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Most of us currently believe that the force of the tongue will directly push the maxilla up and forward. Mike Mew said it himself that he does not know why the bone at the gonial angle comes out so he is not sure about the detailed mechanisms.
But this theory is much more intuitive and it is based on GrowRightOrDie's idea(from lookism) and Daniel Lopez article.
First, it is crucial to know the concept Adaptive shortening:
A muscle can change its resting length to adapt to the length at which the muscle is habitually used or positioned.
The idea is that the maxilla will upswing when there is a downwards force at the back of the maxilla. (Attached a picture to illustrate)
What can provide that force then? The palatoglossus muscle which function is to raise the back of the tongue. It connects to the upper palate and to the sides of the tongue.
GrowRightOrDie ~ The key to mewing is to contract the palatoglossus muscle, pulling down on the back of the maxilla, increasing its height. This force is transferred onto the sides of the palate to widen=shorten it
...
Lack of force of the tongue pulling down on the maxilla contributes to, if not completely causes, short and downward tilted maxillas. And these in turn result in tiny ramuses we see on almost everyone today
If you look at recessed peoples profiles you will se that the distance from their eyes to the gonial angle is deficient. Their front faces have not melted, its just seems like it when the back of the maxilla is too high up.
Daniel Lopez goes into anatomical details when he explains how swallowing can affect your eyes. This is some text from that article which got my interest.
Daniel Lopez ~
..The contraction of palatoglossus muscles will spread the palatine bones and part of the maxillary bones apart at the midline. This helps self-correct and prevent midline compression.
...
Generally with a high arch, not only is the palate narrow, but there is also a large ridge splitting the palate from left to right along the midline. This ridge is produced by pushing down from above. It makes the hard palate more like the letter “m.” A bone called the vomer sits on top of the suture between maxillary bones along the midline. It helps make up the septum of the nasal cavity. As the arch of the palate raises, the vomer will push down the maxillary bones from above along the midline suture.
The vomer and the other bones that are thin and more delicate make up the septum. They then can get compressed by the much stronger bones from above and below. These bones are pliable and so will bend to one side or another producing a deviated septum. This will further compromise the airway making breathing through the nose more difficult as there is less space for air. The vomer articulates with a bone called the ethmoid and also the sphenoid.
Pushing the vomer up then, can further restrict proper function of the sphenoid and ethmoid. Both are bones that make up the orbit. One more important point to make is that many of the bones that we have talked about, the maxillary bones, sphenoid, and ethmoid also have sinus cavities.
By being jammed up, it has been my observation that they are then less able to drain properly and can cause sinus problems further compromising the nasal passage way forcing one to be more of a mouth breather.
I think he means that the tongue should not press too hard at the palate. Because the vomer bone will get even more jammed up. In my case I have this large ridge on top of my palate and one of my nostrils is always stuffed. Maybe this large ridge is my vomer telling me that it doesnt have enough room and the palate around the large ridge is too high up.
So, how does one even get the back of the maxilla down? Contract the palatoglossus as much as you can? Wait, that will make the tongue come up hard. Not really, if you lower your hyoid bone(which the tongue is connected to) at the same time, you will create a pseudo rubber band from the bottom of your front neck to the back of the maxilla.
I then googled "how to lower hyoid" but found no results so i searched "how to lower larynx" because the larynx follows the hyoid.
To drop your larynx, you can use the beginning of the yawn. Avoid intentionally pushing down the back of your tongue, as most people do when first trying to drop the larynx
"yawn"! There was a thread on this forum discussing some pops related to yawning. Is yawning essentially NCR?
Progress~ A few days ago I discovered that if I try to suck my posterior tongue wide up towards nasopharynx and the inner ears while yawning hard, I get multiple of these kinds of pops.
To me, all this is starting to make sense. Maybe chin tucking is a way to lower the hyoid bone. Though it can be lowered much easier by contracting the strap muscles. Lets name that contraction "jawning" because it helps to get that back of the maxilla down, increase ramus length and decrease the gonial angle. We can make strap muscles shorten much faster, if we try to constantly contract them in chintuck position.
Maybe, lowering the back of the maxilla will cause eyes to sink deeper into the skull.
The question is if the back of the maxilla should go up or down. It is said that the pituitary gland is choked when the sphenoid bone is not in an ideal position, does anyone know how a recessed sphenoid bone is positioned/rotated compared to ideal?
Such a good thread ! All this make some sense to me, because before knowing about Mike Mew and mewing I went to a specialised dentist to try to heal my different problems. After few meetings, I had to do a few exercises at home, and she really emphasized on tongue training.
Tongue push ups, tongue stretching, chew hard food, good oral posture, tongue to the roof night and day, and she also emphasized a lot on "tongue yawning", forcing the tongue back in the throat for stretching.
See, I don't know if this dentist knew Mike Mew but what she asked me to do was really like Mewing.
Well, so do you think "jawning" would be enough ? Or jawning while trying to mew ?
See, a mouth breathing person with bad neck and oral posture will have the tongue dropped down and the chin up. That will cause the palatoglossus and strap muscles to lengthen and overtime, the maxilla will be more recessed.
So, lets just do the opposite, contract the strap muscles and palatoglossus, so that they become tighter.
This is just theory at the moment, but one thing for sure is that pushing the vomer bone up will just jam it more.
