Do you have pain in your jaw?  Is it hard to open and close your mouth?  Do you clamp your teeth together without even thinking about it?

Did you know that there are muscles around the joint of your jaw that will cause these symptoms?  Let’s talk about those muscles and about that joint–the temporomandibular joint or TMJ.

If you have pain around your TMJ, you may have TMJD.  TMJD means dysfunction of the TMJ.  That means it doesn’t work as easily as it should.

There are muscles inside your mouth, outside your mouth and in your cheeks that can be tight.  They can be causing your TMJ issues.

I’m betting that if you press your finger all around your jaw area on the inside of your mouth where the soft tissues meet the bone (that is, upward from your upper teeth and downward from your lower teeth) you’ll find lots of very tender (or terribly tender) areas.

Just press into them, or gently massage them, for several seconds, until they start to feel less tender. They will start to feel less tender because your muscles will start to relax, or release as you press them.

That’s what happens when we press into tight muscles–they relax.  (But only if they are the cause of pain.  If tender muscles are being caused by something else, rather than being the cause, they can’t relax with pressure.)

I remember well the first time I “released” my whole mouth; I could hardly close my jaw, because my face was so relaxed.

Cheek muscles get “too tight” also. (Did you know your cheeks have muscle?)

Place one finger outside and one inside a cheek; let the tips or pads of the fingers touch; explore and press into any tight areas in the cheek muscles.  Tender areas are places to treat or massage or press.

Of course, if you press or massage inside or outside your mouth, you’ll have to have short finger nails.  And, if you notice some tenderness afterward, that’s a natural response to pressing into “tight” muscles.

There are other ways to relax the muscles around your TMJ, too.

Here’s an easy little movement to help relax the muscles in the jaw area:  Pretend you are chewing while you hold your teeth apart and your lips closed.

By the way, some people find that actually chewing gum relaxes their jaws. For other people, chewing gum aggravates tight jaw muscles.

Since your jaw is attached to the rest of your body, your posture can also cause pain in your jaw. We’ll talk about that another time.

You deserve to feel better and you have a smart body that wants to be well. It just needs some help from you.