just like we practice good sitting and standing posture for the sake of our necks and backs we should also practice good tongue posture for the sake of our body posture and in today's video we are talking about the correct way to Mew you might not realize it but the tongue is a powerful muscle that affects much more than just our mouth its position impacts our ability to breathe through the nose influences our sinuses and even affects the eyes head neck and shoulders now let's talk about what proper tongue positioning actually looks like before we dive in make sure to check out our online certification jaw and Body Connection where we offer a groundbreaking approach of how the jaw affects your posture we've also integrated a comprehensive training approach to improving athletic performance preventing injuries and addressing specific physical issues like knee pain tight shoulders and anterior pelvic tilt plus we've integrated a comprehensive trainer manual for quick reference with engaging infographic also make sure you subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications so you never miss a video many people unknowingly rest their tongue at the bottom of their mouth pushing against the bottom teeth proper tongue positioning means resting your tongue at the top of your mouth just behind the front teeth your entire tongue including the back should press against the roof of the mouth without putting any pressure on your front teeth top or bottom kind of like this so you don't want your tongue to be like this you want it to be completely flexed right and you can actually uh create this uh tongue posture by doing the sound right so right before the sound the tongue goes flat on the pallet make sure that it's not touching the teeth and you're going to want to hold that tongue posture for approximately 1 minute to 3 minutes that's going to start changing your clenching habits this is important because remember if you clench your teeth you are wearing out your back teeth which are are essential in the position of your temporal mandibular joint which affects the position of your head considering that you swallow your saliva more than 2,000 times a day exploring a mouth guard designed to address tongue posture like our functional activator can be beneficial what you want to look for is any mouth guard that is actually does not promote mouth breathing that is perfectly shaped to accommodate your teeth and but most importantly check this out that's shaped to accommodate your tongue so when your tongue rests on this part right here it will automatically unconsciously position itself in its physiological position which happens to be right on top of your mandible when used in conjunction with meing it may effectively help improve your tongue posture and individuals may experience a range of health benefits emphasizing the interconnectedness of our body systems