Thanks for posting this, it's a very interesting theory. I just want to point out that a lower hyoid bone is associated with forward head posture and oral dysfunction. Trying to lower the hyoid intentionally to avoid pressing with the tongue too hard against the palate seems counter productive. I think the way the back of the tongue can be raised and kept firmly in place is through suction. That effort seems to engage the palatoglossus muscle without placing too much pressure on the palate.
Most of us currently believe that the force of the tongue will directly push the maxilla up and forward. Mike Mew said it himself that he does not know why the bone at the gonial angle comes out so he is not sure about the detailed mechanisms.
But this theory is much more intuitive and it is based on GrowRightOrDie's idea(from lookism) and Daniel Lopez article.
First, it is crucial to know the concept Adaptive shortening:
A muscle can change its resting length to adapt to the length at which the muscle is habitually used or positioned.
The idea is that the maxilla will upswing when there is a downwards force at the back of the maxilla. (Attached a picture to illustrate)
What can provide that force then? The palatoglossus muscle which function is to raise the back of the tongue. It connects to the upper palate and to the sides of the tongue.
GrowRightOrDie ~ The key to mewing is to contract the palatoglossus muscle, pulling down on the back of the maxilla, increasing its height. This force is transferred onto the sides of the palate to widen=shorten it
...
Lack of force of the tongue pulling down on the maxilla contributes to, if not completely causes, short and downward tilted maxillas. And these in turn result in tiny ramuses we see on almost everyone today
If you look at recessed peoples profiles you will se that the distance from their eyes to the gonial angle is deficient. Their front faces have not melted, its just seems like it when the back of the maxilla is too high up.
Daniel Lopez goes into anatomical details when he explains how swallowing can affect your eyes. This is some text from that article which got my interest.
Daniel Lopez ~
..The contraction of palatoglossus muscles will spread the palatine bones and part of the maxillary bones apart at the midline. This helps self-correct and prevent midline compression.
...
Generally with a high arch, not only is the palate narrow, but there is also a large ridge splitting the palate from left to right along the midline. This ridge is produced by pushing down from above. It makes the hard palate more like the letter “m.” A bone called the vomer sits on top of the suture between maxillary bones along the midline. It helps make up the septum of the nasal cavity. As the arch of the palate raises, the vomer will push down the maxillary bones from above along the midline suture.
The vomer and the other bones that are thin and more delicate make up the septum. They then can get compressed by the much stronger bones from above and below. These bones are pliable and so will bend to one side or another producing a deviated septum. This will further compromise the airway making breathing through the nose more difficult as there is less space for air. The vomer articulates with a bone called the ethmoid and also the sphenoid.
Pushing the vomer up then, can further restrict proper function of the sphenoid and ethmoid. Both are bones that make up the orbit. One more important point to make is that many of the bones that we have talked about, the maxillary bones, sphenoid, and ethmoid also have sinus cavities.
By being jammed up, it has been my observation that they are then less able to drain properly and can cause sinus problems further compromising the nasal passage way forcing one to be more of a mouth breather.
I think he means that the tongue should not press too hard at the palate. Because the vomer bone will get even more jammed up. In my case I have this large ridge on top of my palate and one of my nostrils is always stuffed. Maybe this large ridge is my vomer telling me that it doesnt have enough room and the palate around the large ridge is too high up.
So, how does one even get the back of the maxilla down? Contract the palatoglossus as much as you can? Wait, that will make the tongue come up hard. Not really, if you lower your hyoid bone(which the tongue is connected to) at the same time, you will create a pseudo rubber band from the bottom of your front neck to the back of the maxilla.
I then googled "how to lower hyoid" but found no results so i searched "how to lower larynx" because the larynx follows the hyoid.
To drop your larynx, you can use the beginning of the yawn. Avoid intentionally pushing down the back of your tongue, as most people do when first trying to drop the larynx
"yawn"! There was a thread on this forum discussing some pops related to yawning. Is yawning essentially NCR?
Progress~ A few days ago I discovered that if I try to suck my posterior tongue wide up towards nasopharynx and the inner ears while yawning hard, I get multiple of these kinds of pops.
To me, all this is starting to make sense. Maybe chin tucking is a way to lower the hyoid bone. Though it can be lowered much easier by contracting the strap muscles. Lets name that contraction "jawning" because it helps to get that back of the maxilla down, increase ramus length and decrease the gonial angle. We can make strap muscles shorten much faster, if we try to constantly contract them in chintuck position.
Maybe, lowering the back of the maxilla will cause eyes to sink deeper into the skull.
The question is if the back of the maxilla should go up or down. It is said that the pituitary gland is choked when the sphenoid bone is not in an ideal position, does anyone know how a recessed sphenoid bone is positioned/rotated compared to ideal?
@Abdulrahman Maybe, because their palatoglossus are overlengthened. I think a lower hyoid does not mean the same thing anymore when the muscles are contracted vs relaxed.
@Halti.H They probably dont hard mew at night and all of them chin tuck so their palates are pulled down at night. I think it is easier for the back of the maxilla to go down than up(against all the bones) so there is a net positive effect. Also, there was an article on claimingpower saying that maybe mewing is not everything and that posture could have greater influence.
@Abdulrahman Maybe, because their palatoglossus are overlengthened. I think a lower hyoid does not mean the same thing anymore when the muscles are contracted vs relaxed.
