Progress likes Coca Cola. Progress likes his teeth too, so he has ended up using thin plastic straws on almost daily basis:
I have found that the straw can be used as kind of "training wheels" for proper swallow. It seems that the straw could perhaps be used in a way that gives it similar anatomic utility to the human nipple, which the toothless infant has to learn to both squeeze and suck with the tongue.
Therefore, I think it's something many of you would be interested in trying out, since it's so cheap and low effort habit. You just drink everything you normally would, only by sucking it
1. Place the straw somewhere on the anterior palate and then embrace it with your middle/posterior tongue.
2. Suck/push against the straw with middle/posterior tongue.
3. Try to do both the sucking and the swallowing in this same tongue position.
4. Try not to engage cheeks or any other muscles apart from tongue, and perhaps masseters.
I find that there are certain spots where sucking against palate in this way feels pleasant all around the face. I'd be interested in hearing how much you can relate to my experience.
I've been avoiding drinking straws since I started mewing because I figure that they encourage a suckle swallow pattern rather than a mature push swallow.
Ever since I had bad orthodontic treatment my mouth has felt less comfortable for my tongue (less space on right side), so I started to be aware of changes like those, I even mewed back in the day trying to push it back the way it was (unsuccessfully tho).
When I was in collage, I could buy chocolate milk in a tetra pak(with a straw) very cheap trough my student X card. I was drinking like 10 a day, and I noticed it had the effect of narrowing my teeth even more. And it makes sense if you are thinking about what John Mew said that 2 forces are affecting on how narrow or wide the teeth will be, the cheeks and the tongue, meaning if you suck on something the cheeks are gonna push the teeth in (I know if infants are breastfed longer they end up with better jaw health, but I think that's because at that age developing facial muscles is superior to anything else, especially since the teeth that are growing aren't your permanent teeth anyway).
But the way you described it, without using your cheeks could potentially be totally different, altho you can never be sure about things like those, since we were never made to drink like this. I'm not even sure you can compare a nipple to a straw, as I think you need to also slightly squeeze the nipple in order to drink. So even tho this idea is potentially interesting and useful , I would be careful in doing it in a training like rhythm daily without more research.
Ever since I had bad orthodontic treatment my mouth has felt less comfortable for my tongue (less space on right side), so I started to be aware of changes like those, I even mewed back in the day trying to push it back the way it was (unsuccessfully tho).
When I was in collage, I could buy chocolate milk in a tetra pak(with a straw) very cheap trough my student X card. I was drinking like 10 a day, and I noticed it had the effect of narrowing my teeth even more. And it makes sense if you are thinking about what John Mew said that 2 forces are affecting on how narrow or wide the teeth will be, the cheeks and the tongue, meaning if you suck on something the cheeks are gonna push the teeth in (I know if infants are breastfed longer they end up with better jaw health, but I think that's because at that age developing facial muscles is superior to anything else, especially since the teeth that are growing aren't your permanent teeth anyway).
But the way you described it, without using your cheeks could potentially be totally different, altho you can never be sure about things like those, since we were never made to drink like this. I'm not even sure you can compare a nipple to a straw, as I think you need to also slightly squeeze the nipple in order to drink. So even tho this idea is potentially interesting and useful , I would be careful in doing it in a training like rhythm daily without more research.
This is precisely what the idea would be with the straw. You anchor the straw against the palate by both squeezing and sucking it against the palate with anterior tongue. Like you noticed, cheeks would be relaxed. Your tongue should be able to 1) hold/squeeze the straw against the palate 2) use suction to pull liquid up 3) perform a proper swallow from that same position.
@apollo What do these two mean to you in practice? In my view maintaining light vacuum between tongue/palate is part of proper swallow, stabilizing the tongue against the palate for the duration of the movement. A tongue that is pushing/squeezing the palate can not be overpowered by suction. Suction is weak force that wreaks havoc only when it is allowed to operate alone without any counterforce.
@apollo What do these two mean to you in practice? In my view maintaining light vacuum between tongue/palate is part of proper swallow, stabilizing the tongue against the palate for the duration of the movement. A tongue that is pushing/squeezing the palate can not be overpowered by suction. Suction is weak force that wreaks havoc only when it is allowed to operate alone without any counterforce.
Your method using the tongue to generate suction might be useful. I just meant that the typical way people use a straw seems to engage the cheek muscles and encourage an immature swallow pattern.
Skull and Jaw Correction
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