YAWNING MAN

Myofunktional Exercise  Collection

Application:

klick picture to enlarge

This exercise is effective for reinforcing the supra and subhyoid muscles as well as the musculature controlling the free space of the respiratory passageway at the  oro-nasal cavity-junction in cases of snoring or an in complete sleep apnoe, training the  velum muscles in shutting off  the nasal airway. Due to a retraction movement the protrusive tongue is directed backwards.

Contents:

Chiefly crude motoric / static with a kinetic variation under repetition.

Materials:

Not compulsory, at the beginning a wooden spatula is helpful in directing the awareness the back of the oral cavity with the tongue body pulled downwards-backwards.

Procedure:

- Previous exercises: not conclusively necessary,  

  see also REAR ORAL CAVITY

-Starting position: Mouth opened, mandible hanging loose. The tongue is, as with yawning, retreating deep down and back. A spatula may, initially, help by “stuffing” it backwards, this manipulation only being offered in the beginning of an introduction phase as a quasi orientation help.

- Step-by-step-Description:

-1. simultaneously in one flowing movement as the opening of the mouth heaves the mandible slowly downwards the tongue body is drawn back .

-2a. In this extreme-position the tongue remains at counting to ten before returning to the POINT.

-Timing a:

One action representing one Sequence lasts while counting to ten. Three or more Sequences may be combined to one Series.

-2b. From the extreme-position the tongue immediately returns to the starting-point, then

-3b. immediately to the extreme-position, and so on

 -Timing b:

In one Sequence about five to ten actions are placed forming a frequency rhythm in a one-second-beat by counting out.

Every time attaining the extreme-position the patient will perceive the feeling of velum and root of the tongue.

In an advanced state the patient will do a brief deep breathe-in in this position and try a yawning with slowly letting the air escape

Characteristics:

Organ stereognosis, tactile kinaesthesia.

Modus a, Static mode: Hold-exercise, crude motoric, static, mobility, tonus increasing for all three directions of internal tongue muscles and the external for a back-down pull, velum muscles for shutting of the nasal cavity.

Modus b: Kinetic mode: Move-exercise, crude motoric, kinetic, motion exercise, motility, isodynamic.

Remarks:

This exercise may be applied for special airway training like sleep-apnoe and snoring; under attentive monitoring it will be a markedly physiological method.

Discussion:

The possibility of performing in two different modi facilitates an applying as an ALTERNATING EXERCISE . To intensify the training efficiency the current exercise may be combined to a CHANGING EXERCISE with the DRAW-BACK. In this case both exercises should be performed in a static (hold-) application. In this combination they are especially useful to reduce the muscle bulge of a “too large” tongue. In this connection the phrase is used ,”The tongue plays dead”. A vivid although macabre comparison.

Has the patient mastered the YAWNING MAN there will be a version with an advance level of difficulty for a special velum training: The patient watches with a proper illumination and a hand-mirror how, in the initial stage of the exercise, the uvula is sinking down. It is this motion which shall now be worked out consciously –in the rate of a one second rhythm.

The positive effect for disorders as snoring and apnoe is gained through the sensitizing / realization of the actions occurring in the pharynx then in training the muscles for the retro- and caudal-version of the tongue body as in these cases a respective movement tendency should rather be excluded.

The sensitizing should be accompanied by a controlled orientation in the pharynx region.

What does a tongue do during yawning?

Here the tongue will learn to pull back far down the throat like a snail into its house. For this the mouth slowly gets open, farther and farther and still farther. The tongue does not want to be seen! It wants to hide. The farther the mouth opens the  deeper it draws back down, with all its strength at the end.

Hold this position and count to 10. Now, when the mouth gets shut – pop! – the tongue is up again and on its POINT. So it goes on and on. The tongue vanishes back down; mouth shut, tongue up front again. Open – gone, shut – there, open – gone, shut – there and so on. 20 times repeated or as often as fixed. Back in the throat you will feel what happens; it is a feeling as if you are yawning. When the tongue has exercised snail long enough you will be able to yawn on command.