@Halti.H They probably dont hard mew at night and all of them chin tuck so their palates are pulled down at night. I think it is easier for the back of the maxilla to go down than up(against all the bones) so there is a net positive effect. Also, there was an article on claimingpower saying that maybe mewing is not everything and that posture could have greater influence.
Mewing + jawning + chintucking
But you would think that all the hard mewing during the day would kinda cancel out the effects if it really was counterproductive to hard mew, don't you think?
Do you think it would be a good idea to sleep with multiple pillows to keep your chin tucked at night? Is that the kinda of chin tuck your talking about?
Also, I still didn't qukte get what "jawning" is, is it just yawning in a chin tucked position?
@Halti.H Chin tuck so that the hyoid bone lowers a little bit but i think chin tucking is more efficient in very recessed people because their jaws will lower the hyoid more. I think chin tucking with multiple pillows is good in the beginning to stretch the back of the neck.
Jawning is contracting the strap muscles. You need to keep the back of the tongue up and simultaneously yawn but with a close mouth, then you will feel that your hyoid is lowering. Combine this with chin tuck.
I have been hard mewing for some months but my concern is this ridge at the palate, it was there before mewing and it could be a sign thay my palate is too high. Now my nasal cavity seems to be easily irritated and i sometimes have blood in my mucus, maybe its just that the air is drier.
I will experiment with jawning and mewing for a while too see if my nasal cavity improves.
@Halti.H Chin tuck so that the hyoid bone lowers a little bit but i think chin tucking is more efficient in very recessed people because their jaws will lower the hyoid more. I think chin tucking with multiple pillows is good in the beginning to stretch the back of the neck.
Jawning is contracting the strap muscles. You need to keep the back of the tongue up and simultaneously yawn but with a close mouth, then you will feel that your hyoid is lowering. Combine this with chin tuck.
I have been hard mewing for some months but my concern is this ridge at the palate, it was there before mewing and it could be a sign thay my palate is too high. Now my nasal cavity seems to be easily irritated and i sometimes have blood in my mucus, maybe its just that the air is drier.
I will experiment with jawning and mewing for a while too see if my nasal cavity improves.
Thanks for the clarification/advice. Good luck on your journey.
I feel like your post is missing the right instructions for the method you're suggesting. Maybe less theory and more info on the actual method so people could try it out and see how it feels? That post on lookism also makes zero freaking sense.
"place the tip of you tongue below you lower incisors incisors" What the hell is the dude even talking about, the tip of your tongue below you lower incisors incisors? Is he trying to communicate people to place their tip at the lower incisors?
@auxiliary7 Ok. Place your hand on the hyoid bone, now yawn with a close mouth. You will feel that the hyoid bone lowers a bit. Then recreate that movement without needing to yawn, do that many times as possible, so that your mind connects to the muscle. Those muscles activating are called strap muscles
The method is to contract the strap muscles(jawning) while mewing. The strap muscles will prevent the tongue from going hard into palate.
"So, how does one even get the back of the maxilla down? Contract the palatoglossus as much as you can? Wait, that will make the tongue come up hard." Get rid of jawning and just do this. How are you going to jawn when you sleep? This makes no sense, you achieve change through LONG periods of force. Let's just address another thing, hard mewing is perception, the reality is "hard mewing" is the normal state your body should be in but hasn't developed the necessary posture or habitual repetition to maintain it. Similarly, take someone with abhorrent posture and tell them to sit up straight, it's VERY difficult to maintain for a long time. Seriously, just stop complicating things; all you need to do is fix head/body posture, swallow correctly, and keep your mouth closed.
I don't have much knowledge about this as you guys,but since its a free forum.I think based on mike mew's headgear the maxillary rotation is diffrent from the one illustrated above.
@sinned Adaptive shortening will lead to long forces, jawn for some hours a day and the strap muscles will shorten and that will make the muscles tighter during sleep. It is also possible too jawn during sleep because its just muscle memory like chin tucking is.
If you hard mew onto the hard palate, you may crush your airway 😀 It recently struck me that Mike always talks about hitting the soft palate, where there is no bone. Probably so to pull the back of the maxilla down.
Why is the best result we have on this forum exclusively from mewing? This makes no sense because mewing raises the hyoid while you're saying that jawning would lower it. You have no proof that "hard mewing" would crush the airway. Chin tucking, not mewing, is what usually cause airway blockage, which is completely normal. Downwards growth inevitably leads the maxilla going back into the airway because it has nowhere else to go, the maxilla cannot just go down and not go back at the same time. So the maxilla goes back into the airway then the person compensates by pulling their head up and forwards. What you're suggesting, mewing + chin tucking + jawning, is contradictory to being against "hard mewing"; chin tucking leads to what you would perceive as hard mewing, it's seriously impossible to chin tuck as hard as you can and not experience hard upwards force from the tongue.
I think you are overcomplicating it, look at recessed faces. You will see that their ramuses are much shorter and the back of maxillas are screaming to go down. By contracting the muscles that are between the back of the maxilla and the lower neck, the maxilla will eventually tilt right.
Why is the best result we have on this forum exclusively from mewing? This makes no sense because mewing raises the hyoid while you're saying that jawning would lower it.
Mewing can certainly expand palate but we also want the gonial angle to improve. Hard mewing with back of the tongue will not push the maxilla upwards because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The palate will receive a force from the tongue that is upwards, but an equal force downwards because the palatoglossus is connected to the palate in one end and to the tongue in one end. If one then lowers the hyoid, the back of the maxilla will be pushed downwards.
