Does any of it touch the roof of your mouth?
You may not be able to touch the roof all the way back, even if you push up hard. If that's the case, you may have a bit of extra tissue under your tongue that pulls it down, called a tongue tie. If you can push up all the way back, it can be possible to retrain your resting tongue position to have contact when not eating, drinking or speaking.
Most people have not thought about this. I often see a confused/curious look from my clients when I ask. Even several years into my study of oral and facial muscle balance, I still hadn't thought about where my tongue was resting in my mouth.
I had a CT scan, and the doctor pointed out to me that my tongue was not in contact with the roof of my mouth. That's when I realized I needed to retrain myself.
But why do we want it there?
- The tongue is the best palate expander. The ideal mouth has wide U-shaped dental arches that allow plenty of room for all of the teeth, including the wisdom teeth. If teeth are crowded, the dental arches are not big enough and usually more V-shaped than U-shaped. V-shaped arches tend to have a mouth roof that is so high, that the tongue can't even reach it. If a person grows up with the tongue in touch with the roof, his palate will be nice and wide, and the tongue will fit perfectly against it.
- A palate that has the support of the tongue against it, changes the way the face grows. Put simply, it pushes the cheekbones out.
- Swallowing is going to be more efficient.
- Having your tongue in touch with the roof of the mouth stimulates the central nervous system to make you feel less anxious.
In my practice, a person usually cannot go from absolutely no tongue-palate contact to full contact, so we work on it in stages.
And if you are a mouth breather or tongue thruster, there may be something interfering with easy breathing, and that would also interfere with long term learning to train the tongue to palate. That needs to be dealt with before working on tongue positioning.
Stage 1: Behind the upper front teeth, there is a gum ridge, that we call "the spot." The tip of the tongue can be trained to rest on the spot, not touching the teeth - just resting a couple millimeters behind the teeth.
The goal is to have the tongue tip there all the time when not eating, drinking or speaking. Lot of times, I talk with my client about something they will see throughout the day, and that every time they see it, it will remind them to get the tip to the spot.
During the school year it could be seeing a pencil. Some people will wear a string around their wrist or finger.
Stage 2: Getting the tongue behind the spot to raise to palate, perhaps 1/3 or 1/2 of the way back.
Stage 3: Getting the back of the tongue to raise to palate. We usually start by pumping the back of the tongue up.
The client can look into a mirror, place a cheerio or some other small piece of food on the back of the tongue, and lift and lower the cheerio.
Once that skill is in place, at rest with teeth and lips closed, the back tongue can pump up, getting to the point where it is held up steadily.
If you train your tongue to the roof of your mouth enough, it will get to the point where it's up there all of the time and you won't have to think about it anymore!
