Toughen up your tongue and breathe better
Is your tongue in the roof of your mouth?
It should be. Learning to put your tongue in the correct position will assist your breathing and your ability to breathe through your nose only. Tongue posture in the roof of your mouth makes it impossible to breathe through your mouth. Like any muscle this will be difficult to start if you don’t have the habit of keeping it up there, however with practice it will become stronger.
Practice putting your tongue in the correct position, which is in the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue just behind your front teeth. This will help you learn to breathe through your nose only, because you cannot breathe through your mouth when your tongue sits correctly. Throughout the day you can try tongue ‘tuts’ to help strengthen your tongue and remind you to breathe through your nose. Not only will this remind you to breathe through your nose it will also help strengthen the muscles that support your throat and hold your airway open. An improved mouth arch and stronger airway will help with breathing day and night.
Teaching children the correct tongue posture has benefits for their breathing, teeth growth, and facial development. With the tongue in the roof of the mouth as a child they can influence the development of the palate and widen it, this makes room for adult teeth to come through which helps to prevent teeth crowding. Having a correct tongue posture will make it impossible for mouth breathing to occur, which helps nasal breathing and therefore effective breathing. Research shows that correct facial development is impaired in children who mainly breathe through their mouths. Tongue posture, toughening up the tongue, and enabling it to sit in the roof of the mouth, is a small but very effective part of contributing to learning to nasal breathe and develop correctly.
References
Zhao Z, Zheng L, Huang X, Li C, Liu J, Hu Y. Effects of mouth breathing on facial skeletal development in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Oral Health. 2021 Mar 10;21(1):108. doi: 10.1186/s12903-021-01458-7. PMID: 33691678; PMCID: PMC7944632.
Basheer B, Hegde KS, Bhat SS, Umar D, Baroudi K. Influence of mouth breathing on the dentofacial growth of children: a cephalometric study. J Int Oral Health. 2014 Nov-Dec;6(6):50-5. PMID: 25628484; PMCID: PMC4295456.
