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.
Have you ever wondered whether there's more to oral health than regular brushing or avoiding sugar?
Or whether there's an emotional or spiritual meaning to tooth decay or gum recession?
Or why dental problems sometimes rise and fall with stress?
I wrote The Secret Lives of Teeth: Understanding the emotional influences on oral health to help answer these kinds of questions from spiritual, psychological and energetic perspectives.
Pre-order the paperback or e-book today, along with your choice of bonuses to enhance your reading experience on Kickstarter before 25 November 2022.
Has a dentist told you that your cavities or receding gums are your fault because you are drinking too much Coke, you don’t floss enough or you need to stop breastfeeding your baby? And you know that isn’t true!
I’m a natural oral health coach and I'm not going to blame you or shame you.
The underlying causes of your oral health issues are not your fault!
Nature or nurture, ancestry or environment, free will or systemic oppression, unconscious emotions or the degraded food system are the factors that make your teeth and gums vulnerable to disease.
Even though your tooth decay and gum disease is not your fault, it is within your power to change.
I can help you to turn your oral health around with natural strategies, healthy habits and intuitive insights.