Personally I don't think the advice to keep your whole tongue upwards is good at all if you're recessed. You should keep all of your pressure on the side of the teeth and mostly on the alveolar ridge.
Distance between teeth and palate is like 2,0-3,0 cm in vertical dimension. Hard palate became way higher than the teeth, the teeth didn't follow from the pressure on the palate. Before I used to feel my teeth at the side of my tongue all the time, now it's mostly the feeling of palate, because the middle of the palate moved upwards significantly compared to the side of the palate.
I have a hard time believing this happened from mewing. Since we know that mouth breathing (so not mewing) will give people a high vaulted palate. Like I've said you have pretty good IMW, but according to your pics you lack a lot of forward growth. Just keep mewing with good posture and your palate will get flatter eventually.
I have a hard time believing this happened from mewing. Since we know that mouth breathing (so not mewing) will give people a high vaulted palate. Like I've said you have pretty good IMW, but according to your pics you lack a lot of forward growth. Just keep mewing with good posture and your palate will get flatter eventually.
My palate wasn't high-vaulted when I started mewing and it's not vaulted right now, but it is high and wide. Also there is no "forward growth", the lower maxilla slightly remodels forwards, most of the "movement" is compression of whole maxilla resulting in resorption, once the teeth the mandible remodels itself forward. And I do agree, I lack upwards growth, my Mew indicator is probably low because of the shape of my nose pointing downwards. If I've been focusing on the alveolar ridge all this time I'd probably have more upwards growth.
And posture doesn't matter for mewing, maybe for chewing it does matter, but not for mewing.
And I did mew improperly, as I pushed my palate upwards instead of my alveolar ridge and my teeth, which is why I made this thread as a warning, don't get too fixed up on having back of the tongue or middle of the tongue pushing against the palate, you mostly want upwards pressure on the alveolar ridge. If you're recessed, you can't even push on the middle/back of your palate without relaxing your tongue at the alveolar ridge.
Since John Mew recently stated that the tongue shouldn’t touch the teeth, this may actually be a good thing. Who knows, maybe your IMW will start to increase from here on. Otherwise, what technique(s) did you use? Some kind of hard mewing?
And posture doesn't matter for mewing, maybe for chewing it does matter, but not for mewing.
I'm sorry mate, but this couldn't be more wrong. Without good head/neck posture it is utterly impossible to engage posterior third of your tongue.
It may also be that proper posture will follow from having good oral posture. This is something I have experienced myself this last month. When I mew properly now, I actually have to try to have forward head posture.
It's true you can expand without concerning yourself with posture. Dentists do it all the time. And if your palate is narrow enough, according to dentist opinion I've encountered, you can't have good posture anyway. So just expand. That's what I had to end up doing, and it's the situation some of us are in: unable to adopt good posture straight off the bat.
Doing the mew cheesy grin will remove any suction of the cheeks on the teeth and flatten the tongue on the palate to help exert sideways pressure.
A quick question: are your sternocleidomastoids (SCM) active when you are mewing? If you are unsure, drop your head down, put your fingers on your neck behind the ramus & ears, then start rotating your head up and back until you feel the large muscles in the sides of your neck bulge. Now replicate the way you have been mewing so far, are the SCMs similarly activated now? Or are they slacking? I have a hypothesis I am keen to explore, as you are not the first one to experience this outcome.
A quick question: are your sternocleidomastoids (SCM) active when you are mewing? If you are unsure, drop your head down, put your fingers on your neck behind the ramus & ears, then start rotating your head up and back until you feel the large muscles in the sides of your neck bulge. Now replicate the way you have been mewing so far, are the SCMs similarly activated now? Or are they slacking? I have a hypothesis I am keen to explore, as you are not the first one to experience this outcome.
Nope, the SCM muscles aren't active at all. I stretch them often(to try to sleep without pillow and for posture) and train them for hypertrophy(aesthetics xd). But the suprahyoid muscles in my neck do tense from mewing, I think the posterior digastric muscle tenses, it's right in front of the SCM behind my ramus.
It's true you can expand without concerning yourself with posture. Dentists do it all the time. And if your palate is narrow enough, according to dentist opinion I've encountered, you can't have good posture anyway. So just expand. That's what I had to end up doing, and it's the situation some of us are in: unable to adopt good posture straight off the bat.
Doing the mew cheesy grin will remove any suction of the cheeks on the teeth and flatten the tongue on the palate to help exert sideways pressure.
It's not like I didn't have any sideways pressure, I just recently felt this change in palate, this happened after I expanded my IMW to 45mm, from around 36-40ish when I begun. And I don't see how the width of the palate can affect your posture? Doesn't he mean the angle of the palate(teeth) which impacts breathing and eventually posture?
I don't have any suction of the cheeks, my buccinators atrophied as Mew predicted. I do have over-hypertrophied Risorius muscles though, which coincidentally are also the muscles used to make a cheesy grin, haha.
And where should I expand? I already have 45mm IMW, there's no point in expansion anymore, my breathing has become much better. My mew line is also low, but I don't trust it, I think my maxilla is still too flat/long compared to ideal(read : most aesthetic). I think the mew line is only low cause my nose hooked downwards.
And posture doesn't matter for mewing, maybe for chewing it does matter, but not for mewing.
I'm sorry mate, but this couldn't be more wrong. Without good head/neck posture it is utterly impossible to engage posterior third of your tongue.
It may also be that proper posture will follow from having good oral posture. This is something I have experienced myself this last month. I mew properly now, it I actually have to try to have forward head posture.
This makes a lot of sense, but my breathing has improved a ton since I started mewing, even if I fully chin-tuck I can breath really well, that's one thing I'll always be grateful to this forum and the whole Orthotropic community for. Also stopped lightly snoring, but that's logical.
My neck posture isn't that bad though, it's not ideal, but it's not that bad.
And posture doesn't matter for mewing, maybe for chewing it does matter, but not for mewing.
I'm sorry mate, but this couldn't be more wrong. Without good head/neck posture it is utterly impossible to engage posterior third of your tongue.
I don't get it, just push your head forward to get forward head posture and then swallow, pretty easy to engage posterior third, no? And my post kind of warns against focusing too much on posterior third, especially if your palate is angled downwards as a long maxilla will cause.
Since John Mew recently stated that the tongue shouldn’t touch the teeth, this may actually be a good thing. Who knows, maybe your IMW will start to increase from here on. Otherwise, what technique(s) did you use? Some kind of hard mewing?
How can the tongue not touch the teeth if your palate is narrow? Also why would I want to increase my IMW it's already at 45mm and aboriginals in Australia had 40mm IMW?
Yes I did hard-mewing, I mostly put pressure on my whole palate, I only recently got the changes to my palate, before this happened most of the pressure was on my teeth, but now that my IMW increased a lot, I can't even feel teeth anymore with my tongue while mewing, so I think because of that I just pushed the palate upwards.
I don't think this is that bad tbh, I think if my alveolar ridge followed the palate I'd have ideal bite angle. The distance between my alveolar ridge and my palate is only like 1,0-1,5cm... Huge distance for mewing though.
I think ideal bite angle is almost fully horizontal?
A quick question: are your sternocleidomastoids (SCM) active when you are mewing? If you are unsure, drop your head down, put your fingers on your neck behind the ramus & ears, then start rotating your head up and back until you feel the large muscles in the sides of your neck bulge. Now replicate the way you have been mewing so far, are the SCMs similarly activated now? Or are they slacking? I have a hypothesis I am keen to explore, as you are not the first one to experience this outcome.
You know, I've been thinking, my mew line decreased 10mm, yet my mandible either didn't change it's angle or became even more recessed. Could this higher palate have caused the back of my teeth to move slightly upwards? The distance between my front teeth and the palate is much bigger than the distance between the back of my teeth and the palate.
I don't think this is a problem though, the high-palate that it is, and may even be a part of the process. Assuming it came from the tongue musculature, it's unlikely it'd be able to push the front palate more upwards than the back palate and the back palate stays relatively stable in it's height, as the palatoglossus pulls on the soft palate to create upwards movement in the front and middle of the tongue.
