Pulling My Tongue Back

I've been taking Alafair to a myofunctional therapist to help her breath and sleep better. Boy, have I learned a lot about the tongue and structure of the mouth!

Through my yoga training, I knew the tongue was a very important muscle, and I thought I was activating it. However, I learned that I have allowed my tongue to become misplaced, hardheaded, and, dare I say, lazy.

It's sitting thrusting forward in my mouth, with my teeth resting upon it. Once I started taking Alafair to her appointments and the myofunctional therapist started to teach me about her mouth, I started noticing what was going on inside of my mouth.

Y'all, I could not see the back of my throat when I opened my mouth. That is a no-no, apparently. I started to recognize the far back of my tongue and where it felt like it connected more deeply in my throat than I had originally though. Then, gently I began to magnet that area toward my cervical spine, and I experimented with softly stretching the tip of my tongue up and back, along my upper, soft pallet.

Ummm....I discovered that what I thought I had been doing correctly in my yoga practice was not best serving me. My tongue had reduced in it's range of motion, and was so accustomed to thrusting forward that when I tried to relax it against the back of my throat, imaging it along my cervical spine, it actually felt like work. It felt like a hard stretch.

I breathed into the exercise and felt my tongue loosen where it connected to my bottom jaw, and it stretch up toward me uvula. Hmmm.....I felt a difference in the texture of my upper pallet. I had found the soft pallet. Gently, I pressed into it. Gently I told myself to think that what felt like work to put the back of my tongue onto my cervical spine was actually relaxation. I had to focus on not transferring the stress I held in my tongue into another part of my body, such as my face and traps. I had to let the tensio go rather than transferring it some place else.  I was retraining myself. It felt good. I felt a relief in my thoracic spine.

Y'all, I've hurt in my thoracic spine for 22 years. I'm interested in continuing to learn about how my mouth health improves my overall state of being.