What is Mewing – Does it Work? Here's What the Research Says
This "Mewing" Thing is Starting to Show up Everywhere... But What is Mewing?
How Oral Posture and Nose Breathing Can Transform Your Face and Jawline
🔎 Revealed on this page...
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⛔️ "Your jawline is based on your genetics" - WRONG! The average person was more attractive 100 years ago than today. Is that only because we're fatter now?
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🤷 2 "Normal" Sins That are Making You Uglier: How you can gradually become more attractive (healthily and naturally) for free. This is for those with cosmetic concerns.
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🧬 The "Hollywood Formula" That Only Costs $21.99: the simple jawline exercise that models, actors and influencers are keeping secret.
What is Mewing?
Mewing is the process of flattening your entire tongue on the roof of the mouth.
As well as breathing through you nose and maintaining good back posture.
Over time, this tongue position will realign your teeth and change your facial structure.
To mew correctly, you should relax your tongue and make sure it's resting entirely against your palate (roof of your mouth) using a mixture of suction and pressure.
This is the natural, healthy tongue placement we are supposed to have.
In fact, before modern times, everyone did!
But modern lifestyles have made it feel unnatural.
Here's a few things that contribute to poor posture:
🍦 Soft Foods
Let's face it, soft food is easier to eat!
It's faster too!
But our palate and jaw evolved on a different diet of tougher foods.
We lack chewy meats, nuts and vegetables.
Our jaw never gets a workout anymore - unless you're using jawline exercise tools
🪑 We Sit Down ALL THE TIME
Our bodies are designed to either stand and do things... or lie down and rest.
Sitting isn't a natural position.
This contributes to bad back, neck, and facial posture.
🏊♀️ We Don't Exercise Enough
Back in the day, everything humans did was a form of exercise.
Gathering food, hunting etc.
Now we have to force ourselves to do it.
If you exercise enough, you'll naturally breath through your nose because it's more efficient.
So what's the result of all this?
Well... we breathe through our mouth and rest our tongue on the floor of our mouths.
Which is actually an abnormality that destabilizes the balance of force in our upper and lower jaw (Maxilla & Mandible).
We end up with weaker, longer faces, hunched posture, and "less appealing" appearance.
MEWING ISN'T "NEW"
Mewing doesn't instantly make your face look better.
Instead, not mewing is what's holding back your potential.
Mewing is a corrective therapy that will help you put your tongue back where it should be sitting naturally.
And the result of that over the months and years... will be an improved facial structure.
Let's get into it!
What Does Mewing Do and What is Mewing Good For?
No "One Weird Trick!" - Just Simple Science
There's no magic.
Mewing is just simply the healthy and natural tongue positioning that humans are supposed to have.
In fact, it's what humans did have, up until the last 100 years.
Mewing has two main components that work together to give the incredible results that everyone is talking about:
- Nose breathing
- Tongue posture
Both of which have a diverse range of benefits just by themselves.
Mewing recognises that they are complimentary and become easier in combination.
Let's look at what they can do.
5 Health Benefits of Nose Breathing
🫁 Keeps Air in Your Lungs Longer
Our nostrils are smaller than our mouth, so it takes longer for us to exhale.
This can mean up to 20% more oxygen uptake into your bloodstream compared to mouth breathing = more energy!
💨 Humidified Air
Your nasal passage warms air (by up to 40ºF) on the way from your nose to your lungs.
This is important in cold weather.
🦠 Removes Germs and Pathogens
Your nasal passage filters out significant amounts of bacteria and other pathogens during each lung full of air.
Nose breathers get sick less often.
🧘♀️ Less Breathing Interruption
When you inhale and exhale through your nose, it's easier to breathe while chewing, drinking, talking or exercising.
That "extra" oxygen you get from nose breathing goes a long way.
💧Increased Hydration
Each exhalation from the mouth expels water.
