TMJ can be incredibly painful and add stress to the upper body causing headaches, severe jaw pain and much more. This leads to a lack of sleep and can be really frustrating to a sufferer. In this article I’ll share my top 3 TMJ exercises that have helped me along the way. Some of these TMJ exercises may be unconventional, but keep using them, these TMJ exercises will work to reduce pain or will even begin to rebuild the muscle around the jaw, thus curing the disorder.
1. Stand in front of a mirror and slowly open and close your mouth. Many TMJ sufferers will notice that your jaw will open on one side first, as if it were opening crooked. This is a major cause of TMJ. Practices slowly opening and closing your mouth, but focus on making it open evenly. Doing this will pump blood up into the jaw muscles and relieve some pain. Do this 10 times, 3 times per day. Over time this will also help to “cure” your TMJ.
2. Left and right movement. Stand in front of your mirror and make a fist. Place the fist on the left side of your jaw. Push your jaw to the side until you feel it pull. Hold for 4 seconds and repeat 4 times, 3 times per day. Do the same for the right side of the jaw. This will stretch out those tense muscles and you’ll begin to regain movement.
3. The Dixie cup. While this isn’t exactly a TMJ exercise, this is more of a pain relief technique. Get a Dixie cup and fill it with water ¼ of the way full. Place in freezer. Once frozen place the bottom of the Dixie cup on your TMJ joint and move in a circular movement. This will numb the joint relieving some pain, while working and massaging the sore joint muscles at the same time.
I hope you find some relief with the exercises above. As a sufferer myself I’ve used these and they each work great. I’ve got many more TMJ exercises that I’ll be sharing with you in the near future.