Mewing Tongue Posture® (Mewing 101) is very effective when done correctly, but it can cause some harm when done incorrectly, so let’s talk about the 3 possible side effects and how to prevent it.
#1 Side Effect from Mewing Tongue Posture®:
Asymmetrical Face
This is one of the most common side effects from Mewing Tongue Posture®, not commonly talked about.
Why does an asymmetrical face occur?
It does because when your tongue is up on the palate and pressing the dominant side more than the other, the pressured side moves up higher and the non-dominant side moves down.
Whichever there are right and left sides, either side is dominant. There are 2 spaces on the palate, so either side is dominant. The jaw has 2 sides too, so either side is supposed to be dominant. That's why our face is supposed to be slightly asymmetrical. When the right side of the tongue is up, you might be pressing the right palate higher. This tilts the maxilla bone too. Maxilla is connected to the eye, nose, and cheek bones, which results in an asymmetrical face. How to find if you are doing Asymmetrical Mewing or not is to lick the palate. Which side of the palate is higher or the same?
Ex.
If the right palate is higher, your right cheek is higher and the jaw might get some pain there on the right side. I did a video about 3 asymmetrical patterns, typical patterns. Check it out if you are interested.
If you don't find any difference on the rooftop height, that is great. You don't have to worry about this so much. But if you find some difference, you should watch our Facial Chiropractic® video. I cannot show the Chiropractic demonstration, in case YouTube thinks it is violent, as our original YouTube channel was banned unfortunately. Anyway, in addition to Facial Chiropractic®, body alignment is so important for facial symmetry too. I don’t talk about body symmetry much, not because I don’t believe in it, but I'm just not a body expert.
How to do Symmetrical Mewing #1:
Move the tip of the tongue close to the throat and slide forward. While sliding, try to touch the both palate at the same level (50:50).
How to do Symmetrical Mewing #2:
Let’s imagine that your right jaw is dominant and the right palate is higher as most of the people are right jaw dominant
- Keep the tongue on the left palate (non-dominant) with the mouth closed.
- Tilt your head to the left side at 45 degrees.
- A. Slowly keep the tongue in the middle of the palate, B. swallow and C. come the head back to the front at the same time (A, B & C).
Please let me know if any of the 2 works.
#2 Side Effect from Mewing Tongue Posture®:
Jaw Pain
Jaw pain or any pain is the most commonly known side effect from Mewing. It happens often because you are doing hard mewing. I did a video about soft mewing and hard mewing, so check it out if you don’t understand the difference. In quick explanation, hard mewing is the tongue is pressured against the palate too hard which is wrong. Soft mewing is just softly touching the palate without strong pressure which is correct. This is a typical misunderstanding especially among young boys. Young boys tend to do it too hard because they have strong muscles and want to achieve defied jawline quickly. They might be even doing jawercise or those chewing exercises that no medical professional would recommend, which can results in pain or even broken teeth. When suddenly you put such strong pressure on the jaw, you might get defined jawline quickly, but here is the catch. You might get jaw pain, headache or those unnecessary pain in the face or neck.
Chewing hard items is important for facial growth, but too much is not good. The masseter muscles are the biggest muscles in the face. When these are overdeveloped, they can cause pain. When you're young, it might be ok, because the other surrounding bones, joints, cartridges and muscles compensate to reduce the issue, but if you keep doing it for a long time, it accumulates to pain or dysfunctional issues. By the way, if you chew downward, your face becomes longer, because the chewing downward at 45 degree downward forces Depressor Anguli Oris (DAO) to work downward too. Overworked DAO creates jowls, saggy cheeks, undefined jawline, and double chin. That's why it's better to soft mew, instead of har mew. Another thing is that I stopped saying the word “suction” on the palate because when I say “suction”, some misunderstand that they have to suck against the palate too strong. Just lightly touch.Masseter muscles are connected to temple areas, so If you have a lot of tension in the masseter, it can lead to headache too
#3 Side Effect from Mewing Tongue Posture®:
Crooked Teeth
The tongue is touching the upper teeth or side of the teeth and pressing out, which can lead to crooked teeth especially if your face is still growing. When the tip of the tongue is pressing the front teeth, the front teeth can move forward.
The red dot is where the tip of the tongue should stay and the rest is flat against the palate. So, the tip of the tongue can be right behind the upper teeth or even further back. As long as the rest is flat, it’s ok. Although this is hard, due to the jaw position, even the side of the tongue should NOT be touching the teeth ideally. When you do Mewing Tongue Posture® correctly, you should feel more pressure on the back of the tongue near the throat. Imagine that one third of the back of the tongue is lightly pressuring toward the throat. That's how you get good body posture. But if the front side of the tongue has more pressure than the back, your head is in a forward position, which is bad body posture.
I learned from a dentist Dr. Mona who did our Instructor Certification that the nerves from crotch area to frenulum on the tongue to middle on the head are connected in a straight line. If you think that way, it is easy to keep good body and tongue posture at the same time.