The Importance and Power of the Tongue

I delve into the fascinating topic of the human tongue, exploring aspects we often overlook. I discusse how the tongue, apart from helping us taste food, impacts our health, posture, face shape, and even our workout performance. The tongue impacts the jawline, face shape, breathing, and can even cause headaches or TMJ joint issues. I also introduce exercises to strengthen the tongue and thereby improve posture, reduce snoring, increase workout power and enhance overall facial appearance.

00:10 Introduction to the Importance of the Tongue

00:50 Fascinating Facts about the Tongue

02:18 How the Tongue Shapes Your Face

03:15 The Tongue's Impact on Health Issues

03:39 The Tongue's Role in Physical Strength and Posture

05:36 The Importance of Strengthening the Tongue

06:28 Potential Issues with the Tongue

07:08 Benefits of Strengthening and Aligning Your Tongue

08:42 Exercises to Strengthen Your Tongue

12:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 Welcome friends to another Monday minutes. No.

You ever thought about your tongue? Yeah. We're talking about the tongue today. You ever thought about it? Most people never really think about it until it hurts. Or you bite it. Or something's wrong with it? It tastes food. You don't even actually think about where the flavor's coming from.

This topic is super interesting.

I think you might like it. We're going to go pretty fast. I'm not going to spend too much time on it, but it is very important. And it could be important for some of you because of what the tongue can do for you. Or what your tongue is doing to you?

There's different areas of your tongue that taste different. Flavors.

Well, it's not true. Your whole tongue tastes, everything.

Did you know, your tongue can get fat. Oh, yeah. If you get fat, your tongue gets fat. Oh, yeah. You know, it's a muscle. So where do you get fat in your muscle? Average tongue for a male is 3.3 inches. Females. 3.1 inches. Slightly smaller. Tongue is not really the strongest muscle you have. It's been said, oh, the tongue is the strongest.

Really? It's the master muscles in your jaw.

But it does have eight different muscles. All working together.

Independently to move your tongue and do everything all the while it's not even attached to your skeleton. It's the only muscle that's not attached to your skeleton. Isn't that weird to think about? How does it attach? That would be the fascia. Remember the fascia episode we did recently. If you didn't totally awesome episode, I'm completely enamored with fascia now.

And I can't stop learning about it.

Your tongue.

Much like your fingers. Has a print.

Unique to you. Nobody else.

You might be asking, why should I care so much? It's just my tongue. Well, Actually shapes your jaw. And your face. Oh, yeah.

If your tongue is weak. Then. Your face will look puffy and weird. There's no shape. It actually shapes your cheeks. And your teeth. And the jaw line. So, if you want a more pronounced jaw line, like men do. Women, if you want those cheeks, that suck in a little bit and then give you that little puffy cheek under your eyes.

That's so pretty. Guess what? It's your tongue that does it don't believe me. Okay.

Dr. Mew, M E w . Is probably the.

Most recognized tongue guy out there. And he actually has exercises to shape your face. You should see the before and after. It's absolutely incredible.

If you want to look younger. Prettier more handsome. You should care about your tongue. Tongue also does other things as well. It can give you. Bad joint. Issues in your TMJ. Can cause headaches. Oh yeah. My tongue causes headaches. Yes. I'm gonna explain that. Posture. It can ruin your posture. My tongue affects my posture.

What? Yup. And your posture affects your tongue. We're going to get into that. Obviously we know the tongue. Has to do with snoring. Well, if your tongue is just weak and sloppy, you're going to snore like crazy, got fat in there. The whole construction of your upper palate down your throat is all just sloppy and weak. If you strengthen it. You can to get rid of snoring. And of course just general breathing. It should be breathing through your nose.

We know this. All the time, unless you absolutely have to breathe through your mouth. Always breathe through your nose.

They actually have studies showing that if you place your tongue at the roof of your mouth as much contact as you can, the exercises we're going to teach you we'll do this. You don't want just the tip. You want the entire surface of your tongue as much as possible against the roof of your mouth. Actually shown to give you more power when working out. In some cases up to 30% more strength when they were lifting weights.

That's amazing.

So even though you might have a weak and sloppy tongue.

It's still better. Most of the time to get it to the roof of your mouth in all the things you're doing, driving.

Working. Sleeping.

Showering. It literally all the time, concentrate on getting that tongue to the roof of your mouth.

Because it actually does. Work on your posture. You see. We're so used to being crunched forward. We looked down all the time. We sit a lot. We're always kind of like clam showing. Towards your waist.

When you do this, it changes how your tongue. Sits in your throat. And then your face. So it gets all weakened, sloppy. So if you start working in creating a strong tongue, You naturally will start to increase your posture. If you work on your posture, your tongue will also follow. They work hand in hand.

It's amazing. Yes, you can strengthen your tongue. It's a muscle. It has eight different muscles in it. And yet we work out, we play sports, we do all these kinds of things and no one ever thinks about the fact that you have a tongue. That's actually a muscle.

By strengthening the tongue, you release all this weakness and sloppiness. And you will find yourself breathing better. You know, Headaches. Snoring. TMJ, all kinds of issues are in your back. Your neck actually. Because when you work on the tongues, Strength, you also increase your head position will actually become more vertical. Because you're not slouching. You're actually strengthening yourself to lift your shoulders.

