Last week I showed you the acupressure points for TMJ. This week I’m going to show you how to massage for TMJ. You massage the muscles so basically you will be massaging and loosening the chewing muscles.
Starting with the external muscles. First locate the chewing muscle called masseter under the cheek bone in front of the ear by clenching your teeth. Once you locate it, relax your mouth and massage those muscles up and down by making circles, short strokes, vertically pinching between the thumb and the side of the index finger, and horizontally pinching under the cheek bone. You don’t need a lot of pressure because if you press too much it may make the pain worse. Do it for 10 seconds each.
Move up to the temples. Again clench your teeth to locate the temples. And once you find it, make small circles on and around the temples on both sides for 10 seconds.
Move to the side of your head above the ears and feel the muscles as you clench your teeth or grind your teeth. This head muscle called temporalis is also a chewing muscle. Once you locate the muscle, start making small circles. Or as you can see, it fans out around the ears. Besides circles you can also glide your fingers in the direction of the muscles like lines radiating from the ears. This may help your tension headache as well.
Now we will massage the chewing muscles from inside of your mouth. Stick your clean thumb in your mouth. There is a very tight vertical muscle next to the last tooth in the very back. This is called medial pterygoid. Massage this muscle gently up and down for 10 seconds. While you are touching this muscle, clench your teeth and feel how strong the chewing muscles are. It must trap your thumb between the cheek and the teeth. Once you feel the muscles massage them from inside and outside for 10 seconds. Repeat on the other side. You are welcome to do more than 10 seconds if you have time but do this every day for the best results because consistency is more important.
If you do this sitting up you are prone to drooling and making a mess so I recommend doing this lying on your back or while you are taking a shower.
These should help alleviate the TMJ pain especially if you tend to clench or grind your teeth a lot. If you are looking for a treatment I highly recommend looking for a specialist in CranioSacral Therapy. It’s a very gentle therapy that works with the movement of the sutures of the skull. It is very effective for headaches but it’s also very effective for TMJ.
I hope this is helpful. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you back next week. Make it a great week. Feel free to comment below and please don’t forget to subscribe.
Massage Monday #344 – How to Massage for TMJ http://bit.ly/mm-052917