Proper Tongue Positioning When your mouth is at rest, your tongue should be against the roof of your mouth, but it should not be pressing against any of your teeth. Your teeth should be slightly apart, and your lips should be closed.
Gravity pulls the tongue down right? Actually, your tongue should be resting entirely on the palate. Not just the tip of the tongue, but the middle and posterior sections should be resting up. Your lips should be together, and your breathing should be through the nose 95-100% of the time.
Known as “tongue positioning,” there is a right and wrong way. When closing the mouth, the teeth should be slightly apart while the tongue rests on the roof of the mouth but not against the teeth. Not only does this correct form of tongue positioning ensure better oral health, but it also prevents teeth from shifting.
When your tongue is at rest, the tip of your tongue should touch the roof of your mouth, just behind your front teeth, as a study published in Radiology and Oncology notes. The tip of your tongue shouldn't rest low on the floor of your mouth.
The Wrong Way – A common, yet wrong, way to hold your tongue in your mouth is to rest it on the bottom teeth or the at the bottom of the mouth. This can cause the tongue to put constant pressure on the teeth and make them shift, become crowded, or create a bad, sometimes painful, bite.
Incorrect tongue posture is related to the tongue resting against the teeth, between the teeth or on the floor of the mouth. Low tongue posture typically develops due mouth breathing, a sucking habit or tongue tie and must be corrected as soon as possible to restore normal function and balance to the orofacial muscles.
We recommend that tongue exercises are done over a period of at least 12 weeks. In the first week, you can start with just one spot daily to get used to the exercise and to gradually change your tongue.
Proper Tongue Positioning
When your mouth is at rest, your tongue should be against the roof of your mouth, but it should not be pressing against any of your teeth. Your teeth should be slightly apart, and your lips should be closed.
PROPER JAW POSTURE
The teeth should not touch ever – except when swallowing. This comes as a big surprise to most people. When not chewing or swallowing, the tip of the tongue should rest gently on the tip and back of the lower incisors.
The tip of your tongue should rest gently behind your top front teeth. The border of your tongue should be gently in contact with the roof of your mouth, right where the teeth and gums meet. Your teeth should be slightly apart with your jaw very relaxed.
Sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, bruxism, and teeth clenching and grinding may cause pressure on the tongue. For example, sleep apnea may cause you to press your tongue down against your teeth to open up the airways.
Anxiety state: The anxiety state can be acute (reaction) or chronic (neurosis). Rubbing and thrusting of the tongue against the teeth occurs as a manifestation of anxiety in the tense, apprehensive, pent-up individual; it occurs par ticularly when the person is subject to emo tional stress.
The tongue is one factor that can cause obstruction and it does this by falling back into the throat during sleep. Whether you have a large tongue, weak tongue muscles or a narrow airway that's more easily blocked off, tongue obstruction may arise for several reasons.
This involves placing the tongue lightly on the top/roof of your mouth wherever it is most comfortable while allowing the teeth to come apart, and relaxing the jaw muscles. Often putting your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth like when you softly say “n” or “no”, “never”, “nothing” is a comfortable position.
A healthy (or normal) tongue is pink and covered with small bumps known as papillae. The shade of pink can vary (provided it's not red), and the bumps should cover a good majority of the upper surface. These bumps are also on the underside of a tongue, but maybe less easy to spot.
Everyone's mouth is a different shape, but generally speaking, your tongue should lie flat against the roof of your mouth and the tip should touch the back of your front teeth. It should remain this way whether you're awake or asleep, however, there are lots of factors that can cause this to change.
Proper oral resting posture is achieved when the following is present: mouth is closed with teeth touching (or just slightly apart) lips are closed. tongue is resting on the roof of your mouth (the hard palate)
Proper resting mouth position:
– A closed mouth with lips sealed together without strain. – Breathing (in and out) through the nose. – Tongue relaxed along palate, resting behind but NOT pushing against the front teeth.
The standard resting position has the teeth not touching each other; when the mouth is closed the teeth are slightly apart.
The most effective way to stop tongue thrusting is through a comprehensive treatment plan that includes myofunctional therapy exercises, aimed at retraining the muscles in the mouth and jaw, along with braces or other orthodontic treatments to correct misalignment of teeth.
Having the tongue sit on the roof of the mouth is important because it ensures the lips are sealed, the jaws together, the maxilla widened and that the face will be more likely to grow forwards (which is better than the face growing down).
Overgrowth conditions such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and vascular anomalies of the tongue can lead to its enlargement. Other conditions such as Down syndrome, trauma, inflammatory conditions, primary amyloidosis, and congenital hypothyroidism may also be associated with a large tongue.
The good news is you can work to improve your resting tongue positioning by first becoming more aware of where your tongue falls at rest. If you notice that your tongue is falling to the bottom of the mouth or is pushing up against your teeth, focus on consciously changing its position.
A full treatment of braces or Invisalign may be necessary to correct the damage done by tongue thrusting, but the habit of tongue thrusting can't be corrected with braces alone.
How do I know if I'm mewing correctly? In a proper mewing tongue position, the entire tongue — including the back — is suctioned against the top of the mouth, with the tip of the tongue resting just behind but not touching the teeth.