You have no proof that "hard mewing" would crush the airway. Chin tucking, not mewing, is what usually cause airway blockage, which is completely normal.
Daniel Lopez(a professional) says this
Pushing the vomer up then, can further restrict proper function of the sphenoid and ethmoid. Both are bones that make up the orbit. One more important point to make is that many of the bones that we have talked about, the maxillary bones, sphenoid, and ethmoid also have sinus cavities.
By being jammed up, it has been my observation that they are then less able to drain properly and can cause sinus problems further compromising the nasal passage way forcing one to be more of a mouth breather.
Then, when he mentions correct tongue posture he says that the tongue should be relaxed against the roof of the mouth. And Mike Mew only talks about "the back of the tongue hard against the roof of the mouth" which is onto the soft palate, not against the bones of the airway.
chin tucking leads to what you would perceive as hard mewing, it's seriously impossible to chin tuck as hard as you can and not experience hard upwards force from the tongue.
I dont feel any hard force when i chintuck as hard as i can, but contracting the palatoglossus muscle feels much.
"Mewing can certainly expand palate but we also want the gonial angle to improve. Hard mewing with back of the tongue will not push the maxilla upwards because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The palate will receive a force from the tongue that is upwards, but an equal force downwards because the palatoglossus is connected to the palate in one end and to the tongue in one end. If one then lowers the hyoid, the back of the maxilla will be pushed downwards."
Then how come all the people who I've seen reporting dramatic results in terms of rotating the maxilla upwards and reducing the gonial angle on this forum have been "hard mewing"? Take a look at Jamo's post "mewing doesn't work guys (sarcasm)". He said that he mews extremely hard as much as possible and has picture proof of dramatic improvement in therms of the position of the maxilla and the gonial angle. All other people too who I've seen claiming to have improved their maxilla position and gonial angle dramatically have been "hard mewing".
I think I value these actual examples of people achieving great results with hard mewing over the theoretical speculation that your providing.
"Mewing can certainly expand palate but we also want the gonial angle to improve. Hard mewing with back of the tongue will not push the maxilla upwards because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The palate will receive a force from the tongue that is upwards, but an equal force downwards because the palatoglossus is connected to the palate in one end and to the tongue in one end. If one then lowers the hyoid, the back of the maxilla will be pushed downwards."
Then how come all the people who I've seen reporting dramatic results in terms of rotating the maxilla upwards and reducing the gonial angle on this forum have been "hard mewing"? Take a look at Jamo's post "mewing doesn't work guys (sarcasm)". He said that he mews extremely hard as much as possible and has picture proof of dramatic improvement in therms of the position of the maxilla and the gonial angle. All other people too who I've seen claiming to have improved their maxilla position and gonial angle dramatically have been "hard mewing".
I think I value these actual examples of people achieving great results with hard mewing over the theoretical speculation that your providing.
But you don't know whether the hard mewing they did wasn't just what OP was suggesting people to do. If you raise the back of the tongue to block the airway, you're doing what OP is suggesting people to do and that's also exactly what the main post "make sure you're mewing correctly suggests people to do."
BTW I tried this, it feels like it does indeed do something, but I'm not sure yet whether it's good or not. Looking at pictures of models it seems to make sense. After doing this I feel like my teeth don't match anymore temporarily, but then it goes away. It's actually impossible for me to touch teeth and contract the glossus muscle.
Posted by: Couda
@auxiliary7 Ok. Place your hand on the hyoid bone, now yawn with a close mouth. You will feel that the hyoid bone lowers a bit. Then recreate that movement without needing to yawn, do that many times as possible, so that your mind connects to the muscle. Those muscles activating are called strap muscles
The method is to contract the strap muscles(jawning) while mewing. The strap muscles will prevent the tongue from going hard into palate.
This actually seems like a really bad idea, it's an easy adventure to headache land and honestly just contracting that glossus muscle is already very forceful.
"But you don't know whether the hard mewing they did wasn't just what OP was suggesting people to do. If you raise the back of the tongue to block the airway, you're doing what OP is suggesting people to do and that's also exactly what the main post "make sure you're mewing correctly suggests people to do.""
Yeah perhaps they were simultaneously doing what he is suggesting but they were still hard mewing. The claim was that hard mewing is counterproductive and can actually lead to worsening of our facial bone structure. But this hasn't happened in the people that I know of who have been doing hard mewing.
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Progress, can you explain how exactly is this achieved? I've always thought the upward movement under the chin to be a sign of proper tongue involvement...
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Progress, can you explain how exactly is this achieved? I've always thought the upward movement under the chin to be a sign of proper tongue involvement...
It is. Chances are that you are already doing what @couda describes to some extent. I just had been so focused on the upward movement of the hyoid that I overlooked the potential tongue-opposing function of the hyoid bone, which led to restriction of the vocal cords. If you want to experiment with this you could try lowering the base of your tongue & adam's apple as far down the throat as you can, then from this position move your tongue back on the palate while trying to keep the adam's apple from rising. You should end up with a rubber-band like tension between the posterior tongue and the hyoid, as described earlier in this thread.
If I want to pull my maxilla down... I'll just tug on it. LOL I would be careful, though, not to pull the front portion down, because I suspect that a droopy maxilla (front part) is why people get crooks in the nose.