Also the palate seems to be horizontal with my head, which is ideal, the way I see it the palate isn't high, but the teeth simply didn't follow the palate. The best explanation is probably that the palate is more malleable than the maxilla, it would explain why my mandible got more recessed from mewing or stayed the same, palate moved upwards, but teeth didn't follow, in fact teeth probably got tilted in the wrong direction, because changes in mid-palate happen faster than front palate.
It's not like I didn't have any sideways pressure, I just recently felt this change in palate, this happened after I expanded my IMW to 45mm, from around 36-40ish when I begun. And I don't see how the width of the palate can affect your posture? Doesn't he mean the angle of the palate(teeth) which impacts breathing and eventually posture?
I don't have any suction of the cheeks, my buccinators atrophied as Mew predicted. I do have over-hypertrophied Risorius muscles though, which coincidentally are also the muscles used to make a cheesy grin, haha.
And where should I expand? I already have 45mm IMW, there's no point in expansion anymore, my breathing has become much better. My mew line is also low, but I don't trust it, I think my maxilla is still too flat/long compared to ideal(read : most aesthetic). I think the mew line is only low cause my nose hooked downwards.
I got to the same IMW give or take 1mm a few years ago, but I'm still making progress. You just stop expanding at the molars at a certain point (around mid 40s seems to be it from cases I've read and personal experience when using the tongue) but then, slowly (very slowly for me, anyway) the premolar distance increases so the anterior maxilla also widens (and thus becomes flatter). Width of the palate effects posture because it has a direct connection to increasing the airway space. Without that increased airway space, the body doesn't want to release a forward head posture. And I think you have it backwards if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly, the angle of the teeth changes under pressures exerted from posture and oral habits.
It's not like I didn't have any sideways pressure, I just recently felt this change in palate, this happened after I expanded my IMW to 45mm, from around 36-40ish when I begun. And I don't see how the width of the palate can affect your posture? Doesn't he mean the angle of the palate(teeth) which impacts breathing and eventually posture?
I don't have any suction of the cheeks, my buccinators atrophied as Mew predicted. I do have over-hypertrophied Risorius muscles though, which coincidentally are also the muscles used to make a cheesy grin, haha.
And where should I expand? I already have 45mm IMW, there's no point in expansion anymore, my breathing has become much better. My mew line is also low, but I don't trust it, I think my maxilla is still too flat/long compared to ideal(read : most aesthetic). I think the mew line is only low cause my nose hooked downwards.
I got to the same IMW give or take 1mm a few years ago, but I'm still making progress. You just stop expanding at the molars at a certain point (around mid 40s seems to be it from cases I've read and personal experience when using the tongue) but then, slowly (very slowly for me, anyway) the premolar distance increases so the anterior maxilla also widens (and thus becomes flatter). Width of the palate effects posture because it has a direct connection to increasing the airway space. Without that increased airway space, the body doesn't want to release a forward head posture. And I think you have it backwards if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly, the angle of the teeth changes under pressures exerted from posture and oral habits.
Aboriginals had 40mm IMW only, excessive IMW or palate is useless, once your breathing is good. As I said, even if I chin-tuck I can still breath really well now. And idk what I wrote about the angle of the teeth/palate, as you see in my case the two angles don't follow each-other. Palate is thinner and remodels faster than maxilla bone. And I don't know anything about why mewing improves breathing, to me it seems like most improvement in breathing comes from better musculature, the palatoglossus is direct antagonist of the levator veli palatini, which functions to close the airway space to the nose and open airway to the mouth. The other way I see it happening logically is if the angle of the upper teeth changes, causing changes in the mandible(moving forward), but this hasn't happened to me yet, or perhaps even made worse by mewing.
It's not like I didn't have any sideways pressure, I just recently felt this change in palate, this happened after I expanded my IMW to 45mm, from around 36-40ish when I begun. And I don't see how the width of the palate can affect your posture? Doesn't he mean the angle of the palate(teeth) which impacts breathing and eventually posture?
I don't have any suction of the cheeks, my buccinators atrophied as Mew predicted. I do have over-hypertrophied Risorius muscles though, which coincidentally are also the muscles used to make a cheesy grin, haha.
And where should I expand? I already have 45mm IMW, there's no point in expansion anymore, my breathing has become much better. My mew line is also low, but I don't trust it, I think my maxilla is still too flat/long compared to ideal(read : most aesthetic). I think the mew line is only low cause my nose hooked downwards.
I got to the same IMW give or take 1mm a few years ago, but I'm still making progress. You just stop expanding at the molars at a certain point (around mid 40s seems to be it from cases I've read and personal experience when using the tongue) but then, slowly (very slowly for me, anyway) the premolar distance increases so the anterior maxilla also widens (and thus becomes flatter). Width of the palate effects posture because it has a direct connection to increasing the airway space. Without that increased airway space, the body doesn't want to release a forward head posture. And I think you have it backwards if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly, the angle of the teeth changes under pressures exerted from posture and oral habits.
BTW you didn't get a higher palate from mewing? Also wouldn't you want the anterior maxilla to not become flatter?
You know, I've been thinking, my mew line decreased 10mm, yet my mandible either didn't change it's angle or became even more recessed. Could this higher palate have caused the back of my teeth to move slightly upwards?
It's possible, and nears the ideas I've been mulling over recently. From the perspective of posture, possibly the largest problem that happens with excessive chin tucking or improper head positioning in general is inactivation of the SCM muscles. What gives the SCMs particular importance (apart from their superior size compared to other cervical muscles) is how they establish a connection between the cranial base and the sternum. Thus when the head is lifted up properly, the chest begins to hang from the cranial base, translating into a force that pulls the cranial base downwards. Now @eddiemoney for example has talked about the importance of having the cranial base descend down, and several users here and on Reddit have complained about how mewing only increased their ante-gonial notch, deepened their overbite, shortened their ramus and overall resulted in a more recessed profile -- all of which are symptoms of cranial base that has been crammed too high. The point I am leading towards is that without the SCMs pulling the cranial base down, the only thing you are achieving with the tongue is the aforementioned cramming, especially in regards to the palate. On the other hand, when the SCM and the tongue are working in unison, they form a specific kind of leverage that allows the cranial base to unwind, bringing the posterior palate down, decreasing gonial angle etc. Not sure how well the following pic illustrates the mechanics but the system would work something like this:
This is the ideal head posture that will give CCW rotation to the maxilla and CW rotation to the mandible and I have noticed that when I keep my head in this position and mew. I have felt the tongue jamming and exerting a lot of force to my palate. Overtime I believe the lower third will balance itself out when you have this proper head posture. And I did Ronald Ead talking how you should enlongate your head while not chin tucking all the way when you are mewing.
You know, I've been thinking, my mew line decreased 10mm, yet my mandible either didn't change it's angle or became even more recessed. Could this higher palate have caused the back of my teeth to move slightly upwards?
It's possible, and nears the ideas I've been mulling over recently. From the perspective of posture, possibly the largest problem that happens with excessive chin tucking or improper head positioning in general is inactivation of the SCM muscles. What gives the SCMs particular importance (apart from their superior size compared to other cervical muscles) is how they establish a connection between the cranial base and the sternum. Thus when the head is lifted up properly, the chest begins to hang from the cranial base, translating into a force that pulls the cranial base downwards. Now @eddiemoney for example has talked about the importance of having the cranial base descend down, and several users here and on Reddit have complained about how mewing only increased their ante-gonial notch, deepened their overbite, shortened their ramus and overall resulted in a more recessed profile -- all of which are symptoms of cranial base that has been crammed too high. The point I am leading towards is that without the SCMs pulling the cranial base down, the only thing you are achieving with the tongue is the aforementioned cramming, especially in regards to the palate. On the other hand, when the SCM and the tongue are working in unison, they form a specific kind of leverage that allows the cranial base to unwind, bringing the posterior palate down, decreasing gonial angle etc. Not sure how well the following pic illustrates the mechanics but the system would work something like this:
Very interesting theory, keep talking, does any of this info help :
1) The upwards and backwards movement of the tongue is facilitated by the palatoglossus and the levator veli palatini contracting together(this picture is however misleading in the position of the levator veli palatini, also the tensor veli palatini plays a part) :
2) The levator veli palatini is connected to the tympanic part of the temporal bone :
3) This is the tympanic part of the temporal bone(it's basically your eardrum bone) :
4) The forward movement of the tongue happens from the genioglossus :
5) The forward movement causes the jaw to move backwards, in counter-force the lateral pterygoids are used :
6) Which pull on the sides of the sphenoid backwards and slightly downwards, to create forward and slightly upwards movement in the mandible, which then causes a rotation in the occipital :
7) Note that the occipital isn't attached to the spinal colump by bone, only by soft tissue and muscle, which means it's kind of floating :
8) The force on the occipital from mewing may look this in the end :
9) The SCM can create a counter-force for mewing :
10) However the SCM isn't the only one that can create such a counter force, I present to you a deep neck flexor(longus capitis) :
To be honest the lonugs capitis doesn't look like it would be in the perfect angle for the counter-force, SCM seems better-suited, but it can still be used.