This is particularly important during exercise, where mouth breathers become tired and dehydrated earlier.
And that's just a few of them!
Lots of good research has come out the last few decades supporting nose breathing.
Not just the health benefits, but also nose breathing's effect on your appearance.
But what makes mewing so revolutionary, is the combination of nose breathing and tongue posture.
4 Benefits of Correct Tongue Position
🦷 Straighter Teeth
Proper posture exerts pressure on the maxilla which helps widen the dental arch, which allows space for orthodontic tooth movement and proper alignment.
😯 Tighter Skin Around Chin and Neck
Mewing is the best way to get rid of a double chin and make your jawline more defined.
💎 Prominent Cheekbones and a Sharper Jawline
You'll notice more prominent cheekbones and hollow cheeks after you've been mewing for a few months.
The chin can become more prominent and the jaw widens.
There's not shortage of evidence what mewing can do for your jawline.
🛌 No Snoring, No Sleep Apnea
Reduced nasal obstruction helps prevent snoring and results in better, deeper sleep.
Mewing is used to treat people with problems sleeping such as sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.
READ MORE: I break down oral posture in more detail👇
How to Do the Correct Mewing Tongue Position
Where Did Mewing Come From?
The British Father and Son Duo Who are Now "Reddit Famous"
The word name comes from the British orthodontists John and Mike Mew, the father and son duo.
They promote a form of orthodontics called “Orthotropics” which they developed as an alternative to oral and maxillofacial surgery.
It emphasises jaw posture and facial posture as a means to correct medical concerns rather than relying on methods used by conventional orthodontics like orthognathic surgery and maxillofacial surgery.
John Mew practised dentistry for 40 years in South-West England.
It was during this time that he developed the ideas that would later be called mewing.
He noticed that previous generations had far less instances of crooked teeth.
This led him believe that crooked teeth were not due to genetics, but rather smaller jaws in modern generations, due to different lifestyles.
For example: older generation chewed much tougher foods.
John reasoned that palatial expansion is done naturally by the tongue and this can naturally treat facial issues instead of invasive methods like orthognathic surgery.
Dr. Mike Mew trained and recieved his dental license in London and today manages an orthodontic clinic there.
He received his training at Aarus University in Denmark by Professor Birte Melsen.
The name Orthotropics comes from the latin words for "straight" and "growth".
It whole philosophy is that when treating the teeth, one should treat the entire face.
This branch of medicine overlaps with the existing field Myofunctional Therapy, which treats face and mouth problems.
😴 LONG STORY SHORT
John developed much of the Orthotropics theory, and Mike built on his father's work as well as brought it into the mainstream.
Orthotropics often clashes with Orthodontistry- though it shouldn't.
They are complimentary. If we take the example of crooked teeth:
Orthotropics believes that straightening the teeth (orthodontic tooth movement) can be done by correcting the facial resting position and with some invasive treatment like a retainer.
Orthodontistry would instead propose the patient wear a retainer for the rest of their life as treatment.
THE ORTHOTROPICS YOUTUBE CHANNEL
The most thorough source of all mewing information, is the Orthotropics YouTube channel.
It wasn't until Mike starting regularly posting videos, that mewing started going viral and everyone and their dog started voicing their cosmetic and medial concerns.
A great introduction to Orthotropics
Mike even created a subreddit to discuss Orthotropics.
Lots of fantastic discussion and medically reviewed research is shared there.
As well as personal anecdotes by enthusiastic men and women.
📙 LEARN MORE: find out more straight from Mike and John Mew! Check out their verified resources:
Learn the details of mewing and see what's possible.
Be part of the discussion and keep up to date.
Best place to contact the Mew's and read more in depth about their work.
✅ SIMPLE & EASY
I summarise all the science of mewing, and just tell you the parts you need to know.
Learn everything you need to know about tongue placement and facial posture from my top resources:
l constantly get comments saying I have the best mewing tutorials videos on YouTube.
