24/06/2025
“How’s your jaw?” isn’t a question usually asked, unless you’re with an Alexander Technique or singing teacher, but habitually tightening or clenching your jaw can create untold trouble in your body.
Localised pain, headaches, earaches, tooth damage and even sinus pain can be the result of a tight jaw.
But for now, let’s think about the arrangement of your jaw and its relationship to posture, because your jaw was the point of your first postural support.
I invite you to suck your thumb (feel free to nip off and wash your hands!); get yourself (and your sit bones) onto a firm seated chair, feet on the floor. Let your head gently pivot on the top of your spine to allow your face to drop a little and your jaw to slightly hang. Bring your (clean) thumb up into your mouth resting the tip of it towards the back of the hard-palate and allow your fingers to curve over your nose. Close your mouth to create an oral seal and suck – repeatedly - as if you were trying to draw something out of your thumb.
The gentle rhythmic movement of your jaw and tongue whilst sucking, is what gave you the strength and coordination to eventually support your head when you were a baby. The habits you’ve created around your jaw and tongue are old – as old as you! So, maybe give yourself a break when it comes to changing the habits around this area.
Back when you were creating your first bit of postural support, in this incredible and clever way, you weren’t developed in your cognition to process anything much at all. You were all feelings and sensations. You were still attached to your mother and feeling all her emotions. As far as you were concerned you were part of her. Was she stressed, anxious? Fundamentally terrified with her new responsibility? Probably, and you would have felt all those feelings, as if they were your own.
When you’re unpicking the tense world of the jaw and tongue, you’re unpacking a lot.
Your lower jawbone is attached to your skull, and having a clear map of that in your mind can help the muscles around it release their vice like grip. So, use your AT thinking to “hook” your jaw back on, then let your tongue soften as it rests in your mouth. (If you’re on the hypermobility spectrum you can think of it hooking onto the backs of your ears, just for good measure.)
It’s very common to have a slightly misaligned jaw; to habitually hold it more to the left, right, forwards or backwards, but rather than continuously putting your jaw in a different position you’re better off going back to your AT thinking. E.g. if it’s held to the left, see if you can let go in the tongue and under your chin, allowing the jaw to ”let go” to the right.
With all this letting go in the jaw, I wouldn’t want it to set you on the road to becoming a dropped jaw mouth breather. Ideally, unless being used, your mouth wants to be closed, lips together, teeth apart, tongue resting in your mouth, whilst you breathe through your nose. The back of your tongue may create an oral seal at the back of your mouth, which is very different, in feeling and affect, to having your tongue clamped to the roof of your mouth.
The journey to a released jaw can be complex and can be lengthy, but I would advise you go gently with yourself and keep in mind that trying too hard will just create more tension. Each time you remember to release your jaw give yourself a “well done!” because that’s what’s going to encourage you to release it again and again and again.
If there's something specific you'd like to know or ask, let me know in the comments.🙂