EDIT : By the way, to me it makes also logical sense that the SCM can create a force to pull the back of the palate downwards.
EDIT 2 : If I rather than chin-tucking let my head move backwards and start mewing then I can feel pulling force on my back palate. Neat!
It's not like I didn't have any sideways pressure, I just recently felt this change in palate, this happened after I expanded my IMW to 45mm, from around 36-40ish when I begun. And I don't see how the width of the palate can affect your posture? Doesn't he mean the angle of the palate(teeth) which impacts breathing and eventually posture?
I don't have any suction of the cheeks, my buccinators atrophied as Mew predicted. I do have over-hypertrophied Risorius muscles though, which coincidentally are also the muscles used to make a cheesy grin, haha.
And where should I expand? I already have 45mm IMW, there's no point in expansion anymore, my breathing has become much better. My mew line is also low, but I don't trust it, I think my maxilla is still too flat/long compared to ideal(read : most aesthetic). I think the mew line is only low cause my nose hooked downwards.
I got to the same IMW give or take 1mm a few years ago, but I'm still making progress. You just stop expanding at the molars at a certain point (around mid 40s seems to be it from cases I've read and personal experience when using the tongue) but then, slowly (very slowly for me, anyway) the premolar distance increases so the anterior maxilla also widens (and thus becomes flatter). Width of the palate effects posture because it has a direct connection to increasing the airway space. Without that increased airway space, the body doesn't want to release a forward head posture. And I think you have it backwards if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly, the angle of the teeth changes under pressures exerted from posture and oral habits.
Aboriginals had 40mm IMW only, excessive IMW or palate is useless, once your breathing is good. As I said, even if I chin-tuck I can still breath really well now. And idk what I wrote about the angle of the teeth/palate, as you see in my case the two angles don't follow each-other. Palate is thinner and remodels faster than maxilla bone. And I don't know anything about why mewing improves breathing, to me it seems like most improvement in breathing comes from better musculature, the palatoglossus is direct antagonist of the levator veli palatini, which functions to close the airway space to the nose and open airway to the mouth. The other way I see it happening logically is if the angle of the upper teeth changes, causing changes in the mandible(moving forward), but this hasn't happened to me yet, or perhaps even made worse by mewing.
But I'm not an aboriginal. And I have macroglossia. So is it over-expansion, really? My tongue still touches my teeth. I kind of just figured, I'm a big-mouth and have a big tongue and this is where things settled for me.
I think I see what you mean about the muscle usage. So when I exert upwards and forwards force with the tip of my tongue, the posterior part of the tongue exerts the opposite forces and engages the palatoglossus, and in doing so there is that sensation of the nose opening up. This tongue posture has, at least for me, proclined the upper incisors a bit over time. I've also read some reports that engaging this muscle does procline the upper incisors, but you say maybe the opposite happened? Maybe there's a missing ingredient at play here like SCM as per the recent posts? I'd always assumed it was just the palatoglossus that brought the posterior palate downward. It seems SCM engages using Progress's chin tuck method, and then the levator muscles for the upper lip engage which I suspect has some role in maxillary CCW rotation.
Looking at the photos shared by various people, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of those who have achieved change are keeping their head in the kind of slight upward tilt that would be conducive to SCM activation:
I'm not that familiar with the other muscles you mention, I'll have to look further into them.
@auxiliarus Your point tho about chest frauding in tuck is a good point, and one to remember when tucking.
Lack of proper chin tuck is imo one of biggest mistakes ppl make in mewing. If you do it properly, its simplest thing you can do to get your jaws into proper position w/o tensing your lower jaw. On the opposite side, if you tense, you are up to TMD esp when hard mewing (in recessed jaw). Thats why molars in contact in cfd is bad imo. Its suboptimal occlusion in recessed jaw reinforcing bad pattern.
To be clear what i think works: proper chin tuck, relaxed lower jaw (you may have to jutt it if you have tmd/bad recession, thats a bit how biobloc 3 works), mewing (hard is best to expand upper jaw asap if you dont like choking yourself); ofc all of that w/o molars in contact, front teeths can touch if must. After expansion you lower jaw will swing to the upper one.
Looking at the photos shared by various people, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of those who have achieved change are keeping their head in the kind of slight upward tilt that would be conducive to SCM activation:
I'm not that familiar with the other muscles you mention, I'll have to look further into them.
Wish I had access to an X-Ray. If I were to describe my changes :
1) My teeth have a have horizontal angle now and my nose is smaller from mewing, confirming the changes in Mew line, yet the mandible either didn't move forward or became even more recessed.
If anything I feel like the edge of my mandible moved backwards while my gonial angle decreased a ton just to maintain proper occlusion.
I'm not expert at drawing mandibles, but it'd look something like this :
Red is before, blue is after. I know it looks like my mandible ramus and mandible body size would have to increase and I believe that may have happened. The thing is, I've never measured my mandible results before mewing, however my ramus length is around 7,5 cm and mandible body length is around 10,0 cm, which seems big. My ramus width also seems around 4,0 - 5,0 cm.
I'm either measuring wrong, or all mandible variables are significantly bigger than normal values.
Looking at the photos shared by various people, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of those who have achieved change are keeping their head in the kind of slight upward tilt that would be conducive to SCM activation:
I'm not that familiar with the other muscles you mention, I'll have to look further into them.
Yep remeasured them, still the same variables.
I measure ramus height by putting end of ruler at slightly under the end of the zygo bony part close to the ear and then to the gonion, I make sure that the ruler touches the bony parts at both points and it comes out at 7,8cm.
Ramus width is tricky, but I can feel the bony part in my cheek, it's approximately 4,5-5,0 cm.
Mandible body length I measured from gonion to pogonion, it's around 9-10cm.
So my mandible is bigger than above average but looks recessed as hell, nice. By the way my ramus angle is negative, my gonion is literally behind my condylar process. This doesn't make sense, the jaw was suppose to move forward, the gonion was supposed to move forward relative to the condylar process from mewing, instead the results are the opposite : gonional angle decreased to keep occlusion, gonion grew backwards behind the condylar process.
I think this position maybe byproduct of very strong tongue. After strengthening your tongue from hard mewing its so freakishly strong that in resting position it suports the head and overhelm other muscles.
Edit: Btw i think the resting position of the tongue is further than many believe (i may do a diagram later) in recessed jaw. My PROPER resting position is so, that the tip of the tongue rest on lower teeth, sometimes even below (with posterior third ofc as usual full back).
I think this position maybe byproduct of very strong tongue. After strengthening your tongue from hard mewing its so freakishly strong that in resting position it suports the head and overhelm other muscles.
Edit: Btw i think the resting position of the tongue is further than many believe (i may do a diagram later) in recessed jaw. My PROPER resting position is so, that the tip of the tongue rest on lower teeth, sometimes even below (with posterior third ofc as usual full back).
Why would the tongue be resting that far ahead? It's not like the palate decreases in length, it's only narrow in recessed people, perhaps even longer than usual actually.