Once people read my content, they stop searching.
I explain everything.
Is There Proof That Mewing Works?
What Dentists and Scientists Say?
Mewing has not received support from the general dental council and community.
It's still considered a fringe science because of its lack of medically reviewed and peer reviewed studies.
That's not to say that the general medical council disagree 100%.
Most dentists and orthodontists agree with many of the hypotheses behind mewing, and considered them worthy of further study.
However, they don't agree with everything that the theory suggests as it contradicts traditional practices.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT DENTISTS SAY... HERE'S WHY
In science, the research and peer reviewed studies are usually far behind the practise.
There are multiple studies and enough evidence to suggest that facial posture and jaw posture affect jaw and face shape.
But their usually has to be years and years of consistent confirmation before the scientific community says something is "proven".
But practice mewing and your own risk... there are still some medical concerns to be aware of.
There are multiple studies in support of mewing:
- Treatment and retention of relapsed anterior open-bite with low tongue posture and tongue-tie: in this 2014 study, proper tongue posture fixed a patients overbite and forward Maxilla growth was achieved. They checked up on him 10 years later and his results were lasting.
- A 2018 study published in the journal Radiology and Oncology found that anterior open bites in toddlers could be cured by proper facial posture.
- A muscle memory course created by The Dental Academy of Continuing Education (DACE) states the importance of facial posture. Which they go on to describe as resting the back of the tongue up against the hard palate.
- Mewing tongue posture has been linked to stronger chewing muscles. A study from 1997 that was published in the Journal of Oral & Facial Pain and Headache found stronger temporalis and suprahyoid muscles by those who rested their tongue against their palate.
- This report shows the correlation between mouthing breathing and low a tongue position. WE didn't need evidence of that!
- Facial Posture is linked to the posture of the entire body? That's what a 2016 pilot study found and published in the Muscle, Ligaments and Tendons Journal.
- The Creed Twins example (1999) is one Mike Mew refers to regularly. One twin was treated with Orthotropics, focusing on fixing the imbalance of the facial muscles. The other has traditional Orthodontic treatment. The results showed how what has come to be known as mewing, can have broader and lasting effects.
- A study conducted in 2018 on 90 subjects, found that “tongue posture has a significant effect on sagittal jaw relationship and dental arch widths.”
⚠️ These studies don't prove that mewing makes you more attractive.
A medically reviewed study can't decide that.
That's why many skeptics from the traditional orthodontics world say there is no scientific evidence that these results are from mewing.
DON'T WAIT FOR THE STUDIES TO CATCH UP!
We're in the early stages of this discovery.
Decide for yourself if mewing is worth trying based on the current available evidence.
PERSONALLY: I didn't wait for rigorous scientific research to get started.
I saw WAY too many people's amazing transformations and decided I wanted a piece of the action.
If you want to see more mewing transformation pictures like these... checkout this article👇
100 Mewing Before and After Photos That Will EXCITE You
🏁 SUMMARY 🏁
✅ Mewing is the Correct Way to Breath, Chew, Swallow and Position Your Tongue
Mewing will make your facial musculature stronger and nose breathing will result in better oxygen absorption.
Mewing is the cure for overbites, weak chins and double chins.
Learn how to mew and start TODAY.
💡 The Ideas Behind Mewing Came From Dr. John Mew
A British Orthodontist called Dr. John Mew has worked on tongue posture ideas for decades.
In recent years, his son Mike Mew, has been responsible for making mewing popular via YouTube videos.
🔬 Mewing Has NOT Been Rigorously Scientifically Tested
There is lots of anecdotal evidence for mewing and plenty of supporting evidence.
But there hasn't been enough extensive medically reviewed research to fully support mewing.
🍀 GOOD LUCK 🍀
Matt Phelps
P.S if you're interested in facial and oral posture because of it's effect on your jaw... then you need to know about mastic chewing gum👇