Hello everybody,
We have some very nice tips for you today for how you can tweak your lifestyle to reduce jaw tension and I'm joined by Julia,
Our founder.
Hi Felix,
Thank you very much.
Yes,
I'm excited to dive in to some lifestyle tips that we can do because I think that really benefits everyone because so many people suffer from,
I don't know if suffer is the right word,
But so many people experience jaw tension which can be quite something to deal with,
Right?
Yeah,
Exactly.
So it grows,
More and more people suffer from jaw tensions,
Especially young people.
And I have many mothers of young children in my private practice.
And yeah,
So you can do a lot with your lifestyle to prevent jaw tension.
And when you feel jaw tension,
You can do something about it immediately.
That's what we want to share with you.
Yeah,
The reason why I don't like to use the word suffering is because I kind of makes it seem like there's not much you can do,
Right?
At least for me.
I like to just kind of say it's something you're experiencing.
And what is it that you can do?
Because for most things,
There's so much we can do when it comes to our body that we can naturally tweak things a little bit,
Maybe just do things a little bit different,
Think differently to create a different outcome.
Yeah,
And that's what I can see from my own experience too,
Because I suffered,
I don't want to say this stuff,
But I really suffered many years ago from jaw problems.
Sure.
I mean,
The pain is real.
Definitely.
I'm not trying to deny that.
The pain is real,
Yeah.
And then I really helped myself.
That's,
Yeah,
That's what I want to share with you.
If you have jaw tensions,
You can do something about it on your own.
You don't need anything.
Yeah.
And so the first thing is just to have a look on your tongue resting position,
To see if your tongue is in the right position.
So we have many other audios and videos where we talk about the tongue resting position.
Maybe you want to have a look on this.
So the first thing is to see,
Is it in the right position?
So if it's lying on the floor of the mouth or if it's touching the teeth,
You know,
Okay,
It's not the right position because the tongue needs to come up to the palate,
Especially the back part of the tongue needs to touch the palate,
The back part,
The soft palate.
And the tongue has a huge impact on our jaw.
So when we are talking about lifestyle,
We need to see in our daily life,
When is the tongue in the right position and when is it in a wrong position?
And when it's in a wrong position,
The jaw gets more tensed.
You can feel this.
Do you have some common things that people to look out for?
Is there some tasks that people do where it's more often in the right or wrong or is this very individual?
Yeah,
Of course,
It's individual.
But most of activities when you use your hands,
Especially when you're working on the laptop or on a smartphone,
You get these tensions from your hands go into your jaw.
So when you're driving the car,
So that's why we always recommend very easy jaw and hand relaxing exercises to release the tensions in the jaw through the hands.
So there's only one connection.
Do you have an exercise for the hands that we can do quickly?
Yeah,
Of course,
Of course.
You can just make a fist,
A very,
Very strong fist and then like you spread water away.
Both hands.
Yeah,
Both hands.
Yeah.
And then you open it and stretch it,
The fingers.
Stretch it as wide as you can.
And you repeat this for 10 or 20 times.
Make fists and open it and stretch it.
And the opening is quite quickly,
Right?
It's like a sudden burst.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stretch as wide as you can.
You can do this,
For example,
Every hour when you're working on the laptop or every hour when you're driving your car,
You make a break and then you do this hand exercises and relax your jaw.
How long do you hold the tension in the hands?
Did you say not long?
It's just you make a fist for one second and open it for once.
I can make a fist and open,
Make a fist and open,
Make a fist and open,
Make a fist and open.
Yeah.
And then some people might not believe,
But then that actually releases tension in the jaw.
Yeah.
Like the link is hard to imagine if you've never heard of it,
But it's because of the fascia system,
Right,
That they're linked to each other.
And you can feel it when you make a very strong fist.
Just feel your jaw,
Feel the tension in your jaw.
And then maybe you can feel that there is some increase in the tension because it's very much connected in your brain.
So if we are observing ourselves during the day to get a sense for what habits we have.
So if we notice that we are sitting somewhere and our hands are kind of tight,
That probably gives us an idea that we're also tensing up our jaw.