Because its the point of highest leverage, and point where your tongue is actually stabilising your head (thats why they look like that in the pics). In this place your tongue naturaly covers the palate w/o effort, atleast for me (tho sometimes i have to jump start it with few minutes of hard mewing). Its like perpetual tongue erection. It's odd now for me to place tongue elsewere.
Because its the point of highest leverage, and point where your tongue is actually stabilising your head (thats why they look like that in the pics). In this place your tongue naturaly covers the palate w/o effort, atleast for me (tho sometimes i have to jump start it with few minutes of hard mewing). Its like perpetual tongue erection. It's odd now for me to place tongue elsewere.
Do you have any logical arguments for claiming that :
1) Forward tongue posture is the point of highest leverage.
2) Forward tongue posture is the point where the tongue can stabilize a head.
I just don't see any of that, if you put the tongue forward then you're not engaging the palatoglossus muscle, where does the upwards movement come from?
Note that muscles shorten, not lengthen, to produce force, just because the tongue is a muscle, it doesn't mean it can just exert it's force wherever, the tongue can't lift itself upwards, instead the palatoglossus does that.
When I chin tuck and mew at the same time, I notice that my shoulders and chest are trying to balance itself out. Plus I do feel SCM muscles being tensed when I hold my neck in a straight posture to align with my pelvis. I believe personally the cranium will adjust the forces from the tougue and neck to be more straight and the occipital to flat out in the back while the mandible grows longer.
Do you think your gonion moving backwards was a result of the excessive chewing? Pushing the mandible Condyle back into the Process?
Because of chewing, yes, but not because of condyle getting pushed backwards or upwards, beecause the ramus expanded, so the gonion moved backwards and gonial angle decreased.
Ive seen mewing and myofunctional results where it looked liked the brow moved upwards. Maxilla goes up, orbitals go up, brow seems more horizontally straight rather than the eyebrows drooping downwards.
I was a heavy chewer with a deep bite and I think that’s what got me to where I’m at now (recessed), but when I stopped a couple years ago it seemed to have gotten even worse since then. My whole face got flat and mandible retruded.
I still don’t know what to do about chewing. Right now I’m chewing gently when eating. Ditched gum.
I was a heavy chewer with a deep bite and I think that’s what got me to where I’m at now (recessed), but when I stopped a couple years ago it seemed to have gotten even worse since then. My whole face got flat and mandible retruded.
I still don’t know what to do about chewing. Right now I’m chewing gently when eating. Ditched gum.
Are you pushing forward at all?
My bite has no malocclusion, so it's normal, which I guess is class 1. Before mewing I don't know, I wasn't aware of my teeth position before mewing, but I think I had a normal bite.
1) My breathing was bad, allergies to pollen would fully block my nose and I wasn't able to exercise even a bit while breathing through my nose, now my breathing is excellent.
2) I used to breath through my mouth half of the time and half of the time through my nose, now it's purely through my nose even during strenuous exercise, I think maybe only after a maximal sprint I wouldn't be able to breath through nose.
3) As a kid I did have some titty sucking action going on with some bottle usage as well, so I guess I did develop some tongue posture.
4) My palate wasn't that narrow when I started mewing, I think 36-38ish mm, it was big enough for my tongue tensed, but not when my tongue was spread out.
5) My nose became a bit smaller from mewing, maybe even a bit straighter.
6) Mew line decreased by 7-10mm, though I think most of this change came from chewing and not mewing.
7) Lower maxilla changed it's shape a lot, I think this came from mewing.
These days I keep my tip of the tongue just above my alveolar ridge and instead of pushing or using tension I try to relax my tongue against the palate.
I don't recommend chewing anymore because I believe it can cause your facial height to decrease too much and not in a harmonious way, in particular the lower third decreases as well, which isn't desirable. And while chewing in certain ways can give you good zygo development, i don't think the potential TMJ and lower third shortening is worth it.
I also don't recommend touching teeth because of that, lower third becomes shorter and there's potential for TMJ, also teeth get pushed inwards.
I can't really give you any personally proven advice, if you have enough space to place your tongue on the roof, then do it, idk if you should tense or not. Mew says we shouldn't be mewing too hard and I doubt his patients ever mewed hard except to train the tongue strength. If you look at the analysis I did, I reach the same conclusion :
Conclusion : Pushing too hard reduces remodelling, around 10-20% of maximum force should be used for maximum remodelling(changing shape without losing volume in bone), around 1-2% of force should be used for maximum shortening of maxilla(resorption) and around 15-30% of maximum force should be used for expansion(bone gained). Note : It's hard to say whether palatal expansion is gain in bone volume or just remodelling, I'd lean towards mostly remodelling.
Also visual mandible recession doesn't always imply recession in bone, some people have good forward growth and still visual recession. Because of hyoid position(forward vs backward, backward is better visually) and facial fat/swelling(cortisol causes swelling in face, high body-fat causes high amounts of fat in face, low DHT/high E causes high amounts of fat in face(DHT is anti-estrogenic), inflammation causes swelling in face as well).
I agree. I think excessive chewing destroyed my face especially since my jaws clicked and I’m class 2.
Im at 38mm and rest my tongue but sometimes find myself pushing forward just above the front incisors.
I feel like I strengthened my tongue so much and I’m so downswung now that the tongue can’t help it and wants to push my freakin face up where it used to be.
I agree. I think excessive chewing destroyed my face especially since my jaws clicked and I’m class 2.
Im at 38mm and rest my tongue but sometimes find myself pushing forward just above the front incisors.
I feel like I strengthened my tongue so much and I’m so downswung now that the tongue can’t help it and wants to push my freakin face up where it used to be.
Well keep a good tongue posture and update us in a year or two ;).
I kind of concur with this story about the palate being to high in relation to the teeth. I wrote a post about my hard mewing experience and how it impacted my face. When I am mewing there will eventually be a lot of space between my upper teeth/molars and my palate. I mentioned when I quit mewing and started resting my tongue somewhat at the bottom again my jaw and cheekbones would be pronounced again after a week or so. touching my palate with my tongue I noticed it came down a lot.
I kind of concur with this story about the palate being to high in relation to the teeth. I wrote a post about my hard mewing experience and how it impacted my face. When I am mewing there will eventually be a lot of space between my upper teeth/molars and my palate. I mentioned when I quit mewing and started resting my tongue somewhat at the bottom again my jaw and cheekbones would be pronounced again after a week or so. touching my palate with my tongue I noticed it came down a lot.
Forgive me my ignorance but what papilla do you mean? When I google papilla there are several parts of the tongue asociated with the papilla name. Do you mean the incisive papilla?
Forgive me my ignorance but what papilla do you mean? When I google papilla there are several parts of the tongue asociated with the papilla name. Do you mean the incisive papilla?
Sorry. my bad, yes I meant the incisive papilla, because it's a very strong bone connected the the teeth, it's unlikely to change it's shape much. The middle palate and the maxilla are very thin though and can probably remodel quickly.
Alright thanks for your information. Will try putting a little force on the papilla. So how did you let your palate come down and even out? Mine comes down eventually after resting my tongue at the bottom for like a week or so.
Alright thanks for your information. Will try putting a little force on the papilla. So how did you let your palate come down and even out? Mine comes down eventually after resting my tongue at the bottom for like a week or so.
I haven't yet noticed any significant changes that I could make sure of while staying objective. I'd say subjectively my palate has only slightly moved downward, however putting light pressure on the incisive papilla has pushed my palate forward somewhat over the last few weeks, at least the gonion feels more forward than before. I'll have to wait longer and see the results and if any significant changes.
@greensmoothies so it’s possible for palate height to reduce? My palate got expanded when I was 13 since I got braces and right now my palate vaulted really high. At the same time my tongue fits since it’s wide too. My molars are tipping outwards probably due to my tongue. I think due to the tipping my tongue fits easily without touching teeth. My bite is perfect and I feel like if my molar spread any bit more my bite will be off. My main question is can the vault actually come down if so how? Second question is can this be done with clear retainers on?
@auxiliarus how is your palate now did it come down or get higher or is it the same?
Hard to say, I don't think there's much difference, I think my palate moved slightly forward though, I've been soft-mewing for a while now and recently started waking up with tongue on the roof, which is a first for me.
