Posted by: Progress
« on: September 29, 2017, 02:10:23 pm »Yeah that seems reasonable. From my own experiences, I suspect that what you refer to as a tension-free state, is in practice the ability to position the body in a way that supports postural equilibrium. In other words, either standing up straight and tall as a fully self-supporting monolith resting against its own weight, or sitting on a damn good chair. Proper lotus pose is probably intended to achieve the same thing.
To me succesfully getting the posterior tongue as far up there as it can go soothes the nervous system in a way that is simultaneously calming and mildly energisizing. I don't reach this position every day, but every time I do it has happened after taking half an hour to find and forcefully tense and warm up all the necessary musculature required to reach close to 100% symmetrical and self-balanced posture (which does feel incredible). And that's temporary only. The next morning I'm stiff again and I have to repeat the process over. It gets easier over time.
To answer OP's question: it may be hard to achieve the state of relaxation Tyler is talking about while having to bite on anything. Proper upper spine posture is easy to achieve with the hockey helmet decive, because the forces generated by it are countered by the same muscles that are required to hold the spine straight.
Anyhow, I would advice you to practice getting your whole core into your conscious control until you're able to "inhale"/compress the whole torso (stomach, back, chest, tongue, neck) inward towards the lungs and the spine, resulting in a very stable and fluid posture. It's essential that you learn to do this. Because without the tongue being able to use the spine and the palate as a leverage for anchoring itself deep into the open space beyond your soft palate, the resting position of the tongue isn't able provide enough static pressure to achieve change.
To me succesfully getting the posterior tongue as far up there as it can go soothes the nervous system in a way that is simultaneously calming and mildly energisizing. I don't reach this position every day, but every time I do it has happened after taking half an hour to find and forcefully tense and warm up all the necessary musculature required to reach close to 100% symmetrical and self-balanced posture (which does feel incredible). And that's temporary only. The next morning I'm stiff again and I have to repeat the process over. It gets easier over time.
To answer OP's question: it may be hard to achieve the state of relaxation Tyler is talking about while having to bite on anything. Proper upper spine posture is easy to achieve with the hockey helmet decive, because the forces generated by it are countered by the same muscles that are required to hold the spine straight.
Anyhow, I would advice you to practice getting your whole core into your conscious control until you're able to "inhale"/compress the whole torso (stomach, back, chest, tongue, neck) inward towards the lungs and the spine, resulting in a very stable and fluid posture. It's essential that you learn to do this. Because without the tongue being able to use the spine and the palate as a leverage for anchoring itself deep into the open space beyond your soft palate, the resting position of the tongue isn't able provide enough static pressure to achieve change.