Come back. Your head comes up. You actually feel better?

Of course, there's always some maladies that we have with the tongue. Like. Yellow or white coating. Never a good thing. You just want to pink. Type of a tongue, you know, not a lot of color, just kind of there. If you've got codings of any kind, look them up, generally fungus and all kinds of crazy stuff.

If it gets swollen, that's usually a digestion things.

So if you can see your teeth on either side of your tongue that made your tongue swollen. And that's because your digestion is poor. Things like this, you could look up all kinds of tongue diagnosises. I could give you a billion of them right here

this whole episode would be just about

the tongue diagnosis. Which is boring.

So, what can you expect if you, uh, strengthened in align your tongue? Well, Like I said, it'll strengthen. Your head. And your neck alignment. That's the, probably the main one. And if that happens, then obviously headaches get better and TMJ gets better in all of these other things. You actually support the arteries that feed your brain and all the other structures in your head.

So if you want good blood flow, You need to work on the tongue. I know, it sounds weird. But they've got research showing.

All timers, dementia. Parkinson's all kinds of issues actually get better when you strengthen the tongue and doctors do teach you to take care of your tongue. When you have those conditions, they know what actually works really good. Also things like chemo, like cancer in the head and the sciences and your tongue.

They want you to use your tongue. To exercise it, it actually helps.

Strengthening your tongue and aligning. It will also prevent and reverse a double chin. Who wants a double chin, no body. Right. Well, if you want to look better, get rid of the double chin. Most of it is because you're slouched over all the time. You're constantly going forward. When you release that and get your posture and your head up and you strengthen your tongue that. Flabby area goes away.

And of course, we'll also make your.

Jaw cleaner, looking more angular. So, yeah. It has benefits. , what do you do? Well, I'll just give you a few exercises, but you can go online and look at. A gazillion. Different exercises for your tongue, but. A couple of the majors.

Try this one. You open your mouth, stick your tongue all the way out and try to swallow. The more you swallow. You're actually working the tongues muscles, but you're straining it because the tongue is out. You can do that. Facing. Forward, stick your tongue out straight. Then the other one is you can lift your head, look at the ceiling.

Push your tongue straight. Up. And try and swallow.

The more you do that, it'll get easier and easier do these, like twice a day, you know? Anywhere from three to 10 reps, whatever. Whatever works, but remember it's, it's a muscle and you've never done things like this, so it can get sore a little bit. The other one is do the same thing, tongue out or tongue straight up towards the ceiling and then take five breaths while you're doing that.

These are extremely deep breath starts with your.

Diaphragm. Then the mid muscles right around where the heart is, and then your upper muscles, which are above your pectorals. So you start deep. Go to mid and upper. That's a full intake of air. And then when you push it out, you want all of it to go out. So you breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth while you're sticking your tongue out. Doesn't seem like much, you're only breathings, but sticking your tongue out.

Trust me. It relieves. And releases the fascia that hold everything together that stuck.

Then you can, uh, do something like this. You can stick your tongue out. Try and touch your nose. And then try and touch your chin and then back to your nose and then your chin, and do that five to 10 times. You can do the same thing trying to touch either ear, you stick your tongue out, trying as far as you can go to push it left and right. And just do those. Back and forth.

The other one that kids love to do, and yes. Children should be doing this. As well, this is when they're growing and creating their teeth. And this is how you get that really good tooth structure. You don't have crooked teeth. The tongue fills out the inner area of your mouth properly. It gets them to breathe properly. Is the suction and snap method. Remember how we used to do this weird kids all the time.

You would do that. Noise with your tongue, you would get the suction of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. And then you would snap it down and make that noise. You can do that 10 times. Twice a day, believe it or not. That is a number one. Method of exercising your tongue very very good for you. And it's kind of fun to do it.

The other one. I kind of enjoy it is. Gum. Chewing gum, but guess what? You don't chew with your teeth. You actually chew it with your tongue. What, what do you mean chew gum with your tongue? Well, you're not really chewing so much as you're manipulating the gum With your tongue. It goes like this. You want to, after you chew it a little bit, get it nice and soft. You want to push it against the roof of your mouth right behind your teeth. And then the goal is to get it as flat as possible.

Just keep manipulating it with your tongue to make it as flat and large as possible. You're trying to cover most of your upper palate. Then after you do that. You then use your tongue to roll it into a ball. Right behind your teeth, your front, top teeth. Then you do it again and you keep doing that over and over again.

You're working all the different muscles.

In so many different directions. Yes. In the beginning, it gets really tiring. But each day you do it. You get stronger and stronger and your face literally starts to change its shape.

Never thought you could change the shape of your face. Did you well guess what? Yes, you can. And it's the ton that does it. Isn't that crazy. It's also all kinds of facial exercises you can do. But the basis inside is where you get the structure. Then you work the outside at the same time to tighten everything up. Hope.

This was interesting. I thought it's a pretty cool topic. Something no one ever thinks about.

No, anybody that needs to know this, please send it along.

Thank you for listening. Take care of yourselves.