I just recently had my first session with myofunctional therapist Sarah Hornsby and it was great. She shared with me several exercises to improve my tongue posture. As far as I know I don’t think Dr. Mew covered any of the exercises before.
That being said Sarah explained that there so many exercises for the tongue and the one she provided we selected to help my particular case. In a previous session she had me do all sorts of test to identify the decencies I had in my tongue. Based on that, she provided me with 5 exercises.
The first one was requires that I place a rubber band on the tip of my tongue and hold it against the roof of my mouth for 5 minutes once a day. As I progress I would hold it for longer periods up to 20 minutes.
The next step was to place the band on the middle of my tongue and continue the same as the previous exercise. The last step is to place both bands and progress in the same path.
While this exercise seems very simplistic the main goal behind it is to develop neurological pathways. Sarah explained that since I have been practicing tongue posture for a while I might just breeze through this exercise.
Another exercise was to lightly push the tip of my tongue against both sides of my mouth and keep repeating this for few minutes. The goal is to develop correct motor function in my tongue. Since I have a hard time doing this without engaging other facial muscles she advised to bite on a foam piece. This stabilizes the lower jaw and helps me learn to move the tongue independently.
Another variation on this exercise is to push the tongue against both cheeks and again watch out for other facial muscles engaging while minimizing that with the foam piece.
To strengthen the posterior tongue she provided me with two exercises. The first requires that I lift up the tongue as high as I can while I have my mouth open and keep repeating this for few minutes. The second exercise is to say the letter Ka repeatedly while holding my mouth open. Once this is easy I can progress to using the letter Ga which requires more effort from the posterior tongue to pronounce.
She explained that all 5 exercises were mainly geared to learning how to isolate and use the tongue independently versus gaining brute strength.
Watching Sarah demonstrate those exercises was impressive. She had full control of her tongue and could do everything to an exaggerated extent to show the movement.
This is made more impressive by the fact that she actually has a narrow palate but still was able to attain this level of control and strength in her tongue.
my story: http://www.aljabri.com/blog/my-story/
Super informative. Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks, but I can't believe how many typos I made in this post.
For some reason the edit function is not working @admin
my story: http://www.aljabri.com/blog/my-story/
Working on fixing the buttons !
Thanks for sharing!
I think I've mentioned this before but a highly underrated method for developing neural pathways is walking.
I currently walk an average of 3 miles a day, 1.5 miles to the grocery store, and 1.5 miles back.
The whole time during my walk, I'm hyper focused on tongue positioning. I'm also chin tucking the whole way and throat swallowing every time I doubt if I have the proper position.
The first 2 weeks I started paying attention to my tongue while walking pretty much burned it into my subconscious. Getting the back third up during sleep was previously unimaginable, but I now wake up with my tongue in place (at least on days where I'm not waking up mouth breathing due to allergies).
There's something about the rhythm and mind/body connection that takes place while walking that makes it a powerful tool for developing neural pathways. Worth a try for anyone who wants to make a jump to the next level.
@abdulrahman True thanks for this info. Once I'm finished with surgical treatments I'll definitely see Sarah Hornsby.
-Melius
@abdulrahman, thank you so much for sharing this!
The ones with the rubberband remind me of my myofunctional therapist, only I had to place the rubberband on the first point (eventually three points) after chewing food/or drinking water, and then I had to swallow. If the rubberband "marked" the tongue and stayed in position, that was a good sign.
And as for the Ga and Ka, I'm glad you say they strengthen the tongue. There was a Youtube video, where somebody said the word "Na Ga Ka" strengthens the three points of the tongue (Na is for the tip), and to repeat them "GaGaGa", "Na,Na,Na" etc. And now that you mention it, I'm more motivated to do it everyday. Do you know if it's okay to do it with frequency, or is there is a possibility to "overtrain" the tongue?
Thank you
Do you know if it's okay to do it with frequency, or is there is a possibility to "overtrain" the tongue?
I will ask her next time, but I don't think so, because this is like speech, you can keep using your tongue and it will not tire easily.
my story: http://www.aljabri.com/blog/my-story/
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