. Just because these issues are common doesn’t mean they’re normal. Addressing myofunctional impairments can significantly improve your digestion and overall health.
Here’s how you can get started:
- Download the Getting Started Guide to begin assessing your symptoms and understanding the connection between your oral function and digestion.
- Book an Exam to evaluate your tongue mobility, breathing patterns, and posture to uncover the root cause of your digestive distress.
Meet Carmen Woodland
Carmen found this path of passion years ago as a dental hygienist.
Her story is personal and close to home. Her sweet granddaughter, Linzee, was passed back and forth amongst doctors and therapists for years trying to figure out her speech, breathing, sleep, chewing and swallowing issues. It wasn’t until Carmen completed post graduate training that she knew Linzee’s problem was a significant tongue-tie. Bingo. Fast forward to now. Carmen is a crusader. An international wellness warrior like you’ve never met! Carmen has continued her wellness education to include certifications in nutrition, toxins, environmental health, blood chemistry and sleep.
Carmen helps tired humans feel better. Yep–that can sound like a pretty generic term, but the results she gets for clients distills down to them feeling like their most amazing self…energetic + vibrant + rested + living without anxiety, dread, and other similar symptoms. Carmen doesn’t “just do myofunctional therapy.” Her magic happens when she tackles the root cause of poor sleep, digestion, weight gain, snoring, chronic fight or flight, mindfulness and more. It’s “More Than Myo™”!
Regardless of how much myofunctional therapy you do, if your blood sugar regulation is a mess, then sleep won’t be optimized. If you’re trying to solve snoring with weight loss, but can’t lose an ounce, maybe you need to take a look at the vicious cycle of sugar and processed carbohydrate addiction or “adrenal fatigue”. If your digestion is a mess, simply releasing your tongue tie won’t solve the whole equation. If you’re trying to learn how to nasal breathe but are a congested mess, perhaps you need some food sensitivity testing to see where your inflammation is coming from. This is the work that Carmen and her team at Impact Myofunctional Therapy / Impact Health Restoration work on. No easy answers. No easy clients. Carmen works with clients all over the world in her practice.
In addition, she also
- Teaches at the Myofunctional Therapy Training Academy.
- Coaches dental offices on how to implement myofunctional screening into their daily practice
- Speaks in various settings
Carmen is also an airway provider for the Foundation of Airway Health, where she works diligently for the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of airway-related disorders. And last but not least, Carmen is a proud member of several professional associations that afford the opportunity to learn so that she can help you. Her professional memberships include: