Jaw clenching stuff

Just have a check - right now - are you clenching your jaw? Even just a tiny bit?

What about your lips? Are they pursed?

Clenched jaw, pursed lips...

If you've answered yes, just let yourself relax - release the tension. Un-clench your jaw, relax your tongue (very important) and part your teeth slightly.

Just by relaxing your jaw, you relax your entire nervous system. This is something that Zen and Tai Chi/Qigong masters have known for centuries.

Generally, the body reacts to fear, worry, stress, anxiety, and pain by tensing up. We all know about the tension that manifests in the shoulders, neck, belly – but the face, and particularly the jaw, often isn't one we so tuned in to. Sometimes the jaw might even carry the "burden of the emotion" on its own, and this can lead, for some people, to excessive jaw pressure, lock-jaw, or teeth grinding (technically termed Bruxism). 

Ok, so if you're tense or stressed you might clench your jaw. But it can so easily become a habit. Can you think of someone you know who often clenches their jaw or purses their lips? Often-times the habit will have arisen as a response to a tension/stress of some kind but then develops into a long-term habit. Habit energies can be very strong, and take a great deal of will-power to break.

Now let's just pause to think what that might look like who clenches their jaw and tightens their lips. What do you think? – angry, tense, sad, frustrated, hostile even. Body-language-wise, you're sending signals of closing off, being unavailable, unfriendly. Never mind the fact that by doing it, you're introducing tension into the face, which can often result in headaches, pressure in the temples, nerve pain, damage to your teeth... And it takes lots of energy to hold a tense, tight face!

So on many levels it's better to have a relaxed face and jaw! Try making it your object of focus in your next yoga class for example.

In fact we could go one step further. Try yawning... Yawning is known to help reduce anger, anxiety and stress, and enhance awareness, calmness, alertness and bodily relaxation. Yawning opens up and relaxes the throat – great for your voice and laryngeal health. Some research suggests that yawning actually plays a part in regulating the body's temperature so that we can think better. Perhaps that's why people often yawn when sitting in warm rooms regardless of whether or not they are physically tired!