I don't think the palate has to come down, I think the teeth need to come up by moving the alveolar ridge upwards.
@greensmoothies so it’s possible for palate height to reduce? My palate got expanded when I was 13 since I got braces and right now my palate vaulted really high. At the same time my tongue fits since it’s wide too. My molars are tipping outwards probably due to my tongue. I think due to the tipping my tongue fits easily without touching teeth. My bite is perfect and I feel like if my molar spread any bit more my bite will be off. My main question is can the vault actually come down if so how? Second question is can this be done with clear retainers on?
There's a poster @darkindigo who I think has posted about people getting palate expansion and the palate doesn't drop in the posterior, or it shoots up as I believe she's described it, and the problems that can be associated with that. There's a theory related to this and mewing here.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing. Astrosky's image of his palate shows this and having experience with this myself, I posed this question to Mike Mew about 2 years ago, but he hasn't done another Q&A for this site to answer yet... I suspect that as the maxillary tuberosity increases in length as we mew and chew, this helps teeth gravitate forward and eventually the inter-premolar and canine distance increases with the resultant remodelling of the alveolar bone. I saw John Mew post on the Orthotropics facebook group this growth will bring the maxilla forward a very little amount for adults. His emphasis on very little. I also saw some studies from the field of craniosacral therapy claiming to increase the inter-canine and premolar distances, then there is Ronald Ead's case and another poster here posting their Invisalign results which seems like it may help with this issue for adults?
@greensmoothies ok thanks for replying. Do you think a high vaulted palate can just be a genetic thing? One of the many reasons I’m saying this because if you look at Lara stones you can see her palate is probably high. Since she has very gummy smile. It is wide at the same time too since she has gap in the middle teeth.
@greensmoothies ok thanks for replying. Do you think a high vaulted palate can just be a genetic thing? One of the many reasons I’m saying this because if you look at Lara stones you can see her palate is probably high. Since she has very gummy smile. It is wide at the same time too since she has gap in the middle teeth.
Yeah and I think exerting pressure sideways in conjunction with the Mew vector forces (forwards and upwards) could help. Suction hold seems to help toward this for me... hopefully Mew can weigh in on this topic one day.
@greensmoothies so it’s possible for palate height to reduce? My palate got expanded when I was 13 since I got braces and right now my palate vaulted really high. At the same time my tongue fits since it’s wide too. My molars are tipping outwards probably due to my tongue. I think due to the tipping my tongue fits easily without touching teeth. My bite is perfect and I feel like if my molar spread any bit more my bite will be off. My main question is can the vault actually come down if so how? Second question is can this be done with clear retainers on?
There's a poster @darkindigo who I think has posted about people getting palate expansion and the palate doesn't drop in the posterior, or it shoots up as I believe she's described it, and the problems that can be associated with that. There's a theory related to this and mewing here.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing. Astrosky's image of his palate shows this and having experience with this myself, I posed this question to Mike Mew about 2 years ago, but he hasn't done another Q&A for this site to answer yet... I suspect that as the maxillary tuberosity increases in length as we mew and chew, this helps teeth gravitate forward and eventually the inter-premolar and canine distance increases with the resultant remodelling of the alveolar bone. I saw John Mew post on the Orthotropics facebook group this growth will bring the maxilla forward a very little amount for adults. His emphasis on very little. I also saw some studies from the field of craniosacral therapy claiming to increase the inter-canine and premolar distances, then there is Ronald Ead's case and another poster here posting their Invisalign results which seems like it may help with this issue for adults?
Darkindigo posted a lot of things. A lot.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing.
I don't know, only took me like two years to increase IMW by ~5-7mm.
@greensmoothies ok thanks for replying. Do you think a high vaulted palate can just be a genetic thing? One of the many reasons I’m saying this because if you look at Lara stones you can see her palate is probably high. Since she has very gummy smile. It is wide at the same time too since she has gap in the middle teeth.
Yeah and I think exerting pressure sideways in conjunction with the Mew vector forces (forwards and upwards) could help. Suction hold seems to help toward this for me... hopefully Mew can weigh in on this topic one day.
There's not much theoretical info, I doubt Mike will be able to say anything specific.
I don't think a high vaulted palate is genetic, ancestral people didn't have such palates and neither do Mew's patients(from young age).
I don't have a vaulted palate either, it's just high.
It's obvious that tongue pressure will reform the palate outwards and it won't be vaulted anymore.
As for the palate being high, that's all relative, you can claim the teeth are too low relative to the palate instead of the palate being too high relative to the teeth.
@greensmoothies ok thanks for replying. Do you think a high vaulted palate can just be a genetic thing? One of the many reasons I’m saying this because if you look at Lara stones you can see her palate is probably high. Since she has very gummy smile. It is wide at the same time too since she has gap in the middle teeth.
Yeah and I think exerting pressure sideways in conjunction with the Mew vector forces (forwards and upwards) could help. Suction hold seems to help toward this for me... hopefully Mew can weigh in on this topic one day.
There's not much theoretical info, I doubt Mike will be able to say anything specific.
I don't think a high vaulted palate is genetic, ancestral people didn't have such palates and neither do Mew's patients(from young age).
I don't have a vaulted palate either, it's just high.
It's obvious that tongue pressure will reform the palate outwards and it won't be vaulted anymore.
As for the palate being high, that's all relative, you can claim the teeth are too low relative to the palate instead of the palate being too high relative to the teeth.
Regardless, it's either a congenital condition which may or may not have a negative impact on oral functionality, or the result of deleterious oral habits (usually thumbsucking, paci use and mouth breathing as mentioned in this article).
@greensmoothies so it’s possible for palate height to reduce? My palate got expanded when I was 13 since I got braces and right now my palate vaulted really high. At the same time my tongue fits since it’s wide too. My molars are tipping outwards probably due to my tongue. I think due to the tipping my tongue fits easily without touching teeth. My bite is perfect and I feel like if my molar spread any bit more my bite will be off. My main question is can the vault actually come down if so how? Second question is can this be done with clear retainers on?
There's a poster @darkindigo who I think has posted about people getting palate expansion and the palate doesn't drop in the posterior, or it shoots up as I believe she's described it, and the problems that can be associated with that. There's a theory related to this and mewing here.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing. Astrosky's image of his palate shows this and having experience with this myself, I posed this question to Mike Mew about 2 years ago, but he hasn't done another Q&A for this site to answer yet... I suspect that as the maxillary tuberosity increases in length as we mew and chew, this helps teeth gravitate forward and eventually the inter-premolar and canine distance increases with the resultant remodelling of the alveolar bone. I saw John Mew post on the Orthotropics facebook group this growth will bring the maxilla forward a very little amount for adults. His emphasis on very little. I also saw some studies from the field of craniosacral therapy claiming to increase the inter-canine and premolar distances, then there is Ronald Ead's case and another poster here posting their Invisalign results which seems like it may help with this issue for adults?
Darkindigo posted a lot of things. A lot.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing.
I don't know, only took me like two years to increase IMW by ~5-7mm.
To be clear, I was discussing the inter-premolar and canine distance specifically, not the intermolar width which is proving to be much more easily increased with the mewing work.
@auxiliarus I’m saying it is genetic because look at Lara stone she’s a model and has obvious very high palate you know because of her very gummy smile. At the same time her palate is wide you can tell because of the gap in the front teeth and all her other teeth are straight. Also we can’t compare to ancestor time since they themselves were very short our Average height now is way taller and it would look weird for a tall person to have a short skull. Also due to genetic variation.
Average height now is way taller and it would look weird for a tall person to have a short skull.
Plenty of models are selected because they have short faces and brachyfacial skulls are neotenous, it's not weird or uncommon for tall people to have them.
@greensmoothiesNow I think high/narrow palate are genetic too. I’ve heard having a wider palate makes you sing better but drake and Taylor swift lol have very narrow palates. Ever since it’s been said people that good singers have wide palates and good posture I looked at singers smiles(lol weird but was just curious). So this is simply not true. I think palate formation is 60% genetic 40% posture. I’m saying this cause if your are singer there is no way you mouthbreathed during childhood... still few singers have narrow/high palates.
