Self Myofascial Release For TMJ Tension

In this brief Self-Myofascial Release (S-MFR) video using simply your hands, you will learn how to release tightness and tension in the Temporomandibular joint (TMJ). Notice how your jaw feels before and after this practice! This is great to do daily especially right before bedtime if you tend to clench your jaw or grind your teeth at night.

Transcript

Let's get started. Let's do a little bit for the TMJ. Find a seat. I'm going to sit on a block and this one is really great to do maybe at the end of the day. This one we're not going to be holding five minutes but it's a really good release. So you'll be taking your three fingers on either side finding that lower part of your jaw and with pressure that feels good you're going to put some pressure right there right at the you feel the bone and then sort of come up and slowly with your jaw relaxed you're going to press into the sides of your face and slowly slide your fingers up. I'm going to turn slightly so that they're going to be sliding up slowly but I'm just demonstrating where they're going all the way past your cheekbones past your temples and then coming all the way to maybe fingertips touching at your forehead. Sometimes it's good to sort of open and close your mouth before you do this to sort of notice how your jaw feels. So we're going to really take it slow. So pressure here you should feel if your TMJ tends to be tender you might feel some tenderness. So with some pressure this makes our face look funny it's okay. Relax your jaw you might look slightly down. So fingers are slowly slow motion moving up using the pressure that feels good to you. I like to use quite a bit of pressure so I'm feeling maybe a little tenderness. Notice when your fingers go up over the bones of your cheekbones going over the temples. So you're pressing in and it should feel like you're getting like a stretch of the skin as you press in and slowly move your fingers up. You might need to move a little hair out of the way if it's pulling. All the way up to the forehead fingers might touch and then release. Pause for a moment notice how that feels and we're going to do that again. Same thing start right at the jaw pressure pushing in going up and over the TMJ very slowly relax the jaw. This is really good to do before bed if you tend to clench your teeth. Notice what you're feeling slowly with some pressure that works for you and take all the way back up and release. We're going to do that one more time. Same thing notice what you're feeling and slowly. Sometimes this can even help relieve like headaches if you have tension headaches sometimes this can feel really good and then release. Notice how your jaw feels even just after that you might notice that there's a little bit of release you might open and close your mouth and notice if there's a little more ease just notice how that feels.