WHAT IS MYOFUNCTIONAL THERAPY?

What Is MYO

Unlocking the Power of Orofacial Myology: What You Need to Know About Myofunctional Therapy

Did you know that Orofacial Myology, Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (OMT), and Myofunctional Therapy (MFT) are all different names for the same transformative therapy? This holistic approach can help improve your overall well-being.

Although there are multiple names for this type of therapy, it is important to clarify what myofunctional therapy is NOT:

  • It is not physical therapy of the face.
  • It is not myofascial release therapy.
  • It is not stretching the frenulum.
  • It is not oro myology.
  • It is not a “new” type of therapy.

MFT has actually been in the literature for over a century!

Dating back to the 1900s, Dr. Benno E. Lischer coined the term “Myofunctional Therapy.” In 1907, Dr. Edward Angle published the malocclusion classification system, which dentists still use today to classify how a person’s teeth come together. Skipping forward to 1957, an orthodontist named Dr. E.T. Klein stated that, “Living bone is extremely susceptible to the guidance and influence of pressure and stimuli.” This means that bones and muscles adapt to forces placed upon them, starting from birth, where 60-90 pounds of force can be used on the neck during a normal delivery, potentially causing damage to the spine and/or nervous system.

All this to say, oral motor dysfunctions can start in childhood and go all the way back to when you were born. Restricted oral tissues can actually be detected in utero via ultrasound. Most people don’t realize that the way they have been carrying themselves their entire lives might have started at birth. Tight frenum attachments could be the reason for certain health conditions and even pain in the neck and head region. If caught early on, it can change the trajectory of a person’s life.

Myofunctional therapy might be the missing link in lifestyle medicine for reversing chronic diseases.

Dr. Soroush Zaghi, an ENT, describes Myofunctional Therapy as a program designed to correct the improper function of the tongue and facial muscles. It involves strengthening the tongue and orofacial muscles by teaching individuals how to engage these muscles in the appropriate position. It includes behavior modification techniques to promote optimal tongue position, improved breathing, chewing, and swallowing.

Myofunctional therapists are kind of like personal trainers for the tongue, but with a broader focus. Myofunctional Therapy Programs help create lifestyle changes with proper tongue and face exercises to rewire new neural pathways between the brain and muscles. It only takes a few months of training, and your body will remember how to operate properly, subconsciously. When we live life without awareness of how we hold ourselves, our bodies start compensating, leading to asymmetries in the muscles and pain throughout our lives. These compensations can include neck and shoulder strain when swallowing, the floor of the mouth lifting when moving the tongue, grinding teeth, jaw movement side to side when opening and closing, dysfunctional swallow patterns, and more.

Tongue and jaw position and function influence the rest of the body because the tongue is connected via fascia all the way down to the toes. If one area is out of alignment, the rest can’t operate the way it should. The tongue, lips, cheeks, and jaw should all be able to move separately from one another. If you stick your tongue out to the side, your jaw or head shouldn’t move with it. Dissociation of these body parts is important to eliminate compensations.

I often hear, “I only mouth breathe when I sleep.” The problem is, what you do during the day reflects what you do at night. Your body will remember how to function if you continually remind it. That means that breathing through your nose during the day will train your brain to maintain that function at night, potentially eliminating the need to get up to urinate, having night terrors, or even snoring.

Myofunctional Therapy is an exercise-based training program that helps:

  • Establish dominant nasal breathing
  • Attain a competent lip seal
  • Create a palatal tongue rest position
  • Develop bilateral alternating mastication (chewing on both sides of your mouth)
  • Optimize swallowing patterns with a back teeth together swallow
  • Reverse bad oral habits if present

There are various reasons why your body might not be functioning as desired. Honest Myofunctional Therapy Programs provide treatment plans tailored to your occupation, habits, orofacial disorders, and other specific issues to get your face and mouth muscles functioning the way they were created to.

This type of therapy helps with:

  • Tongue/cheek/lip ties
  • TMJ issues
  • Jaw posture
  • Headaches/Migraines
  • Reducing teeth grinding and enamel wear
  • Bed wetting
  • Sleep walking, talking, or night terrors
  • Sleep apnea
  • Restoring breathing issues
  • Snoring
  • Swallowing
  • Droopy eyes
  • Long narrow face/Mouth breathing
  • Some digestive issues—acid reflux/Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR)
  • Brain development
  • Craniofacial growth
  • Fascial strain
  • Speech issues such as letter pronunciation, stuttering, or lisps
  • Facial asymmetries
  • Intimacy issues
  • Achieving wide jaw arches to have straight teeth
  • Breastfeeding complications
  • Reversing tongue thrust
  • Improving head and neck posture
  • Brain fog or fatigue
  • Immune function
  • Managing allergies
  • ADHD or trouble focusing
  • Dental decay and periodontal disease
  • Bad breath

There are six functions of the tongue: elevation, protrusion, lateralization, cupping, lingual palatal suction, and mandibular differentiation. Each of these functions allows you to swallow, chew, talk, eat, speak, kiss, breathe, receive food, and clean your teeth, and sleep properly.