In fact, if the whole point of pulling the back portion of the maxilla down is to get the front portion of the maxilla higher, why not just push it up? If it were me, I personally would avoid pushing on the teeth. That can just jam in them into the bone more. I'd grap the gums and try to push gently up. But here's the thing... most everyone on this site thinks they suffer from craneofacial dystrophy when they don't. Who here really has a melting face?! The only person around who I see who has one is the guy who claimed he can fix it in kids.... not adults... Do you really think that if Dr. John Mew could fix adult faces that he wouldn't fix his own? I hate to be harsh, because I respect the guy, but literally. Think about it. Use your heads. So... all these people reading this with BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) who are wasting away their lives online... might read something like this and say.. WOW - that's me! I can FIX MYSELF SO I'm hot. Then they'll try to push their maxillas up and then their teeth will hardly show and they'll end up with TMD and pain... like Dr. Mew's follower Dr. Bill Hang warned of happening when the maxilla is driven up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ZRkXIBIpw&t=1s I'm sorry - but can this be more plain?
Watch 6:18 to end of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItxQIro7Y0o&t=499s to get edumacated on beauty. I cannot be simpler. Every body is different. I see SO many people on here who think this or that or this or that. Heck! I brought my chin a bit forward in an effort to improve my airway. Then I realized I looked super bad and wanted my chin back. It's not attractive to look like a straight line from your forehead down to your chin, okay? Trust Dr. Mahony on archieal - he knows his stuff.
If I want to pull my maxilla down... I'll just tug on it. LOL I would be careful, though, not to pull the front portion down, because I suspect that a droopy maxilla (front part) is why people get crooks in the nose.
In fact, if the whole point of pulling the back portion of the maxilla down is to get the front portion of the maxilla higher, why not just push it up? If it were me, I personally would avoid pushing on the teeth. That can just jam in them into the bone more. I'd grap the gums and try to push gently up. But here's the thing... most everyone on this site thinks they suffer from craneofacial dystrophy when they don't. Who here really has a melting face?! The only person around who I see who has one is the guy who claimed he can fix it in kids.... not adults... Do you really think that if Dr. John Mew could fix adult faces that he wouldn't fix his own? I hate to be harsh, because I respect the guy, but literally. Think about it. Use your heads. So... all these people reading this with BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) who are wasting away their lives online... might read something like this and say.. WOW - that's me! I can FIX MYSELF SO I'm hot. Then they'll try to push their maxillas up and then their teeth will hardly show and they'll end up with TMD and pain... like Dr. Mew's follower Dr. Bill Hang warned of happening when the maxilla is driven up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ZRkXIBIpw&t=1s I'm sorry - but can this be more plain?
Watch 6:18 to end of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItxQIro7Y0o&t=499s to get edumacated on beauty. I cannot be simpler. Every body is different. I see SO many people on here who think this or that or this or that. Heck! I brought my chin a bit forward in an effort to improve my airway. Then I realized I looked super bad and wanted my chin back. It's not attractive to look like a straight line from your forehead down to your chin, okay? Trust Dr. Mahony on archieal - he knows his stuff.
So should our teeth be in contact at all? I'm not clenching my jaw, but I notice that if my teeth are in contact, its easier for me to mew
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Does your voice get deeper too when when you lower the hyoid and talk? A high hyoid could explain why my voice always sounds restricted.
I haven't read all of the replies to the initial post, but I wanted to share the link to a video by a dental student named Ronald Ead. He explains the science behind growth and rotation of the maxilla using the AGGA appliance (which is the most effective appliance for craniofacial growth in existence today), which might be accomplishing the same function of the tongue in maxillary expansion except much more effectively.
What you all might be suggesting may be contradictory to how the bone actually remodels. I don't know the science, and I'm not saying you are incorrect because I haven't read that closely into your claims, but I'm putting this video here so you'll hopefully get some insight into the actual mechanisms behind the theory of maxillary rotation. He kind of rambles on at the beginning, but I'd recommend watching from the start so you don't miss anything.
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Does your voice get deeper too when when you lower the hyoid and talk? A high hyoid could explain why my voice always sounds restricted.
I feel like your post is missing the right instructions for the method you're suggesting. Maybe less theory and more info on the actual method so people could try it out and see how it feels? That post on lookism also makes zero freaking sense.
"place the tip of you tongue below you lower incisors incisors" What the hell is the dude even talking about, the tip of your tongue below you lower incisors incisors? Is he trying to communicate people to place their tip at the lower incisors?
GrowRightOrDie explains a bit in the thread. ‘Below your lower incisors’ is a starting point to get the tongue as far forward in the mouth as possible. He is suggesting raising the front of the maxilla by pulling down on the palatoglossus muscle with a pivot underneath the eyes; I assume the tongue raised up against the palate in the most forward position achievable. I note this is the opposite pivoting to Starecta; those critical of Starecta for lengthening faces might approve. He is not suggesting the tongue is only in contact with the palate at the front. He suggests raising it along its length and this is another aspect of the low starting point for the tip. He is suggesting that after raising it its tip should be at the tip of the upper incisors. I think this is a very good idea however heretical. Everyone else seems to just accept that they have no solution to retroclined incisors, because they are rightly more scared of tipping the less well rooted incisors than they are of tipping molars. Almost all of us have retroclined incisors, to such a degree that we probably do not find proclined incisors aesthetically pleasing. I just don’t know how people think that they are going to get the intermolar width of primitive man without his proclined incisors.
