Oral Myofunction Training

Mouth breathing? Nose breathing? Does it matter how you breathe? Does it matter how you chew?

Orofacial MyoFunctional Therapy (OMT/MFT) is a whole-body exercise concept that improves proprioception, muscle tone and mobility by exercising the facial, neck and trunk muscles. Its main purpose is to treat craniofacial system disorders.

The most common behavioural changes seen in oral muscle dysfunction are: incorrect breathing (mouth breathing), incorrect tongue placement (unable to fit the tongue on the palate), incorrect swallowing movements, and bad oral habits (sucking fingers, sticking out the tongue, biting lips). The easiest change to find is "breathing."

Breathing sounds like something that everyone does every day. Normally, we should breathe through our nose, but it seems that many people breathe through their mouths.

Children who breathe through their mouths will delay the development of their upper and lower jaws and change their appearance. They will also have an impact on their mood, making them prone to crying or having difficulty concentrating. They will have poor sleep quality and be grouchy when they wake up. They will have difficulty concentrating on their studies or have poor absorption ability. They will have problems absorbing nutrients and will become too thin or too fat.

Mouth breathing for adults: For the brain, it will cause the medulla oblongata receptors to react prematurely, and long-term central stimulation will cause central sensitivity problems in the brain; for oral health, it will increase the pH value of saliva, increase the chance of tooth decay, and make tonsils and membranes easily swollen and inflamed, which are prone to infection and cause low immune function, air circulation, periodontal disease, and may also cause bad breath problems; for cardiopulmonary function, excessive breathing during sleep or easy asthma, and increased blood acidity and alkalinity, which reduces the amount of oxygen released by the blood, and may cause morning hypertension; musculoskeletal problems, repeated stretching and relaxation of the masticatory muscles, resulting in hypertrophy of the masticatory muscles (aesthetic problems), changes in elasticity and abnormal tension, the coordination of the temporomandibular joint movements on both sides will change, which may affect subsequent bite problems.

MRC oral myofunctional training = tooth correction?

Simply put, the answer is "NO"!

Oral myofunctional training is not orthodontics. Orthodontics is to correct the problem of "tooth" arrangement and occlusion; while oral myofunctional training is mainly to exercise the "muscles" used in the mouth and breathing, including: tongue, lips, cheeks and swallowing muscles.

Oral muscle function training is like doing exercise, except that it trains the muscles in the mouth and throat that modern humans rarely train.

Oral myofunctional training is the training of oral and laryngeal muscles. Its purpose is to establish the correct use of oral muscles. It is often used as an auxiliary treatment for speech disorders, tooth correction, orthodontic surgery, swallowing disorders, snoring and sleep apnea.

"Oral muscle function training" is the training of oral and laryngeal muscles, the purpose of which is to establish the correct use of oral muscles.

You may ask, "I know how to chew and breathe! Why do I need to learn how to use my muscles?"

The answer is: "Because many people may never know how to use it correctly." Due to the lack of chewing in industrialized diets, coupled with nasal congestion and mouth breathing problems caused by air pollution, the muscles in these areas are mostly extremely weakened, resulting in many problems, including dental and maxillary dysplasia, narrow airway, and maxillofacial dysplasia (such as small chin). The weakening of muscles in these areas may also affect the arrangement of our teeth, and even affect the size of the upper and lower dental arches, temporomandibular joints, nasal respiratory tract, middle ear and upper respiratory tract development.

Muscles trained in oral myofunctional training

Including the parts of the mouth and throat (such as the tongue muscles of the tongue and the circumorbicularis muscles of the lips), teach users how to use the oral muscles correctly. Oral muscle function training itself is not a treatment, but it is often used as an auxiliary in addition to treatment for speech disorders, tooth correction, orthodontic surgery, swallowing disorders, snoring and sleep apnea. Just like a person who never exercises, he will inevitably have many health problems. When you go to see a doctor, the doctor will definitely tell you that you need to do more exercise to be healthy. People who do yoga also know that yoga practice is a "breathing" practice, and most modern people have lost the ability to breathe correctly. Therefore, by exercising the mouth and throat, the health of the teeth, jaw and respiratory tract can be improved, especially for the development of children's craniofacial structure.