Release Jaw Tension: A Guided TMJ Relaxation Meditation

Do you experience jaw clenching, teeth grinding, or TMJ discomfort? This guided meditation is designed to help you release tension around the jaw, face, and neck, promoting deep relaxation and relief.

Through gentle mindful awareness and soothing visualisation, you’ll be guided to soften tight muscles, ease stress, and cultivate a sense of ease in the body. Whether you hold tension from daily stress or chronic TMJ issues, this practice will support you in finding release and restoring balance.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this meditation.

My name is Ana Maria and I'll be guiding you through our practice today.

This practice will be really helpful for you if you are someone who experiences tension in your jaw,

If you grind your teeth at night,

If you experience headaches which may be related to jaw tension.

So we're going to just begin in a really comfortable position and it might be that you want to listen to this just before you go to bed or maybe when you wake up and you feel that kind of tension that's been holding throughout the night.

Allowing yourself to just get really comfortable in these first few moments however that might be.

Maybe you decide to lie down or maybe you're sitting with your back supported.

Just finding that just right position for you.

And then I'm going to invite you if it feels good to close your eyes.

You can also keep your gaze gently open with the eyes down and forward so there's a kind of softness or relaxation around the eye muscles even if the eyes are open partially.

And just allowing yourself to arrive into your practice today and noticing what stress you might be carrying in your body,

What level of stress you might be arriving to this practice with.

And you might decide to give it a number or maybe you prefer to give it a color.

See what would serve you best as a way to gauge just what you've arrived with.

And then if you can ask yourself the question,

Is this level of stress necessary in this moment?

Right we all carry stresses from our day,

From our thoughts and maybe in this moment some of that stress isn't necessarily useful.

So once you've given that a number or a color we will begin our practice.

So start by just noticing your body,

Where you've positioned yourself,

How you've positioned yourself.

Maybe there is some soft support around you or maybe there's a really solid foundation that supports you,

That keeps you feeling a sense of grounding and connection to whatever it is you are resting upon.

And then just starting to scan your body from your toes to your ankles or your ankles to your knees,

Knees to hips,

Hips to shoulders,

Shoulders down the arms,

Towards your wrist,

Over each finger and taking a little moment of pause at the fingers.

Notice if there's a little bit of a curling in of the fingers.

Notice if you can invite a kind of broadening across the palm of the hand,

Softening of the thumb muscle,

Softening of the fingers,

Broadening across the top of the hand like the skin was gently releasing any effort through it.

And bringing your attention up to your armpit area and noticing if you can sort of sense or feel into that space and seeing if you can invite a kind of softening,

Broadening or just awareness of the skin on your armpit.

Noticing how that feels to bring awareness there,

To intentionally invite a little bit of space.

Notice your collar bones.

So those bones sort of that connect from the shoulder towards the center of the chest.

Noticing if there's any sense of closing in around that space and what it would feel like if you could sort of just imagine the skin sort of stretching across the collar bones just very gently.

Notice your throat.

Notice if there's any tension around your throat.

See if you can swallow quite easily.

Notice the back of your neck as well and the back of your head.

And then gently just start to bring your attention back around the front of your head just to the lower jawbone.

See if you could almost imagine the skin across your jawbone gently stretching as if it was releasing any of that contracting,

That holding,

That clenching.

See if you can imagine that that almost invites like a little bit of space,

A little bit of room,

A little bit of relaxation across those muscles in particular.

And just notice how that feels.

See if you can bring attention to your teeth.

You could even gently use your tongue to slowly trace across the backs of the lower teeth.

And then maybe even the front of the lower teeth,

Just feeling and sensing the teeth on the lower jawbone,

Taking in the texture.

And then just noticing as your tongue rests back into its mouth,

Where does it naturally sit?

Do you feel it sort of drop down towards the bottom jaw or maybe even a little bit back into the throat?

Can you ever so gently bring it to rest onto the roof of your mouth so that the tip of the tongue ever so gently touches the back of the upper teeth?

And you feel maybe a very subtle sense of suctioning of the tongue to the roof of your mouth.

Bring your attention to the cheekbones.

Noticing,

Sensing and feeling just around the cheekbones.

See if you can imagine the muscles and the skin.

Just letting go of any holding,

Any tension around the space of your cheekbone.

Almost like there's a little bit of a broadening across the cheekbones.

Allow your awareness to travel along the cheekbone just towards the direction of your ear.

And allow your awareness or your imagination to just gently trace around the ear.

Gently softening,

Broadening,

Feeling almost like a little stretching across the muscles that wrap around the ear.

Just above the ear,

There's that sort of soft temple.

Can you bring your attention to that space?

Broadening,

Softening,

Sensing into the skin and the muscle around the area of your temple.

Can you feel a gentle spreading of the muscle as if it's releasing any contraction or tensioning around this space?

And then allow your awareness to travel back to the eyes.

You could kind of imagine tracing a little circle with soft fingertips around the orbit of the eye.

Softening,

Spreading and relaxing the muscles that gently support eye movement or blinking.

And maybe even a sense that the eyes themselves can soften a little bit more down and back into their socket.

As if they could just gently rest back for the day.

No striving,

No outward reaching,

Just settling in and back.

Notice what happens with your breath.

Every time you invite different parts of your body to gently broaden,

Relax.

Then taking your attention to the muscles across the forehead,

To the skin across the forehead.

And again,

Imagine there is a kind of broadening,

Spreading,

Softening across the forehead.

Allow that spreading,

Softening action to move all across the top of your head.

Over the top and the back of your head.

Allow your attention to come to the base of your skull.

Can you imagine a kind of warm glow as if the sun was gently hitting the back of your head?

That kind of warmth that the sun offers.

As you do that,

Can you imagine those muscles just gently softening in the warm glow of the sun?

Sensing,

Noticing and feeling.

Notice your breath.

Notice the rhythmic pacing of your breath as you breathe in and out.

As you breathe in,

Can you imagine breathing into any areas of your jaw that feel a little bit tense still and still feel like holding?

And as you breathe out,

Gently allow your body to surrender,

To yield with the out-breath.

Almost like a little sigh of relief or letting go.

That extended exhale.

Relaxing and releasing any of that deep held tension.

Picture a warm,

Golden light gently cradling your jaw and releasing any discomfort.

Imagine your jaw releasing and loosening any tightness.

And this simultaneously releases tightness around the face,

Neck and shoulders.

With each breath,

Releasing a little bit more tension.

And if it feels right,

We're gonna say a few words together.

And you can repeat after me.

Either silently,

I release,

I soften,

I am at ease.

I release,

I soften,

I am at ease.

I release,

I soften,

I am at ease.

See what it might be like to very gently and slowly move your jaw just a little bit,

Gently side to side.

If a yawn wants to happen,

Allow it to.

And just noticing,

Sensing and feeling.

Gently bring your attention back to our little question from the very start.

Notice,

Sense and feel.

If you were to give the level of stress or tension you feel in your body,

A number or a color,

Would that number have changed?

Would the color have changed?

What do you notice?

Take a few more slow,

Low breaths.

And when you're ready,

We'll gently bring this practice to a close.

Find a little bit of gentle movement to bring you back into your day or to set yourself up for rest.

Thank you so much for joining me in this practice today.

Be well.

Reviews

Fabulous as always. Went from 7 to 3. Wow. Thank you. Xx