He describes lips and cheeks as the enemy and is clearly a Frankel fan. This seems to be in accord with the recent lip seal thread. Anyhow I thought his thread was dense with good stuff, but sadly it seems to have been his last.
@fools_overture This video actually explains a lot as well as this theory about maxillary rotation. I don't think Mike Mew has addressed how remodeling of the maxilla actually works while the video you link explains it really well.
@Couda Although I'm still skeptical of jawning, these mechanistic explanations make more sense than the maxilla dropping down due to lack of support from the tongue (and gravity?) which is not exactly true, and the tongue pushing the maxilla up causing it remodel which again isn't exactly true nor does it make sense since the back of the maxilla doesn't drop down, yet it's the posterior third that's advised to activate and push up with. How is it that the posterior tongue is supposed to remodel something through upwards force if it's already jammed back and up? The front of the maxilla seems to drop down but it's not really realistic to push the front of the tongue up as people with a recessed maxilla likely have high vaulted palates as well as just the fact the farther from the back of the tongue you go the less upwards force you can generate.
I was a bit dogmatic in my views and I think this theory of maxillary rotation makes a lot of sense. On the topic of hard mewing, forceably pushing the tongue up on the roof of my mouth rather than adopting proper head posture and letting the tongue naturally rest/push on the roof of the mouth seems to raise the hyoid, maybe this is why hard mewing is bad? Other than that constantly straining yourself to push the tongue up is probably a bad idea and can induce stress and prevent you from relaxing, so the way around this is through tongue exercises, what do you think?
Thanks for bumping this, I was just trying to find it the other day. I think there is definitely supposed to be a balance between the tongue and the hyoid musculature. For me moving the hyoid up with the posterior tongue led to restricted and hoarse sounding voice over time. Once I started to simultaneously resist the posterior tongue's upward movement with the hyoid, the resonance and clarity of my voice recovered quickly.
Does your voice get deeper too when when you lower the hyoid and talk? A high hyoid could explain why my voice always sounds restricted.
Yes, a lot.
Just tried Progress's exercise and my voice is also (temporarily?) more relaxed and deeper.
Hi, I'm wondering how the "mew-push-swallow" would fit into this theory. Assuming that this is more or less the "intended" way to swallow. Some thoughts about this: Maybe the back of the tongue pushes against the soft palate and raises higher than the hard palate and applies an outward force on the maxilla if there is not enough space.
Also, regarding the usual theory that the tongue applies an upwards force to the palate etc, how would it even be possible for the tongue to do that, if the palatoglossus muscle is attached to the palate. Kinda like trying sail faster by pushing against the ..whats the word.. mast while standing on the boat. Well, maybe some of the other muscles could do that.
Like I keep saying, people focus too much on the tongue forces alone.
Mewing the proper way isn't just tongue. It's about the functionality of the tongue in sync with the body.
Most people these days have really bad awareness of their body. They don't use it. And when they do, they unconsciously do it unproperly. If you have palate imbalances and are already mewing, visit a physiotherapist. You'll see the differences after
Body posture, especially cervical posture, is possibly more important in cases like medium line deviations and crossbites than tongue forces and what not..
It's what I have so I ll give my 2 cents on it.
What I do is:
1. Focusing on good body posture before even thinking about mewing.
DRIVE THE OCCIPITAL BONE UPWARDS, THE LIL BUMP ON THE BACK OF YOUR SKULL. You'll see that if you start focusing on pulling it upwards at a 90 degree or so angle, using your strap muscles, tongue, abs, it's actually amazing how many muscles you engage when you focus on that instead of JUST your TONGUE. You will engage on the soft palate without much effort.
Even when chin tucking I feel people completely forget about this and unconsciously just focus on tongue tongue tongue and the posture falls back.
Also BREATHE from your DIAPHRAGM!! Relax. If your new to this and you feel like mewing doesn't let you breathe, Fix Your Posture, and let your body do it's work. Most people that start mewing and breathe from their nose are under oxygenated because with the years passing, they forgot how to properly breathe with the diaphragm. You'll see it. Use ur diaphragm to breathe and relax your nose and upper lip. Stretch your thoracic area.
Hard mewing with no postural changes is a battle you ll never win. You re in fact forgetting about the most critical aspect of a healthy body, which is BALANCE.
People develop more as symmetries when hard mewing BECAUSE they don't fix posture. An asymmetrical face is usually a skull that tilts to the asymmetrical side. You put hard mewing on top of that with no body posture changes I GUARANTEE YOU, more assymmetries will come.
Get YO fkin CHEST UP. You're a man and you fear nothing.
SHOULDERS BACK AND DOWN, RELAXED AND ROTATED A BIT OUTWARDS. BIG FINGER POINTING FORWARDS.
ENGAGE THE LOWER ABS. STAND STRAIGHT MOFACKAS.
I can talk from my own experience. I think people don't correlate functional good posture and mewing.
Hard mewing with bad posture, crossbites, medium line deviations, scoliosis etc.. Will stress the fux out of your body.
The best example of what I'm saying @couda is your focus on moving the hyiod bone with your tongue.
Yes you can do that But..
Try this.
Adopt a slunched forward nerd neck position and feel your hyiod. Engage your tongue and try moving your hyiod. It doesn't move much right..?