Myofunctional therapy can help identify abnormalities and dysfunctions in the mouth, face, and neck muscles. The exercises and stretches are designed to correct orofacial disorders that can be life-altering and lead to depression.

You may have heard of “mewing,” a term coined by orthodontist Dr. John Mew and his son, Mike Mew. Mewing involves keeping your tongue high up on your palate to slim the jawline and improve face shape. Dr. Mew created this term to describe how you should naturally position your tongue in your mouth.

Do you pay attention to where your tongue is in your mouth?

I want you to think about where your tongue is RIGHT NOW. Is it low or high in your mouth? Is it wiggling around, wandering all over the place? Is it pushed to one side? Pushing into your teeth? Believe it or not, there is a proper way to hold your tongue in your mouth!

It’s not as easy as you think. Some people have tethered oral tissues around their mouth inhibiting them from being able to clean their teeth with their tongue, breathe, chew, swallow, or talk properly.

The tongue is a digestive AND respiratory organ.

The tongue is composed of 16 muscles in pairs (8 on each side) that allow your face to move as it should. Fascia, a connective tissue, surrounds everything in our bodies, including organs, nerves, blood vessels, and bones, keeping everything in place. Fascia runs continuously from the tip of your tongue to your toes. When fascia is tight or restricted, it can cause pain in areas far from the source of the restriction.

Forward head posture can be linked to a tongue tie or fascia issues that cause strain. If the chin is down, the airway becomes obstructed, leading people to compensate by bringing their head forward to improve airflow. This forward head posture causes the back of the tongue to drop. Poor tongue mobility due to fascial or frenum restrictions can contribute to a low resting tongue posture. This results in skeletal maladaptations or changes, limiting the tongue’s space in your mouth and causing further compensations.

One of the main components of a myofunctional evaluation is tongue mobility grading.

We assess how wide you can open your mouth and the mobility of your tongue, including how far you can stick it out and whether the back of your tongue can reach your palate. This evaluation helps your therapist determine the level of therapy you need. If you can’t reach your tongue to your palate, it might be due to limited mobility from a tongue tie or insufficient space on your palate for your tongue. Sometimes, a frenum release is necessary before or during myofunctional therapy.

A frenulum, also known as a frenum, is a small fold of tissue that restricts the movement of an organ. Our mouths contain seven frenums: two lip frenums, four buccal (cheek) frenums, and one tongue frenum. A tongue tie, caused by a restricted tongue frenum, can impair functions such as tongue and jaw movements. Lip ties affect how the lips close together or create spaces between the front teeth, while buccal ties can impact cheek suctioning. Understanding and addressing these issues are crucial for effective myofunctional therapy.

It matters where and how you hold your tongue in your mouth.

Tongue positioning can aid in digesting what you swallow by moving food around. It also aids in breathing since:

THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH IS ALSO THE FLOOR OF YOUR NOSE (NASAL CAVITY/SINUSES).

You want your tongue to sit high on your hard palate. Lips closed, breathing through your nose with your face and neck muscles relaxed. All day and all night. The only time your tongue should be moving or low in your mouth is during times of chewing or talking.

The tongue uses its forces to form the palate. It is the driving force to form the maxilla (upper jaw or roof of your mouth). When the tongue can’t reach the palate, the floor of your nasal cavity will also become underdeveloped because the palate grows taller and narrower, pushing on the sinuses. When the sinuses become smaller, it is more difficult to breathe through the nose. Crowded teeth are also a side effect of lower tongue posture.

The proper tongue posture:

  1. Say the letter “N” and see where your tongue sits. The tip of your tongue should be right behind your teeth on the little bump, not touching your teeth. This is called, “The Myo spot.”
  2. Lift the middle part of your tongue up on the roof of your mouth, keeping the tip in the same position as when you said “N.” The middle part of your tongue needs to sit high up on the middle part of the roof of your mouth.
  3. Using suction, pull the rest of your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth. The back part of your tongue should sit on the squishy part of your palate just in front of the uvula (the dangly thing in the back of your throat). Say “Gah” or “Kah”. That’s where the back of your tongue should reach.

To wrap this all up, the back, middle, and tip of your tongue should sit lightly suctioned up, lips closed, teeth slightly apart (2-3mm), and the muscles in your jaw and neck relaxed while you’re breathing through your nose. This is how you should live. Sadly, you might be JUST NOW being taught the most important position your body should be in for optimal health and growth.

Getting a consultation with an ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor) is crucial if you cannot breathe through your nose.

Myofunctional therapists work as a team with airway-focused dentists, frenectomy (tongue tie release) providers, orthodontists, ENTs, body workers such as chiropractors or massage therapists, and many more to get your body functioning properly.

If you’re ready to improve your breathing and achieve optimal tongue posture, schedule a free 15- minute phone call with me to get your questions answered and start feeling your best!

Breathe, Sleep, Eat, Speak, LIVE  😊