@paperbag when i say tall I meant 6’2 plus. Models are usually 5’8-6’1 they usually exaggerate height by 1-3 inches. I mean when your taller everything bigger lol. I see short people with short faces all the time but not really for tall people.
@greensmoothies ok thanks for replying. Do you think a high vaulted palate can just be a genetic thing? One of the many reasons I’m saying this because if you look at Lara stones you can see her palate is probably high. Since she has very gummy smile. It is wide at the same time too since she has gap in the middle teeth.
Yeah and I think exerting pressure sideways in conjunction with the Mew vector forces (forwards and upwards) could help. Suction hold seems to help toward this for me... hopefully Mew can weigh in on this topic one day.
There's not much theoretical info, I doubt Mike will be able to say anything specific.
I don't think a high vaulted palate is genetic, ancestral people didn't have such palates and neither do Mew's patients(from young age).
I don't have a vaulted palate either, it's just high.
It's obvious that tongue pressure will reform the palate outwards and it won't be vaulted anymore.
As for the palate being high, that's all relative, you can claim the teeth are too low relative to the palate instead of the palate being too high relative to the teeth.
Regardless, it's either a congenital condition which may or may not have a negative impact on oral functionality, or the result of deleterious oral habits (usually thumbsucking, paci use and mouth breathing as mentioned in this article).
@greensmoothies so it’s possible for palate height to reduce? My palate got expanded when I was 13 since I got braces and right now my palate vaulted really high. At the same time my tongue fits since it’s wide too. My molars are tipping outwards probably due to my tongue. I think due to the tipping my tongue fits easily without touching teeth. My bite is perfect and I feel like if my molar spread any bit more my bite will be off. My main question is can the vault actually come down if so how? Second question is can this be done with clear retainers on?
There's a poster @darkindigo who I think has posted about people getting palate expansion and the palate doesn't drop in the posterior, or it shoots up as I believe she's described it, and the problems that can be associated with that. There's a theory related to this and mewing here.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing. Astrosky's image of his palate shows this and having experience with this myself, I posed this question to Mike Mew about 2 years ago, but he hasn't done another Q&A for this site to answer yet... I suspect that as the maxillary tuberosity increases in length as we mew and chew, this helps teeth gravitate forward and eventually the inter-premolar and canine distance increases with the resultant remodelling of the alveolar bone. I saw John Mew post on the Orthotropics facebook group this growth will bring the maxilla forward a very little amount for adults. His emphasis on very little. I also saw some studies from the field of craniosacral therapy claiming to increase the inter-canine and premolar distances, then there is Ronald Ead's case and another poster here posting their Invisalign results which seems like it may help with this issue for adults?
Darkindigo posted a lot of things. A lot.
It's proving to be a slow process to increase the inter-premolar and canine distance with mewing.
I don't know, only took me like two years to increase IMW by ~5-7mm.
To be clear, I was discussing the inter-premolar and canine distance specifically, not the intermolar width which is proving to be much more easily increased with the mewing work.
Nah, inter-canine distance is easily increased as well, there's a medical study on adults showing rapid expansion in just months.
"Methods: In this retrospective study a total of 141 women and men above the age of 18, treated by the Coulson Institute of Orofacial Myology, with no simultaneous orthodontic therapy, were included. All subjects have participated in a myofunctional therapy program for at least 8 months. The training consisted of various muscle exercises for the lips, cheeks, tongue and body posture and breathing. Additionally, the patients put a small dissolvable gelatine pad onto the palate three times a day to assist the swallowing function. Throughout therapy the length of the philtrum, intercanine distance and overjet were measured. Results: After 8 sessions the average intercanine distance increased by 3.2 mm, the philtrum elongated by 5.4 mm and the overjet decreased by 1.2 mm."
@auxiliarus I’m saying it is genetic because look at Lara stone she’s a model and has obvious very high palate you know because of her very gummy smile. At the same time her palate is wide you can tell because of the gap in the front teeth and all her other teeth are straight. Also we can’t compare to ancestor time since they themselves were very short our Average height now is way taller and it would look weird for a tall person to have a short skull. Also due to genetic variation.
No offense to anyone that looks like Lara Stone, but Lara Stone really doesn't look good at all...
Looking at the photos shared by various people, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of those who have achieved change are keeping their head in the kind of slight upward tilt that would be conducive to SCM activation:
I'm not that familiar with the other muscles you mention, I'll have to look further into them.
So what kind of position do you suggest exactly? My SCMs are most activated the more I look up, but I can flex them in almost any position except very close chin-tucking, but even there they're still activated.
In the picture you shared, the neck posture of #2, 3, 5, and 7 got worse (if you'll notice the angle of the ears) and it's hard to be sure but it looks like the orbital support and ogee curve of #5 and 7 got a lot worse as well, even though they all obviously did grow a larger mandible. I don't consider the results of those four what we're really after, and the faces of #5 and 7 may be worse than when they started! Didn't they merely rotate their maxillas CW? Curious to hear your thoughts.
How can the tongue not touch the teeth if your palate is narrow? Also why would I want to increase my IMW it's already at 45mm and aboriginals in Australia had 40mm IMW?
Your alveolar ridge is somewhat tipped, and if your back teeth were less proclined, it wouldn't measure that high. I personally think that IMW is a poor proxy for "quality of palate", if you will, because there are other important aspects, like how close to the ideal U shape it is, how flat it is, how well the tongue can fit on it flat to form an automatic suction hold, etc. In your case, it looks like your palate is a little too narrow in the front, but I don't know how simple that is to fix with just your tongue.
How can the tongue not touch the teeth if your palate is narrow? Also why would I want to increase my IMW it's already at 45mm and aboriginals in Australia had 40mm IMW?
Your alveolar ridge is somewhat tipped, and if your back teeth were less proclined, it wouldn't measure that high. I personally think that IMW is a poor proxy for "quality of palate", if you will, because there are other important aspects, like how close to the ideal U shape it is, how flat it is, how well the tongue can fit on it flat to form an automatic suction hold, etc. In your case, it looks like your palate is a little too narrow in the front, but I don't know how simple that is to fix with just your tongue.
I agree that IMW isn't a good measure of the quality of the palate.
1) What do you think is a good measure of inter-canine distance? Mine's at 35,0-35,2mm. Studies on normal occlusion all show around 35,5mm and studies on aboriginal palates show 35,8mm.
2) My tongue fully fits on my palate now with ease.
IMO, if 35,5mm is the norm then the illusion of narrow front palate comes from too wide back palate and lens distortion(closer is always narrower in cameras). From far away my palate looks very U-shaped.
3) I think my biggest issue is my palate is either too high or my teeth are too low. If mew line is a good indicator then my palate is too high.
Either way I don't meat to brag, but I recently lost a good amount of weight(fat loss plus de-bloat from water) and mewing is fucking legit, I got a really defined face now, I doubt that in 2 years from 18 years to 20 years this type of change can happen in bone without external forces... I'll post pics in a few months when I'm finally down to my goal weight, which was my weight pre-mewing. If I am not lazy it'll take only few months, but I know myself and it'll take probs 6 months.
One thing that helped a lot is to stop chewing, my chin definition improved a lot from that, when I chew too much my whole maxilla rotates clockwise and gonion moves backward...
How can the tongue not touch the teeth if your palate is narrow? Also why would I want to increase my IMW it's already at 45mm and aboriginals in Australia had 40mm IMW?
Your alveolar ridge is somewhat tipped, and if your back teeth were less proclined, it wouldn't measure that high. I personally think that IMW is a poor proxy for "quality of palate", if you will, because there are other important aspects, like how close to the ideal U shape it is, how flat it is, how well the tongue can fit on it flat to form an automatic suction hold, etc. In your case, it looks like your palate is a little too narrow in the front, but I don't know how simple that is to fix with just your tongue.
I agree that IMW isn't a good measure of the quality of the palate.
1) What do you think is a good measure of inter-canine distance? Mine's at 35,0-35,2mm. Studies on normal occlusion all show around 35,5mm and studies on aboriginal palates show 35,8mm.