Now adopt a good body posture, shoulders back and down rotated outwards, chest up, cervical and occipital bone driving ur skull up. Only now, engage your tongue as far back as you can relaxed.
See the differences. Hyiod moves up and back. So does your tongue.
@roflcopters Good points. The occipital drive is very crucial. Without it, chin tucking can easily lead to hyperflexion of the cervical spine, causing dangerous verbetral bulging in the back of the neck. My sister (she doesn't mew) has a habit of stretching her neck in an attempt to relieve shoulder tightness, and when she bends her neck forward into hyperflexion, her C7 is like a golf ball poking out of her lower neck. If this describes the reader, they should definitely de-emphasize chin tucking and prioritize the upwards occipital drive.
In terms of hard... anything, prioritizing driving the occiput up hard instead of pushing the tongue up hard certainly appears like a healthier method of generating anatomical forces capable of re-shaping the cranium. I see the occipital drive as a direct indicator of how much force the tongue can be allowed to apply, meaning that as long as the occipital drive is "maxed out", the tongue should be free to push with any intensity that doesn't sabotage the drive. This, at least for me, results in a push that is very firm, but not necessarily hard (as in straining).
I'd be kind of interested in experimenting with developing harder and harder occipital drive, as it is something that I have not been focusing on yet. Walking around with firm occipital drive while writing this, I notice that the harder I try to drive the occiput upward, the more naturally my abs and lats engage and chest opens up, which is something that doesn't happen as intuitively nor harmoniously when only focused on tongue posture. Ultimately, it becomes a matter of pulling the skull and the tailbone away from each other in one cohesive movement. Thinking back on how jamo described his hard mewing technique, it could very well be that this is what he was trying to express.
Occipital drive with good body posture acts like a Y strap chiropractic movement. Sort of. Obviously the forces are very different, but it effectivelly stretches and decompresses your whole spine.
Hard mewers with neck tilts will deposit bone more assymetrically. Pretty much just amplifying the conditions you already have in your face.
This awareness came to me because of my interest in physiotherapy, chiropractic work and also due to YOGA. I suggest to all of you, do some light easy yoga to start you out.
II've always been that guy who saw yoggies as deluded hippies but God im happy I pushed myself trough the first stages of unbearable pain. The awareness this stuff brings you is something that you can't pay for.
From what I can see you are trying to leverage the maxilla upward.
I think to do this you should cinch down with the palatoglossus muscle highlighted in green. This will cause a lever arm system .
Notice the palatoglossus muscle is connected to the soft palate, and hard palate respectively. The contraction of this muscle is difficult unless the posterior third of the common constipation of the tongue is in contact with the roof of the mouth. Once the this muscle is cinched down the tongue acts as a pivot point and the hard palate acts as a lever arm with palatoglossus muscle providing force to give the whole system torque, and drive the maxilla up. A suck-hold will just give a mechanism to insure a consistent pivot point is there for the system to work.
maybe clamp would be a better word then cinched, of possibly squeeze
Also I just want to first point out that the are a few muscles attached to the soft palate
1. Lengthening of the palatoglossus muscle might be a cause of some of the issues people are having, but I feel it is more likely that the big issue is atrophy.
2. People are likely getting good results from hard mewing cause the are hard cinching with the posterior 3 of the tongue, which can engage the muscle groups of the soft palate and force the tongue in the dental arch.
Also I feel the the need to explain that the tongue will act as a wedge when faced with an underdeveloped dental arch with the greatest amount of potential force being generate in the posterior 3 of the arch.
Ultimately, it becomes a matter of pulling the skull and the tailbone away from each other in one cohesive movement.
I have been trying this the last few days and finding it the best way to find proper posture. I have been struggling with finding points to visualise the proper movement when trying to chin tuck and find correct posture. But when I imagine myself pulling the occiput away from the tailbone, it's like my body understands what I want from it, and I hear a couple slight pops and feel like my body's really in the right position.
I would second your thought that this is likely what Jamo was referring to!
- Mewing for 6+ months
- IMW: 35mm (no expansion)
- Sleep on the floor without a pillow
- Tape mouth at night
- Continue to emphasise chin-tuck/occipital drive for extended periods
- Chew Mastic Tears for 1 hour every other day
can you guys elaborate more on you what you mean by occipital drive? is that the same idea as when Mike talked about trying to move a piece a paper up the back of a wall with the back of the head?
can you guys elaborate more on you what you mean by occipital drive? is that the same idea as when Mike talked about trying to move a piece a paper up the back of a wall with the back of the head?
Looks like the same idea. In short, you are trying to lift your head upward by the highest point of your spine, a motion which then pulls the rest of the spine up with it, verbetra by verbetra. While doing this, I'm also biting my teeth together in a way that locks the bicuspids together, as this seems to stabilize my head during the occipital drive. What is counter-intuitive about the bicuspid lock is that I technically end up using the mandible as a means of pulling the maxilla back, which at face value seems like a ticket to TMJ problems, but paradoxically results in anything but. Even more telling is that before incorporating the occipital drive, I had been experimenting with jutting the mandible forward, which ended up making my bite feel tight and uncomfortable. I thought that clearly I needed to be doing something that is opposite to mandibular jutting. The bicuspid lock could be what I have been missing, especially since it complements the occipital drive. I will write more about this if it turns out to be beneficial. At the very least, my teeth are already sore, which means that some kind of change is taking place.
can you guys elaborate more on you what you mean by occipital drive? is that the same idea as when Mike talked about trying to move a piece a paper up the back of a wall with the back of the head?
everything progress said AND i forgot to mention that, while driving the occiput upwards you absolutely must have a correct spinal alignment, or close to it, to avoid unwanted problems, in case your body posture is bad.
