A weird thing I wouldn’t normally think about is tongue posture. Apparently people think tongue posture determines your face and jaw structure! This guy took it pretty far and pointed to this resource,
Since 2012 I’ve been rebuilding my full body posture according to the principles of “primal posture” laid down by Esther Gokhale in her life changing masterpiece 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. After 2 years of zealous training according to her methods, I was able to internalize primal posture from my shoulders down. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not develop what Gokhale calls an “elongated neck.”
This Reddit post from IsItBullshit had good comments.
FuriousTapper Not bullshit at all. It’s EXTEREMLY important. I can’t even believe it’s not a widespread medical issue that people are trying to solve. Watch this 1 hour lecture by Dr. Mike Mew: https://youtu.be/TY3bIMRKil8 It has all you need to know. It’s not just breathing and sleep apnea. But it relates to how your face grows, its shape and whether you end up with crooked teeth or not. Actually, aside from genetic disorders, all humans should have perfectly aligned teeth with the molars present and functioning, just like all other mammals (aside from extremely rare cases ofc). Edit: A Stanford professor released a book on this subject around 2 months ago: https://news.stanford.edu/2018/04/10/paul-ehrlich-problems-modern-jaw/
A TL;DR version of resting tongue posture:
The whole tongue on the roof of your mouth (not just the tip). It should be an unconscious habit. Also, fix your swallowing. Unless you have really thin/hollow cheeks, you’ve been swallowing wrong your whole life. You shouldn’t use your cheek muscles when swallowing. Look at yourself in the mirror when swallowing. No movement should be detectable on your face/cheeks. Use your tongue to push the food/drink to your throat in a kind of a wave movement. The tongue would be pushing against the roof of your mouth while doing that.
Swallowing posture:
You’re pushing against the maxilla. It’s really important when growing because that way your face ends up growing forwards (the correct way) instead of downwards. It’s also what’s evolutionarily normal for us. This was our normal tongue posture and swallowing technique before soft food took over and the modern phenomenon of crooked teeth, mouth breathing, sleep apnea etc started appearing Yes, the biggest (but not the only) reason for all of this is the soft calorie-dense food we’re eating now. Chewing less = weaker jaw muscles = harder to keep your mouth closed and have a good tongue posture. These muscles also contribute to the forward growth of the face. Other reasons are bottle-feeding or breastfeeding for a shorter amount of time, more widespread allergies leading to stuffed noses which lead to mouth breathing. If you mouth breath, you can’t put your tongue on the roof of your mouth (try it).