2) My tongue fully fits on my palate now with ease.
IMO, if 35,5mm is the norm then the illusion of narrow front palate comes from too wide back palate and lens distortion(closer is always narrower in cameras). From far away my palate looks very U-shaped.
3) I think my biggest issue is my palate is either too high or my teeth are too low. If mew line is a good indicator then my palate is too high.
Either way I don't meat to brag, but I recently lost a good amount of weight(fat loss plus de-bloat from water) and mewing is fucking legit, I got a really defined face now, I doubt that in 2 years from 18 years to 20 years this type of change can happen in bone without external forces... I'll post pics in a few months when I'm finally down to my goal weight, which was my weight pre-mewing. If I am not lazy it'll take only few months, but I know myself and it'll take probs 6 months.
One thing that helped a lot is to stop chewing, my chin definition improved a lot from that, when I chew too much my whole maxilla rotates clockwise and gonion moves backward...
Congrats, very cool! Looking forward to seeing your pictures.
@auxiliarus Sounds good, can't wait to see the progress. I don't remember your previous photos showing that you carried much extra weight in your face, though just getting rid of bloating would likely be noticeable.
@auxiliarus Sounds good, can't wait to see the progress. I don't remember your previous photos showing that you carried much extra weight in your face, though just getting rid of bloating would likely be noticeable.
Yep, it's not much in most of my face, but it's very noticeable around my mouth. I also found out a lot of problems I had, like during chewing I'd use my hypohyoid muscles to open my mouth, which over-hypertrophied and over-strengthened them.
Auxiliary, I think your advice seems logical and sensible.
Your case, with the two images you posted, is one of the best-documented examples of effects of mewing I've seen. Could you say a little more about how old you are and how long it is between the two pictures? And about your routine. Did you combine soft and hard mewing? If so, for how long did you practice hard mewing per day?
Auxiliary, I think your advice seems logical and sensible.
Your case, with the two images you posted, is one of the best-documented examples of effects of mewing I've seen. Could you say a little more about how old you are and how long it is between the two pictures? And about your routine. Did you combine soft and hard mewing? If so, for how long did you practice hard mewing per day?
Thanks in advance.
Silberman
Started mewing at 18, currently 20. I mewed with hard pressure on the sides of my teeth, especially in the back, for 2 years. I did not do any soft mewing, I've only started soft mewing recently because I believe mewing too hard pushes the hyoid forward and hypertrophies the muscle under the chin too much.
I did mewing whenever I could.
These days I do soft mewing and my tongue is naturally upwards even if I don't think about it, even during sleep.
Thank you very much. I take it as another example of how hard mewing can create significant changes in adults.
I haven't posted any before afters though, I just posted palate measurements after mewing, which became very wide (45mm IMW, which is +8-10mm increase) and some changes to mew line (-8-10mm).
You know, I've been thinking, my mew line decreased 10mm, yet my mandible either didn't change it's angle or became even more recessed. Could this higher palate have caused the back of my teeth to move slightly upwards?
It's possible, and nears the ideas I've been mulling over recently. From the perspective of posture, possibly the largest problem that happens with excessive chin tucking or improper head positioning in general is inactivation of the SCM muscles. What gives the SCMs particular importance (apart from their superior size compared to other cervical muscles) is how they establish a connection between the cranial base and the sternum. Thus when the head is lifted up properly, the chest begins to hang from the cranial base, translating into a force that pulls the cranial base downwards. Now @eddiemoney for example has talked about the importance of having the cranial base descend down, and several users here and on Reddit have complained about how mewing only increased their ante-gonial notch, deepened their overbite, shortened their ramus and overall resulted in a more recessed profile -- all of which are symptoms of cranial base that has been crammed too high. The point I am leading towards is that without the SCMs pulling the cranial base down, the only thing you are achieving with the tongue is the aforementioned cramming, especially in regards to the palate. On the other hand, when the SCM and the tongue are working in unison, they form a specific kind of leverage that allows the cranial base to unwind, bringing the posterior palate down, decreasing gonial angle etc. Not sure how well the following pic illustrates the mechanics but the system would work something like this:
This feels really good, I have a weak masseter on my right side. And making sure this SCM is activated I feel how my jaw can recruit the entire masseter, sometimes when activating the SCM I feel one muscle of the neck is sliding over the other and settling in what seems to be a correct manner. I also just noted how an exercise for the myobrace seems to be trying to achieve the same kind of activation by tilting your head back. If you do this with a straight spine your jaw juts forwards, and when asuming a slumped position your jaw falls backwards.
Looking at the photos shared by various people, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of those who have achieved change are keeping their head in the kind of slight upward tilt that would be conducive to SCM activation:
I'm not that familiar with the other muscles you mention, I'll have to look further into them.
So what kind of position do you suggest exactly? My SCMs are most activated the more I look up, but I can flex them in almost any position except very close chin-tucking, but even there they're still activated.
In the picture you shared, the neck posture of #2, 3, 5, and 7 got worse (if you'll notice the angle of the ears) and it's hard to be sure but it looks like the orbital support and ogee curve of #5 and 7 got a lot worse as well, even though they all obviously did grow a larger mandible. I don't consider the results of those four what we're really after, and the faces of #5 and 7 may be worse than when they started! Didn't they merely rotate their maxillas CW? Curious to hear your thoughts.
I looked at old pictures of myself, when I was around thirteen and had much less CFD, and realized that just like these examples, my whole head was tilted in exactly the same way, even though my neck posture was much straighter back then. To have my ears at the same angle as they used to be at would require me to tip my chin up to the ceiling at least 30° from my natural posture today, which suggests that facial volume growth, at least in my case, will mostly come from the bottom of my maxilla making a rotation out in front of me (and the top rotating CW on its "axis" in the zygomatic sutures).
When I hold my head like that, I can feel way, way more pressure in all the right spots while mewing with only a suction hold and those muscles on my neck are firmly flexed. You're spot on @Progress, but I still think that some of those after photos in your collage don't look better (but those could well be misleading photos.)
So I've drawn myself a beautiful representation of the current state of the height of my palate in relation to my teeth:
This is the state of my palate going by the feeling of my tongue and it was this way when I started mewing and ends up happening what everkind of pressure i apply to to the palate eventually. When I gave up mewing and put tongue at the bottom of my mouth my palate came down a lot and my jaw and cheekbone width/ defenition were back to normal again instead of being recessed, if only temporarily. To the succesful mewers among us how high is your palate in relation to your teeth? Going by my experience at least. The hight of the palate should be more in line with your teeth.
So I've drawn myself a beautiful representation of the current state of the height of my palate in relation to my teeth:
This is the state of my palate going by the feeling of my tongue and it was this way when I started mewing and ends up happening what everkind of pressure i apply to to the palate eventually. When I gave up mewing and put tongue at the bottom of my mouth my palate came down a lot and my jaw and cheekbone width/ defenition were back to normal again instead of being recessed, if only temporarily. To the succesful mewers among us how high is your palate in relation to your teeth? Going by my experience at least. The hight of the palate should be more in line with your teeth.
Interesting, I've experienced the same thing. Though your story isn't full. If only your palate moved you wouldn't have any exterior changes to your face, this means that some or all of your teeth moved as well.
I believe what happens is your palate moves upwards and the posterior teeth move with it. In my own palate during mewing I've measured distance between teeth and palate in the front and back. The front had a sizeable distance in between palate and teeth, yet in the back the teeth were a bit closer than in the front.
I think there are three possibilities here :
Upwards force first pushes all teeth with the palate upwards and then once the teeth can't move anymore it pushes the palate slightly more upwards relative to the teeth.
Upwards force first pushes all teeth with the palate upwards and then once osme teeth can't move anymore it pushes the more mallable posterior teeth and the palate more upwards relative to the front teeth.
Upwards force pushes the whole palate upwards, the posterior teeth follow it while the anterior teeth either don't move or follow it less robustly than the posterior teeth.
I've noticed multiple times during mewing that my smile changes a lot, sometimes teeth are more upwards, sometimes more backwards.
