Postures for Optimal Growth, Health, and Beauty
How the Tongue Supports Our Facial and Spinal Development
Question: What do a ballerina, an 8-month-old baby, and a yoga or tai chi practitioner have in common? (Sounds like the beginning of a silly joke.)
Answer: They all have an intrinsic awareness of what it feels like for their body to be properly upright, and they naturally seek to maintain that postural alignment.
In this article, we’re going to explore the most common reason why folks wind up experiencing a systematic breakdown of posture over time. We’ll also share two simple, related postural solutions from our decades of studying the Asian longevity arts. By weaving them together, we can help restore postural health as well as reduce (and even eliminate) jaw pain. These solutions can also give us greater energy, vitality, and clarity in our daily lives.
Here are the two postural precepts we’ll explore today…
1. Upthrust your head as if it’s upholding the roof
2. Upthrust your tongue to your upper palate (which we call finding “home” for your tongue)
Throughout this article, we’ll unpack these two tai chi postural principles and share how they can create massive positive change in your daily life. We’ll also walk through the breakdown of the healthy human structure that happens when we don’t apply these postural strategies. The good news is that we can begin the process of healing to halt and even reverse posture-related whole-body degradation. All we have to do is learn to maintain the tongue in the “home position” and habituate an upright head posture. With that in place, let’s jump in…
For Your Health,
Dr. Joshua Salina