Receding gums and jaw tension
Clenching or grinding teeth is one of the major causes of receding gums. When you clench or grind your teeth even a little bit, it rocks the teeth which can wear down the top of the bone socket inside your gums.
The best way help stabilize your receding gums is to relax your jaw completely, as often as possible.
My TMJ playlist includes a range of self-help tactics that I’ve curated from around You Tube, but this simple yoga hack is my own variation.
I’ve been practicing yoga for about 30 years, and almost daily for the last dozen. These days I usually just follow an online class, but whatever kind of yoga I’m doing, I turn it into teeth healing practice with this simple hack.
A simple exercise to help stabilize your receding gums
In any inversion pose where my face is pointing towards the floor (eg forward fold, downward dog, or child pose). I consciously relax my jaw and face and let my lips fall down into a duck face.
If you want to do this exercise without doing yoga, simple get on your hands and knees, or just lean forward so your face is pointing downwards (make sure you aren’t hurting your back or your neck as you bend forward).
Here’s what to do: Breathing deeply and steadily pay attention to all the muscles around your mouth, jaw and eyes and deliberately release your normal facial expression and let the muscles of your face give way to gravity.
For extra fun, you can try blowing our your breath in a horsey huff to loosen up your lips some more, or gently shake your head side to side and letting your loose cheeks and lips sway with the motion.
Toothache home remedy
This hack is good relieving toothache, particularly those deep in the root aches that are particularly painful at night.
Keeping your jaw relaxed takes the pressure off of the nerves in your jaw, giving pain relief that is sometimes instant.
The only side effects are good ones: relaxing the jaw also allows blood to flow more freely, carrying nutrients and oxygen to the teeth and gums so that the body’s can carry out natural remineralization and bone growth.
It even helps to prevent cavities because clenching and grinding puts pressure on the enamel causing cracks and chips.
Most people are so used to carrying tension in their jaw that they aren’t even aware of it.
It might take several sessions of practice before you can really feel what its like to have your jaw completely relaxed.
Doing this exercise regularly will make it easier to notice when your jaw is tense, so you can mindfully relax it, throughout your day.
Hello! I'm Meliors Simms, the Holistic Tooth Fairy.
As a natural oral health coach I have worked with hundreds of clients worldwide to avoid unnecessary dental procedures and have better experiences with the necessary ones. (Find out about my coaching services here).
After a diverse career (from research to counselling to arts) and a lifetime of terrible teeth, I stumbled on an Alt Oral approach which prevented what would have been my 7th root canal.
That inspired years of independent research and experimentation, eventually resulting in my uniquely holistic approach to oral health.
My new book The Secret Lives of Teeth is a comprehensive guide to healing teeth and gums with metaphysical perspective. Read a sample here for free.
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