I wonder if it's time to start sucking on the posterior palate perhaps. If you imagine the tongue of a baby it would be pushing upwards on the nipple at the front palate while creating vacuum at the back to suck the milk out, I think at least... Pushing the front palate upwards may not be the whole answer of the equation, I'll experiment with sucking on the posterior part to see if it can move the palate and the back of my teeth downwards.
Also assuming the back of the teeth move upwards, your gonial angle would have to shorten, did you experience any such thing? I believe I've had some reduction in gonial angle from mewing.
And if back of the teeth move up wards you'll have more dorsal hump, more skin thickness, more forward set eyes, etc... Did you experience anything like this?
If I look at what has moved the most by just looking at my teeth it are the four front teeth. They used to be almost straight as an arrow now they are inclined forward quite a bit.
"Also assuming the back of the teeth move upwards, your gonial angle would have to shorten, did you experience any such thing? I believe I've had some reduction in gonial angle from mewing."
Yes I do believe my Gonial angle does shorten when I mew.
"And if back of the teeth move up wards you'll have more dorsal hump, more skin thickness, more forward set eyes, etc... Did you experience anything like this?"
I'm not to sure about these. These features haven't changed enough to be noticed I think, if they have. Features that have changed notably are my cheekbones and my jawline. Cheekbones I believe are higher but less forward and my jawline is much less wide. They used to be wider then my cheekbones but aren't so anymore.
If I look at what has moved the most by just looking at my teeth it are the four front teeth. They used to be almost straight as an arrow now they are inclined forward quite a bit.
"Also assuming the back of the teeth move upwards, your gonial angle would have to shorten, did you experience any such thing? I believe I've had some reduction in gonial angle from mewing."
Yes I do believe my Gonial angle does shorten when I mew.
"And if back of the teeth move up wards you'll have more dorsal hump, more skin thickness, more forward set eyes, etc... Did you experience anything like this?"
I'm not to sure about these. These features haven't changed enough to be noticed I think, if they have. Features that have changed notably are my cheekbones and my jawline. Cheekbones I believe are higher but less forward and my jawline is much less wide. They used to be wider then my cheekbones but aren't so anymore.
I've had the same thing happen with the cheekbones. One thing I noted is when I push my palate forward my cheekbones follow, which makes them wider.
Try to keep an eye on the position of your gonion, mine degressed back into the neck from a lot of chewing, but I also did a lot of backwards chewing.
The position of my gonion changed for the worst I think. They come forward but are more round and less square then with a lowered palate, and when mewing where they used to stick out and would be wider they seem to go inwards resulting in a weaker jawline. As I said before. When I quit mewing and put the tongue on the bottom of the mouth for a while I can feel with my tongue that the palate comes down as well, which for me results in my gonion going back towards the neck again but it makes them wider and more square. Generally while mewing the overall volume of the bones in my face seem to suffer, only forward growth seems to occur.
It's going good, slow and steady. I am currently only soft mewing and I believe my gonion and zygos have moved forward. I also think my zygos have narrowed while jaw looks wider because it's more forward.
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Good to hear! I've also returned to soft mewing and i've been trying to relax the entirety of my tongue, especially the back. Which made it push against my lower molars. It had the effect of widening my jaw and making my gonial move backwards more and make it more square. That effect lessened yesterday but my jaw width seems to be coming back now.
So far I have been able to establish that the width of my jaw is connected to the pressure I can put on the side ridges of my lower molars. I put pressure on what I feel is the back of my throat by relaxing the root of my tongue, and which also puts pressure on the sides of my lower molars. This works quite well, at which point I get my wide jawline back again. Doing this makes me lose the pressure I put on my roof of my mouth though. So my pronounced features regress again at which point I put more pressure on my palate again but lose the width in my jaw again eventually. Trying to find out how I can put pressure on both the palate and my lower molars simultaneously now.
I made an appointment with a orthodontist for a myo brace, perhaps that can fix me up.
You know, I've been thinking, my mew line decreased 10mm, yet my mandible either didn't change it's angle or became even more recessed. Could this higher palate have caused the back of my teeth to move slightly upwards?
It's possible, and nears the ideas I've been mulling over recently. From the perspective of posture, possibly the largest problem that happens with excessive chin tucking or improper head positioning in general is inactivation of the SCM muscles. What gives the SCMs particular importance (apart from their superior size compared to other cervical muscles) is how they establish a connection between the cranial base and the sternum. Thus when the head is lifted up properly, the chest begins to hang from the cranial base, translating into a force that pulls the cranial base downwards. Now @eddiemoney for example has talked about the importance of having the cranial base descend down, and several users here and on Reddit have complained about how mewing only increased their ante-gonial notch, deepened their overbite, shortened their ramus and overall resulted in a more recessed profile -- all of which are symptoms of cranial base that has been crammed too high. The point I am leading towards is that without the SCMs pulling the cranial base down, the only thing you are achieving with the tongue is the aforementioned cramming, especially in regards to the palate. On the other hand, when the SCM and the tongue are working in unison, they form a specific kind of leverage that allows the cranial base to unwind, bringing the posterior palate down, decreasing gonial angle etc. Not sure how well the following pic illustrates the mechanics but the system would work something like this:
So I am actually doing it wrong?, because when I try to get the back third of my tongue my head automatically swing back to be in proper head alignment/chin tuck but because I am recessed, I often look forward with the eyes but my cranium is angle downwards because of my maxilla down and recessed and the same with my mandible and feel intense activation of my SCM when I try to my move head left and right very hard sensing the tongue has to be straight up the entire time it’s there. So I am doing this right @progress
@progress it's been a while since this post but wanted to thank you. just started mewing in september 2022 and have had bad forward head posture my whole life and mouth breathing, mild high palate, etc. you mentioning the SCD needed to be flexed is a game changer in my effort to correct my posture. Activating them so easily pulled my head back into place and allowed my other muscles that I have been straining to correct my posture a chance to relax. They feel so much better now. The only downfall is that my fall looks horrible now. :)
@greensmoothiesNow I think high/narrow palate are genetic too. I’ve heard having a wider palate makes you sing better but drake and Taylor swift lol have very narrow palates. Ever since it’s been said people that good singers have wide palates and good posture I looked at singers smiles(lol weird but was just curious). So this is simply not true. I think palate formation is 60% genetic 40% posture. I’m saying this cause if your are singer there is no way you mouthbreathed during childhood... still few singers have narrow/high palates.
Taylor swift and drake are not singers!!! They have never been formally trained in any level, especially Drake lol. Look up to Whitney Houston or Pavarotti's smile. Very forward and broad. Most opera singers (or really trained singers in general) have BROAD upper arches, as they taught them the correct oral posture and tongue position to be able to vocalize and sing.
It's going good, slow and steady. I am currently only soft mewing and I believe my gonion and zygos have moved forward. I also think my zygos have narrowed while jaw looks wider because it's more forward.
How is your updated progress?
My experience with mewing is similar. I had a normal palate with a mild narrow arch, missing my premolars/bicuspids from orthodontic extraction and with a tongue tie. Mewing for months gave me noticeable physical changes after I head a pop when applying pressure to the mid palatal suture which I assume mobilized it.
With time I noticed more forward rotation of the maxilla and mandible along with positive functional breathing and aesthetic changes like wider cheekbones and more eye support.
After a while though, my jaw felt misaligned and I started getting pain behind my eye sockets and brain fog. I tried to "stop" the mewing tongue posture which had become automatic when breathing and swallowing, but I could not fully stop the back third of my tongue from engaging. I got severe headaches and bruxism as my jaw and cheekbones widened further, I lost dental height, and my palate got WAY deeper and wider while shortening in length. So much so that my tongue no longer fit lengthwise in the arch after one year. My face is more recessed while having a more "squished" or vertically condensed look, probably from the deep palate rotating my midface backwards and deforming the surrounding structures. My breathing is much worse than the middle period. I suspect tis because my nasal cavity has been squished as my palate became deeper.
I am currently trying to better understand how to reverse or slow down the facial collapse, has anyone else experience similar? Or have any bandaids or real solutions that have helped them?
Posted : 05/05/2025 8:04 pm
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