To ask a question that 99% of people have not thought about:
How do you usually put your tongue in your mouth?
Anyway, before I saw this problem, I had been putting it in the lower alveolar.
Originally thought that this is the brain hole problem raised by which boring netizen, after all, the tongue is in his mouth, how do you care about how I put it.
But after reading the professional answer of the Zhihu Answerer, I found that things are not simple...
Does the tongue still have an "official position"?
In general, the tongue has two common placements in our mouths.
One is the low tongue position, where the tongue sticks to the lower alveolar at the bottom of the mouth and moves backwards (that's how I used to put it).
The other is the high tongue position, with the tongue gently attached to the palate and the tip of the tongue at the bulge behind the front teeth.
Standard position: the anterior oval is the position of the tip of the tongue in the high tongue position, and the back tongue is placed close to the palate (i.e., two small round black dots below)
Answering @ Tar oil details the effects of these two tongue positions on breathing:
The natural location of the tongue is an important clue that may be associated with common but difficult-to-explain symptoms.
Always feel thirsty, especially when you wake up
Sleep snoring
It is easy to choke when drinking water or swallowing saliva
Chronic oral breathing
Large tongue or toothed tongue
Temporomandibular joint disorders
......
Low tongue position is not good and may cause the lower jaw to narrow/become smaller, affecting the airway space.
The left side is the ideal airway space, and the right side is narrow. When the tongue is low, the tongue moves backwards, occupying the airway space.
The high tongue, on the other hand, increases the space in the posterior airway by making more use of the space in the front of the mouth, making it easier to breathe.
The left is the high tongue and the right is the low tongue
Are you low or high tongue? If the tongue is low, adjust to the high tongue position as described above, and then experience whether the breathing has changed.
Long-term tongue misalignment is one of the causes of oral breathing.
Due to the backward shift of the tongue, the narrowing of the airway, the nasal breathing is affected, and it always feels that there is not enough breathing, and many people inadvertently develop the habit of breathing with their mouths open.
At the same time, tongue position and oral breathing habits are also mutually influencing relationships. Oral breathing due to pathological factors such as rhinitis can also cause the tongue to move down and retract.
How does the tongue affect beauty?
With the popularization of oral medicine, more and more people are beginning to pay attention to the cleanliness and neatness of teeth. There are also many people who want to change the shape of their face through dental orthodontics.
What you don't know is that tooth deformities are also closely related to the tongue.
Answer the Lord @ Dentist Li Siwei:
One of the causes of dentition deformity is the wrong position of the tongue.
Under normal circumstances, the normal position of the tongue at rest (when the mouth is closed) is to touch the palate lightly, and on the horizontal plane, there are tongue muscles in the upper jaw that push outward, and external buccal muscles (facial muscles) that squeeze inward, developing normally in the balance of force.
A: Normal tongue position and posterior tooth relationship
B: Low tongue position during oral breathing, with hind teeth regurgitated
When oral breathing is accompanied by a low tongue position, the tongue loses contact with the upper jaw, and the external buccal muscles have no strength to compete with it, so the squeezed upper jaw becomes narrower and arched high, and correspondingly, the upper teeth begin to be crowded and uneven, most obviously the anterior protrusion of the upper teeth (caries); the back teeth regurgitate also occur.
At the same time, when breathing orally, the tongue will lie on the front teeth of the lower jaw, affecting the vertical development of the front teeth, causing the front teeth to open the jaw.
In addition to tooth deformities, the tongue can also affect our posture.
Answer to the Lord @ Asphalt:
There is a broad anatomical connection between the tongue and the head and neck.
The position of the tongue interacts with the head and neck and the temporomandibular joint. In the case of anterior tilt of the head, the mandible retracts and the anterior tissue of the neck is pulled, thus changing the position of the hyoid bone and tongue.
When the head and neck are tilted forward, the mandible retracts and the hyoid bone and tongue are pulled down
In this case, the tissue on the front side of the neck appears to be a little sagging, thus changing our jaw line.
This is currently controversial. Whether or not the training through tongue positioning can change the jaw line presents a clear individual difference. Some fitness bloggers over-exaggerate the effects of this training, and as readers, need to look at it rationally.
Whether or not the jaw line can be changed, tongue positioning exercises have a direct positive effect on breathing and head and neck posture.
Tongue position is not correct, how to correct?
After understanding the impact of tongue position errors, some friends may ask: I have been misplaced for many years, how to change this habit?
In fact, the lack of tongue muscle strength caused by bad habits such as long-term oral breathing and tongue sticking out is the direct cause of developing wrong tongue habits, and it is also the main difficulty of correction.
Answerer @ Ski Dentist introduced us to several tongue muscle training methods:
1. N-point training
About 5 mm after the N-point training on the upper incision, it is also the position of the tip of the tongue at the end of the pinyin "n". Hold the tip of the tongue against this position with a small opening for 10 seconds. 5 times is 1 group, 3 sets per day.
2. Tongue training
Tongue training sucks the tongue into the palate and leaves quickly to make a bouncing sound, like a horse's hoof "clicking" sound. Be careful not to flick your tongue to the bottom of your mouth to make a "whoosh" sound.
Doing 20 times per group, 3 sets per day, can exercise the muscles in the front and middle of the tongue and help the tongue lift up.
3. Tongue rolling training
The tongue curl training rolls up the tongue and holds for 5 seconds. 2 sets of 50 times a day exercise the base of the tongue to help the tongue lift up.
4. Bread training
Chew the gum softly, place it 5mm behind the front teeth with the tip of your tongue, then press the gum with your tongue and spread it flat on your palate for 0.5 hours a day.
You can also top a circle of mints to the palate with the tip of your tongue until the mints are completely melted. This method can help us remember the correct tongue position and exercise the strength of the tongue upward lift.
Respondent @ Asphalt also introduced several exercise methods to improve the forward tilt of the head and neck, which are more effective in combination with tongue exercises:
1. Relax the sternocleidomastoid muscle
In most training involving the head and neck, the sternocleidomastoid muscle needs to be relaxed, because this muscle is large, long and important.
We can relax with our fingers in the sitting position, which is longer for the muscles and takes a little more time, from top to bottom, to press fully.
In addition to compressions, another method that works particularly well for a double chin is to grab the sternocleidomastoid muscles and lift them back to avoid too much tissue from accumulating on the front side of the neck.
2. Loosen the subopharymital muscles
The suboccipital muscles are several shorter muscles under the occipital bone, and the main role is to make the head lean back. In the forward-leaning posture of the head, in order to ensure that the line of sight is level forward, the head will be leaned back, so the subocilcial muscles will shorten and adhere.
Lie on your back, placing the peanut ball under the occipital bone, holding steady with both hands, nodding slightly, looking up, and rotating left and right.
Although the tongue is only a small organ, it also affects the muscles of the mouth, face and neck.
Seemingly inconspicuous lifestyle habits can also have an unexpected impact on our physical health and appearance.
So, where is your tongue now?
Source: Zhihu Daily