Knox Orofacial Myology

08/30/2025

💪 Did you know?
Your tongue is pound-for-pound the strongest muscle in your body. But strength alone doesn’t mean much if it’s not in the right place.
👅 Tongue posture matters.
When your tongue rests on the roof of your mouth (also called the palate), it supports proper oral and facial development. This simple habit promotes:
• ✅ Better breathing – Encourages nasal breathing, which filters and humidifies air more efficiently than mouth breathing.
• ✅ Facial growth & symmetry – Helps guide the development of the jaw and midface, especially in children.
• ✅ Postural stability – Influences head and neck posture, reducing strain and tension.
• ✅ Swallowing & speech – Supports correct swallowing patterns and clearer articulation.
🚫 A low-resting tongue posture can contribute to issues like mouth breathing, orthodontic relapse, tongue thrust, and even sleep-disordered breathing.
✨ At Knox Orofacial Myology we specialize in identifying and correcting these patterns through personalized myofunctional therapy programs for children, teens, and adults. Our goal? To retrain the muscles of the face and mouth for lifelong health and harmony.
📞 Call us at 309-737-6837
📩 DM or email hollib@knoxorofacialmyo.info to learn more or schedule a consultation.
Let’s get your tongue in the right place—because small shifts lead to big changes.

08/29/2025

😮 Mouth breathing, 😴 snoring, or 😬 teeth grinding? These aren’t just bad habits. They’re signs your body is working harder than it should.

👩‍👧 Maybe your child snores at night or always sleeps with their mouth open.
😣 Maybe you’ve noticed your own jaw tension, clenching, or teeth shifting even after braces.
🤔 Maybe you’ve been told to “wait and see” but deep down you know waiting won’t fix the problem.

The truth is your tongue, lips, and airway muscles are supposed to work together to support healthy breathing, sleep, and growth. When they don’t, the body creates workarounds like grinding, snoring, or mouth breathing just to get by.

💡 That’s where I come in. Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy is like personal training for your mouth and airway. I help retrain those patterns so you or your child can breathe easier, sleep better, and finally feel like yourself again.

You don’t have to keep guessing or trying to figure it out alone. I’ve been through it myself and I know how frustrating it feels when nobody is listening. This is about getting to the root cause, not just patching things up.

📩 Email me at hollib@knoxorofacialmyo.info

📞 Call or text 309-737-6837
💬 Send me a DM
🌐 Visit www.knoxorofacialmyology.com

If you’ve been waiting for a sign to look deeper into you or your child’s breathing, sleep, or oral function… ✨ this is it 💚

08/29/2025

If your mouth is often open—especially while you sleep—your body may be compensating for something it can’t manage on its own.

Mouth breathing isn’t just a habit. It’s often a sign of underlying muscle patterns, airway challenges, or postural issues that have gone unnoticed.

Over time, this can lead to:

• Light, disrupted sleep
• Daytime fatigue or brain fog
• More frequent colds, allergies, or congestion
• Dry mouth and a higher risk of cavities
• Jaw tightness, facial tension, and TMJ discomfort
• Snoring or teeth grinding, even in children

Breathing through your nose affects more than just airflow. It plays a major role in oxygen levels, sleep quality, facial development, and how calm or stressed your nervous system feels day to day.

That’s where Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy comes in.

By retraining the muscles of the tongue, lips, cheeks, and airway, we can improve how your body functions—not just during the day, but especially during rest.

OMT helps support:
• Consistent nasal breathing
• Balanced oral rest posture
• Deeper, more restorative sleep
• Better oxygenation
• A calmer, more regulated nervous system

This process is gentle, customized, and based on what your body needs. And once your system isn’t stuck in survival mode, everything starts to work better—from energy and focus to sleep and mood.

If you or your child are showing signs of mouth breathing or any of the symptoms above, it’s worth exploring.

Send me a message with the word “Breathe” and I’ll help you figure out the next step.

08/27/2025

Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy is like personal training for your tongue, lips, and face.
Because these muscles do a lot more than people realize, and they matter more than you’ve probably ever been told.

🧠 Your tongue supports your airway, posture, speech, swallowing, and sleep.
👄 Your lips help create a seal, guide airflow, and stabilize oral rest posture.
💪 Your cheeks and jaw muscles assist with chewing, coordination, and proper facial development.

But when these muscles are weak, unbalanced, or stuck in outdated patterns, the body adapts in ways that often lead to issues like:

Mouth breathing

Tongue thrust

Snoring or restless sleep

Speech difficulties

TMJ pain

Orthodontic relapse

Feeding or swallowing challenges

At Knox Orofacial Myology, we assess how these muscles are functioning and create a customized plan to retrain them—step by step—just like a fitness program for your mouth and face.

We focus on building strength, improving coordination, restoring posture, and optimizing breathing so your body can function the way it was designed to. No guessing. No compensating.

This is not a quick fix. It is a retraining process, and it works.

08/26/2025

08/23/2025

At Knox Orofacial Myology, we don’t just treat symptoms—we retrain function.
That means we look beyond what’s showing up on the surface and ask: Why is this happening in the first place?

Your body is smart. When one part isn’t working properly—like the tongue not resting on the roof of the mouth—it finds ways to adapt. Those adaptations might look like:

Mouth breathing

Snoring

Speech challenges

Orthodontic relapse

TMJ tension

Poor posture

Picky eating or fatigue during meals

But these are symptoms, not the root.
The root is often a muscle pattern problem—and that’s where we focus.

Through individualized, functional therapy, we retrain the muscles of the face, lips, tongue, and airway to work the way they were designed to.
When form improves, function follows. And when function improves, everything changes:

✅ Sleep becomes deeper and more restorative
✅ Speech becomes clearer and more efficient
✅ Facial muscles become stronger and more balanced
✅ Growth and development can follow a healthier trajectory

Whether you’re a tired adult dealing with jaw tension and poor sleep, or a parent looking for answers no one else has explained—you’re in the right place.

08/22/2025

Here’s how to make nasal hygiene stick:
1️⃣ Keep saline spray next to the toothbrush—do them together.
2️⃣ Make it fun for kids: “time to wash your nose!”
3️⃣ Tie it to sleep: clear nose = better rest.

Just like flossing, nasal hygiene works best when it’s part of the daily rhythm.

🌙 Tonight, try adding nasal hygiene into your bedtime routine. You might be surprised at the difference.

08/21/2025

Here’s what a well-trained tongue is supposed to do all day:
✅ Rest gently suctioned to the roof of the mouth
✅ Support the shape of the upper jaw
✅ Maintain a closed mouth and lip seal
✅ Direct airflow through the nose—not the mouth
✅ Help you swallow correctly—without pushing forward
✅ Stay out of the way during speech and sleep

But most people?
Their tongue rests low.
Their mouth hangs open.
They snore, clench, thrust, or overuse other muscles to compensate.

The result?
– Narrow palates
– Orthodontic relapse
– Mouth breathing
– TMJ issues
– Sleep and speech concerns
– Fatigue or brain fog

At Knox Orofacial Myology, I help retrain the tongue to do what it was meant to do—so everything else can work better too.

📩 Curious if your tongue is doing its job—or making everything harder?
👉 DM me or
📧 Email HolliB@knoxorofacialmyo.info to schedule a free consult.

Let’s give your tongue a performance review—and get it back on track.