Proper Tongue Placement: Why Does It Matter?
Should My Tongue Touch My Teeth? What Is Proper Tongue Placement?
Proper tongue placement involves placing your tongue correctly in the roof of your mouth. This concept is much more important than you may think.
The ideal resting position for your tongue is pressed up against the roof of your mouth as if you were squishing a piece of bread up there! However, when I teach correct tongue posture, I’m always making sure to teach you that your tongue should not be pressing up against the back of your teeth, as this may cause them to move over time.
Your tongue should be resting on the roof of the mouth, with the tongue tip on or near the incisive papilla, which is located right behind the top front teeth. You will hear this called the “spot”, but I often call it home base. When I work with clients, I spend a lot of time teaching them where the tip of the tongue should go, so that it is not pressing on the teeth.
Why Correct Tongue Posture When It Is “At Rest” Is Important
I can testify to this, as my own personal story of incorrect tongue posture has cost me thousands of dollars, and many aches and pains. Prior to completing myofunctional therapy for my tongue thrust, I kept causing ortho relapse because of how my tongue was resting.
Yes, the force of a tongue thrust swallow is detrimental, but not nearly as concerning as the constant force of a tongue at rest improperly. You swallow 1200 – 2000 x per day, but the resting position still remains the biggest concern.
How Does Tongue Posture Affect My Cheeks and Facial Development?
Many folks do no understand the connection between correct tongue posture and your facial development and overall wellness.
When your tongue has a low resting tongue posture, it is not in the roof of the mouth helping to widen or spread out the maxilla (upper jaw). Not having this scaffold support in the roof of the mouth, allows the maxilla to grow “narrow and high” instead of “wide and shallow”.
This will alter facial development by leading to a more elongated face, less prominent chin and cheekbones. It also affects your overall wellness because misguided craniofacial growth can affect the airway also.
Sidenote…You may have heard of the term “mewing” which seems to be a hot topic these days. You can read about it here.
Can Your Tongue Shift Your Teeth?
Yes! Your tongue muscles are extremely powerful. A couple of common ways to shift your teeth are:
- Tongue thrust
- Incorrect tongue posture
How Should You Position Your Tongue?
You can practice this exercise at home. First, I’d like you to increase your awareness. It will be very difficult for you to make corrections if you aren’t aware that you are doing anything wrong! You might use an app on your phone or a simple timer, to remind yourself every hour to take inventory of where your tongue is.
Once you’ve taken a mental inventory of how often your tongue is low, you can get to work.
First, practice placing the tip of the tongue correctly on the incisive papilla.
Next, press the rest of your tongue to the roof of the mouth, as if you were pressing a piece of fruit leather up to the palate.
Now, relax your teeth together and close your lips.
Be sure you are nasal breathing during this exercise! If you are a mouth breather and cannot do this exercise, you should definitely read about mouth breathing here, and here.
Do You Notice Concerns With Your Tongue Posture?
If you notice a problem with your tongue posture, I encourage you to dig deeper. It isn’t so simple as just sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth. If you have had a low resting tongue posture for a long time, you might have other myofunctional impairments that should be corrected.
If you’ve never heard of myofunctional therapy, you can find a whole host of articles here on the blog page, but most important would be for you to understand what myofunctional impairment is and how myofunctional impairment might look like for you? Let’s unpack that.
Maybe it’s feeling like poop. Day in and day out. Maybe its exhaustion from poor sleep or a snoring partner. Maybe it’s poor self-image because you don’t like how your face looks. Maybe it’s poor parenting because you just don’t have the energy.
Now….ask yourself….what it might look like if you put YOU first, and made this your year, your month, your hour, your minute to make YOU a priority?
Does it look like you flying out of bed in the morning to voraciously face the day…because you’re rested?
Does it look like you “OWNING” the energy to move your blessed, amazing body because you have untapped energy?
Does it look like you finally being able to shed those last 10-20-30 pounds because your energy and self-love have gone sky-high?
Does it look like you finally feeling good? No digestive issues or medications to mask the problem.
Right now, is YOUR chance to take that first step to feel your best and live your best life. Don’t short change yourself or make excuses. Don’t put up barriers or start with the self-talking lies. Make yourself a pinkie promise to start exploring your myofunctional impairment today. Don’t let another year, month, hour, minute or second go by without you choosing to make YOU a priority.
It doesn’t cost you a dime to make a free 30-minute appointment with me to talk about you and what you should do. Start. Today.
By the way, If you are like me, and you like to do some “me-search” before talking to a human. I get it. For that reason, I like to share my assessment tool with anyone who is suspecting myofunctional impairment. You can get the assessment tool here and it asks you 25 of the most common questions that I dig deep into during a myofunctional exam. And, if you want to step it up a notch, I recently taught a free class “Become a V.H.P: Your 6 Step Roadmap to Becoming a Vital Healthy Person By Understanding Your Myofunctional Impairment” where I walk you through 6 areas that are uber important for you to consider….and I make it easy on you because I tell you what numbers I’m talking about from the assessment tool . You can watch the video replay here. I encourage you to download your assessment first, fill it out and then watch the video!
About Carmen
Carmen found her path of passion years ago as a dental hygienist. After a stint in graduate school to earn her M.B.A., she left clinical hygiene practice to start her business, Integrative Myofunctional Therapy. In addition to seeing clients in her private online practice, she also teaches the craft of myofunctional therapy in her Myo Mastery Program, coaches dental offices on how to implement myofunctional screening into the daily practice, and speaks frequently in various settings.
Carmen is a provider for the Foundation of Airway Health, where she works diligently for the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of airway related disorders.
In addition, she is a proud member of several professional associations that afford her the opportunity to learn so that she can help her clients. Her professional memberships include: