new videos every day life wisdom psyche truth massage thank you for tuning in today my name is mira hoffman and we’re going to be talking today about some tmj um neck techniques that you can do massage-wise to help release the neck and the jaw so i just wanted to quickly ask you and check in with your body or who’s clenching their jaw right now if you are leave us a comment let us know if you’re clinching your jaw or notice any tension in your jaw and just take a moment and see if you can relax the face a little bit relax that jaw maybe relax the neck and shoulders and also just relax the tongue in the mouth so you’re sitting nice and relaxed as you pay attention to this video as we work today we’re going to be focusing on the muscles in the neck here so pretty much from the shoulder up we’re going to be working along the back side of the neck and then also on the front side and you can see i have a lot of great access from the massage chair and it’s also really great if you do have a lot of neck tension and shoulder pain or maybe you have headaches from your tmj or from clinching your jaw or grinding your teeth at night and i’d recommend table massage is also another great option for you so i’m going to begin by just opening up the neck doing some nice long slow compressions from the base of the spine down into the shoulder and then also coming up the side of the neck and just gently working into those muscles that run alongside the neck now cindy said that she does suffer from tmj sometimes so i’m just gonna check sometimes those areas can be tender sometimes i found clients that have really progressed tmj really like a lot of pressure so i want to ask cindy how does this pressure feel it’s making it generally oh okay so the tingling can be i’m just sort of that sensation along the skins or it can also be a nerve sensation which means that she probably does have a lot of tension in this area can feel it and that the nerves which are running through the muscles are being activated as i do this work so that’s a good thing and it means that we’re getting those muscles to start relaxing but you also just want to be aware and conscious and open up that communication with your client and make sure you’re not doing anything that’s causing them any pain or feels uncomfortable so i’m starting to just melt into the side of our neck with my fingertips just working the muscles gently lifting up and back towards the center of the spine coming up to the base of the occiput here and using a circular technique and creating a little bit of circular friction kind of using about a medium pressure really engaging the muscle so just feeling it and touching it and then doing a nice little circular movement kind of giving it the opportunity to open and give the muscles the opportunity to open up a little bit to you so we’re working on the back of the neck here which a lot of people if they’re at a desk a lot can be really tense maybe you slept a little bit funny or sleep weird on your pillow all these things can feel really good and help correct any of those postural issues that you’re dealing with and now you can see with my top hand again i’m just kind of pinching and rolling and when i say pinch i mean a broad punch so not oh i’m gonna pinch you and it’s gonna hurt i’m really gonna scoop up the muscles and knead them pull them up and away from their spinal attachments coming into the base of the spine here some nice circular movements try not to catch her hair because that can kind of feel uncomfortable but i found most of the times people are so relaxed i don’t even care does that feel better and then working down the spine down the neck and out the shoulders creating some nice openness here and then i’m gonna come around to the side so we worked pretty thoroughly on the back side of the neck and now i want to come and start working along the side of the neck and also a little bit on the front of the neck so you can see how she has a lot of space here for me to access everything and you’re going to just do similar techniques so right now i’m just pinning the muscles the side of the neck the scalenes with my finger and then i’m just gently pulling backwards this is creating a transverse or kind of cross fiber friction or movement and these muscles are pretty tight on sunday so i’m trying to make sure i don’t use too much pressure you may notice that the muscle wants to kind of twang or strum underneath your fingers and that’s okay some people really enjoy that sensation some people don’t so just checking with your partner so now i’m working to melt a little bit into the front of the neck muscles so the sternocleidomastoid so that runs from the sternum and the clavicle all the way up to the mastoid process which is on the side of the jaw here so i’m going to start from the base and i’m going to slowly work up now people that have a lot of neck tension is going to be a really sensitive area so making sure to just work slowly and people tend to guard more on the front side of their body so giving the muscles a little bit more time to open and relax you can feel a little knot here in the sky so sometimes when i find knots um i’ll do some very small micro movements so right now i’m just gently kind of backtracking down the muscle again and then i’m applying a backwards kind of traction pulling it back towards me and these muscles are very small so the tendency is they’re going to want to slip and kind of twang or strum underneath your fingers so really moving nice and slow making a nice firm contact not using too much pressure but enough that they can feel it and start to feel that release and i’m going to trace it all the way up so following that muscle there’s another little knot falling all the way up to the mastoid process the bone connects into the jaw so you can kind of see i’m like right back behind the ears i’m using more of my fingers to create some opening here and then coming out past the shoulder how’s that feeling is that kind of tender in there yeah so another thing that you can do is cindy i’m going to have you sit up so let’s have you kind of just sit up on the chair kind of bring your face out of the face crane and so this is a technique that you can use really with anyone in a chair i’m going to place my hand on her forehead to kind of help give her some support and then this is going to let me melt into the sternocleidomastoid sternocleidomastoid and i’m going to rotate her head a little bit movement creates a little bit more dynamic movement creating more openness to make it a little bit more intense so i’m trying to pay attention to her breath work and make sure i’m not working too deeply rotating back and then pinning again a little bit lower bringing the head over so for some clients they’re going to be able to relax their head others may not so this may not be a great approach for them because they’ll be holding too much i’m just going to kind of massage up towards the base of the head and then i’m going to slowly take my hand off and then when you’re ready if you’ll go ahead and take the weight of your head again perfect so if you want to put your head back down that’s okay and you can also work a little bit into the jaw muscles here so she wants to kind of rotate her head just a little bit to open up that side so now we’re working into the masseter which is the main muscle involved in chewing people with tmj this tends to be incredibly tight and when all these muscles tense up that’s what creates the headaches because they impede the blood they impede the flow of blood into the brain so now we have cindy with her head rotated a little bit she’s resting on the outside of that face cradle and we’re just going to work into the masseter which is the main muscle involved in chewing and it’s in the cheek here it’s a pretty thin muscle but it’s one of the strongest because we use it all the time every day and if you were one of those people that commented that yes you’ve had your jaw clenched you’re probably find a lot of tension in here you can even do a little bit of self massage if you want to just bringing your fingertips onto either side of your jaw and just gently applying some pressure and doing maybe some small circles circular friction to help release that area so i’m working all the way up to her cheekbone so we have her cheekbone here and her jawbone running from here and the master runs in between here so really working the full surface area of that muscle and then if i find any areas of tension any little knots or pockets and kind of just hang out especially right where those two bones start to come together and even out towards the ear okay so you can go ahead and rotate your head back down and then i just like to close by kind of saying goodbye to the neck and shoulders doing some nice kneading getting the shoulders to relax again and getting them muscles to just recognize and accept their current state of relaxation so thank you for joining us today and for watching this video hopefully you got some great pointers on things to do to help release your jaw if you have tmj or you grind your teeth at night and check out some of the other videos that we have we have a lot of great videos on the psychetruth channel if you like this video give us a thumbs up and let us know and if you have any comments or questions just leave a message below we’d love to hear what your thoughts are my name is mira hoffman and you can find out more about my chair massage practice at austinchairmassage.com and you can find more you can find more videos on massage and yoga on the psychetruth youtube channel thank you one you Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1q7CvSpI3w