Way to do that is feet pointing forward at like shoulder width, feel your big toe on the ground (important), act like your popping a balloon with ur thighs(not too much force, it's about consistency), butt engaged, shoulders relaxed and if you can palms sort of rotating outwards and then you engage the muscles to pull your occiput at sort of a 90 degree angle from the ground. Youll get the hang of it once you start experimenting. Also, watch some videos about it. Athlean X on youtube is a guy that knows his stuff.
Great stuff here. For me, to "pull the skull and tailbone away from each other" involves relaxing the lower glutes and engaging muscles around the back of the ischial crest so that the front line of the abdomen is engaged but slightly elongated. This unfurls the tailbone from being tucked between the legs in the c-curve we normally have, and is the beginning of the J-shaped spine. In primal (healthy) posture, your bottom is actually behind you, not under.
Great stuff here. For me, to "pull the skull and tailbone away from each other" involves relaxing the lower glutes and engaging muscles around the back of the ischial crest so that the front line of the abdomen is engaged but slightly elongated. This unfurls the tailbone from being tucked between the legs in the c-curve we normally have, and is the beginning of the J-shaped spine. In primal (healthy) posture, your bottom is actually behind you, not under.
Yass sir. All bout that hamstring flexibility to allow the hips to move well.
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
There is no way to rotate the maxilla with purely "tongue force" This force is not nearly great enough after your suture has been fused (from ages 13-15.) If you want to rotate it, you need surgery lol
It's possible that people who clench more also tend to have bigger jaws and shorter gonial angle. In addition, people who clench might also grind their teeth which could further upswing the lower jaw. I don't think clenching actually affects the maxilla as the guy in the video is saying. Furthermore, it's definitely not a good thing to clench, I accidentally clench at night sometimes and when I wake up my teeth are sore. Over a long period of time I could see this damaging the teeth.
It's possible that people who clench more also tend to have bigger jaws and shorter gonial angle. In addition, people who clench might also grind their teeth which could further upswing the lower jaw. I don't think clenching actually affects the maxilla as the guy in the video is saying. Furthermore, it's definitely not a good thing to clench, I accidentally clench at night sometimes and when I wake up my teeth are sore. Over a long period of time I could see this damaging the teeth.
True, but I would think a licensed dentist wouldn't explicitly say it's driving the maxilla up and forward unless it was actually doing that right? I feel like it would be damaging to his credibility if he was exaggerating.
Maybe due to mouth breathing, our jaws haven't been in contact as much as they should be? I have a cross bite and only recently have been making an effort to try to make the molars touch. But I definitely agree that clenching in general is probably a dangerous line to tread, as in it's easy to go overboard and cause bruxism, etc.
What's interesting is that people with bruxism tend to have low incidence of maloclussions.
"However, these findings are not limited to the primitive populations and medieval skulls. Among contemporary individuals there are subjects showing advanced stages of dental wear and an increased level of masticatory muscle activity, mainly due to bruxism. These individuals show a low incidence of malocclusions and are characterized (66-68) by a short lower face, a small intermaxillary angle, and a small gonial angle"
I think this is interesting because people with bruxism also likely lack proper tongue posture. Just try grinding your teeth in proper tongue posture, it is basically impossible, and that's because grinding your teeth is similar to chewing, and when you chew you take the tongue off the roof of the mouth. So why is it that people who most likely lack tongue posture have low incidence of maloclussions? It seems like as you say that tooth contact is important for keeping the teeth aligned. I honestly find it so fascinating how our teeth manage to compensate and find the best position for a proper bite if given the chance (ie through proper tooth contact). Like for example, prehistoric skulls typically have edge to edge bites while modern people tend to have an overbite. What I find so fascinating about this fact is that these people with edge to edge bites must have at some point had an overbite like people do now, however, over the years as they wear their tooth down the occlusion changes. Not only does the occlusion changes from an overbite to an edge to edge bite as the teeth wear down, the lower arch expands to fit the upper.
Here is an example of what I mean, you can see on the left the individual has an edge to edge bite, the front teeth meet right on top of another. Not only that, the lower arch meets the upper arch exactly as well, on the other hand, the individual on the right has an overbite, and the upper arch is slightly wider. So somehow the teeth always manage to find proper occlusion (given enough contact and/or chewing) and I honestly don't know how it happens but it does.
It seems like there is a mechanism for how teeth shift, when people lose a tooth for example the surrounding teeth all move in, why is that though?
"The emergence of your teeth is governed by a balance of forces. The bone is trying to push the teeth out, and it continues to do so until the tooth meets opposition from your teeth in the other arch. This force keeps the teeth in balance. "
So the tooth is constantly in flux and being pushed out, however, this is kept in check by the other tooth. Perhaps the teeth are kept in occlusion by the principle of least effort or path of least resistance, the teeth naturally move into their "least resistance" or their most advantageous position. The "least resistance" can also be known as the balance zone, so if for example the upper arch expands and changes the balance zone, the lower teeth will accommodate by expanding as well to meet the upper teeth.