Yeah,
So true.
Or you have some tight hands during sleep.
It's also very common.
Yes.
Do you see that in your practice?
Yeah,
Yeah.
It's kind of tight hands and they wake up because the hands are so tight.
Right.
Yeah.
And as soon as the jaw tensions get better,
The hand tensions also disappear.
Great.
Well,
That's a very good one and one that's quite should be quite obvious to pick up on.
Also when it comes to lifestyle,
You should think of your breathing.
It's always very important to breathe through your nose.
We are always over breathing.
We move too much air through the mouth very often.
That's what we need to learn to breathe through our nose and to be aware of our breathing mode.
And of course,
Stress.
Stress is always very much connected to our jaw and to our jaw tensions.
So what we need to do is to find a lifestyle which is stressless.
To reduce our stress,
To know the situations and to know the things which are stressing us.
And to be aware of it and then you can react in a different way.
And I guess also realizing that in this day and age,
There will always be some level of stress but it's just how do we respond to that?
Exactly.
Very nice.
Absolutely.
And if you're listening to us on Inside Timer,
You'll also have access to a lot of really good meditations which should be really helpful for you to reduce your stress levels.
Which I know for me is just so important that I do a daily practice.
Makes a massive,
Massive difference for my jaw and for my overall health.
Your body gets,
Knows this feeling when you have a low stress level and it wants to create it because the stress level which you have most of the time,
Your body wants to create this kind of level all the time because it's familiar.
So that's the part.
The more you release your stress,
The more your body likes it.
Of course,
In the beginning it might be a little bit annoying to sit and meditate.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well,
That sounds very holistic so far,
Everything you're saying,
Which is good.
Yeah.
So one thing which is very important or the last thing,
The last tip,
Lifestyle when it comes to television.
Because what many people are not aware of is when you watch television,
You get all these emotions,
Get all these tensions which you experience in the movie or so.
You experience it in your body.
So it's true for your body.
And then you take all these tensions with you.
And when you watch television before you go to bed,
You take it into your sleep.
And that's not what we want.
Yeah.
So in your practice,
Is this something that you draw on with most clients?
Yeah.
That's one of the first things I recommend to have a break before going to bed for maybe one hour to switch off the television,
Do some meditation or do joy yoga exercises or so,
And then go to bed to be really relaxed.
And also,
I guess,
Yeah,
Go on.
And also it's the television when you're eating.
That's the second thing.
Don't watch television while you're eating because then you are eating all these emotions and all these tensions that shouldn't be.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I was going to say that I guess it's not just TV,
But anything to do with electronics,
Really.
Because your YouTube video,
Your messages,
All this stuff can also create this response,
Right?
Yeah.
So it's not possible for everyone.
But for me,
I like to take one hour at least before bed to just turn it off and start to let the body to calm down.
Because you never know what you find in that last hour.
You know,
Someone could send you a message you were not expecting and then the rest of your night is just more tense than you'd like.
Yeah.
Then you need to work on it during night,
But you shouldn't.
Yeah.
And it's just a decision,
Like you said.
So you decide to switch it off and you do it.
That's always,
It's always just a decision.
And we can find some explanations or we can find some things why we can't do this now or later.
But when it's worth,
We should make this decision for our health,
For our chore.
Yeah.
Especially if we are in a period where we have a lot of tension just saying,
Okay,
I'm going to take these two,
Three weeks to really dedicate this to make some good changes in my life.
So I always say,
Just do it for one week,
Do it for one week and then you will see how it affects your life.
When you see,
Okay,
It's not working for me,
It has no benefits,
Then you can change it again and watch television or so.
But try it one week,
Just one week.
That's what most people can do.
Yes,
For sure.
Yes.
Great.
Well,
Thank you very much,
Julia.
Those were really nice lifestyle tips and I hope they were helpful for you.
And if you have any questions,
Just reach out to us.
We're always here for you.
Thank you very much,
Felix.
And thank you for listening to us.
All right.
Take care.
Bye bye.
Yay!
