Break the Matrix

jamo716,

Thank you for all the infos so far.
How do you maintain perfect posture and pressure over night? Any tips? Also, do you sleep on your back, side or stomach?

My pleasure.

I really found chewing before bed and strengthening those facial muscles assists in nighttime maintenance. I used a myobrace appliance for 1 month, 1 year ago in order to fully train my tongue to stay up over night. I didn't need it past the single month and frankly, it was confining my palate much more than I liked.

I sleep on my stomach, sadly. My head is obviously on its side. I make an effort to switch sides but prefer the left side. I Mackenzie tuck for the duration of the night and often use my arm/hand to sort of hold the tuck. When I wake up, my palate is sore like when I had braces. Nighttime is a critical element to get right, if you wish to see changes.

seems like for most people who have had improper oral posture for a long time, a myobrace is essential to retrain the posture? would you agree?

also, which brace do you recommend?

it's not necessary honestly. the myobrace forces your tongue into the right place so it just expedites the process, but i believe you can learn it on your own.

i think i used a medium hardness a2 something or other. idk. it's only purpose was to train my tongue so i don't really care for it's rigidity or whatever else. in hindsight, id go for the softest one since im not using it for tooth alignment.

By the way, seeing as how you brought up the mind muscle connection earlier: have you noticed there to be particular ways of pushing with the tongue that the nervous system seems to crave?

At the moment for example, I'm mewing while pushing & rotating the skull forward and upward away from the neck in a way that tilts the posterior palate towards the posterior tongue. This feels really satisfying around soft palate, posterior tongue and anterior neck area, kind of like quenching thirst with a glass of cold water.

In this way, it's almost as if the body is actively encouraging me to guide my efforts towards the direction into which it wants the pressure to be generated, instead of forcing the conscious mind to make a guess. It becomes a matter of playing around with various ways of applying pressure and being ready to listen to what the nervous system prefers. Can you relate to what I'm trying to imply?

Absolutely. Very eloquently put.

I actually do that exact skull rotation.

Absolutely. Very eloquently put.

I actually do that exact skull rotation.

Cheers. The movement in question seems to strengthen the occipital muscles too. I usually wake up with stiff forward head posture that opens up as the day progressess. So far I had not been able to avoid the stiffness no matter how much I stretched during the day. I could have the perfect range of motion in the evening and still wake up stiff.

However, after exercising the occipital muscles last evening, today I woke up with great range of motion in the neck and the rest of the body. I was able to stand straight right out of the bed. This has further convinced me of the grander importance of strengthening the weak & lengthened muscles instead of lengthening the strong & shortened muscles in imbalanced muscle groups. A muscle can stiffen overnight, but not weaken. Atrophy/weakening takes far longer than that. When both the muscle and its "countermuscle" have good muscle tone, they won't allow each other to shorten much during the night.

Do you guys feel ornkjow what is good and bad feelings? I feel when doing that pressure beneath or between my eyes - is this okay?

Due to our unique situations, it's a question you have to ask your body, not us. Do you like the sensation? Or do you hate it? Of course, it's not always this black and white, but with a little practice you will be able to listen to your intuition in order to make use of the more subtle bodily signals you usually ignore.

Also, it's not like you get direct and straight "answers" from the body. You have to force the answer out by making yourself to decide whether or not you like a sensation. Allow yourself to only answer 100% yes or 100% no. There's no middle ground. By practicing in this way, it will become easier and easier to judge whether something is an overall beneficial or harmful thing for the body. You will become able to recognize whether the body accepts or rejects a certain food ingredient for example. If you're really deficient in calcium, munching egg shells can feel almost pleasurable due to it being mostly calcium carbonate. It doesn't necessarily taste incredible, but you will feel a subtle urge to continue. It's similar to how pregnant women can crave for weird "foods" like chalk or mud. In that case the urge is just so strong that it's harder to accidentally ignore.

I would have dismissed this kind of talk as some kind of hippie bullshit a couple of years ago, but recently I've begun to really appreciate the potential benefits of increased intuitive awareness of the body.