From speaking to hundreds of you in the Best Face Forward audience, I’ve learned the following: Nobody likes facial asymmetry.

It makes you look worse. It makes your jaw look uneven. It makes your head look tilted. It makes your body alignment out of whack. It even makes you BREATHE unevenly.

And when it comes to Mewing, asymmetry can be a big problem. If one side of your tongue is stronger than the other, and you try to do Mewing, you could make the problem worse, and not better.

This is why I often recommend people focus on correcting their asymmetry BEFORE focusing on anything else.

And in this post, I’m going to tell you how you can Mew more evenly so that you love how you look, have more confidence, and have a more symmetrical healthy face and body.

Let’s go!

Fixing my Uneven Mewing: The Urieka Moment

I always had asymmetry. The left side of my face was a constant battle. My entire life, the left side looked worse. I had breathing issues with my left nostril. The left side of my body had worse posture.

And once I got into Mewing I finally realized why: the left side of my tongue wasn’t working properly. I was Mewing unevenly.

This is something that took me years to realize, but once I evened out my tongue posture I was amazed at what happened.

Not only did my jaw almost IMMEDIATELY start looking more even, but I also was able to Mew much more effectively!

It was like the floodgates to perfect Mewing were unlocked. The problem the whole time, was I was only using one side of my tongue!

Now, everything felt much, much better.

But want to know a secret? The key to actually correcting my uneven tongue posture once and for all?

Swallowing.

That’s right, the key to evening out my Mewing, was evening out my swallowing pattern.

Let me explain.

Swallowing Pattern: Where Rubber Meets the Road

It wasn’t until I fixed my swallowing pattern, that I was able to correct asymmetry. Let me explain why I believe this is.

The swallowing pattern in my opinion, is where the rubber meets the road for Mewing.

Swallowing is one of the main functions of your tongue (along with moving food around while chewing, cleaning teeth, and speaking).

We swallow hundreds, and even up to 1000 times per day. Every time we swallow, we are PRACTICING a learned function of the tongue.

There is a certain way that you swallow right now. Whatever that PATTERN is, it is just that: a pattern. And it is a subconscious pattern at that.

Are you aware of how you swallow?

Most people aren't - because for most people the swallowing pattern is completely subconscious. It's just something they repeat day after day, month after month, without putting any thought into it.

But it makes a big difference. Every time you swallow, not only are you REINFORCING that swallowing pattern, but you are also affecting the tone of the muscles of your face, soft palate, and even the bones of your jaw over time (theoretically, this has not been scientifically proven, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence).

Back to me for a second here. I never even NOTICED how I swallowed. It was completely subconscious, something I was never aware of.

But once I did, I was in for a rude awakening. Because my swallowing pattern was mostly dominated by the right side of my tongue!

Every time I swallowed, the right side would push up against my palate more than my left side!

It’s no wonder I was mewing unevenly, and had asymmetry: every time I swallowed, I was using the right side way more than the left.

It’s no wonder then, that the left side of my face looked worse, that my posture was worse on the left side, and that I had a harder time breathing through my left nostril!

How does uneven swallowing lead to uneven Mewing?

Now, all jokes aside, why does swallowing even matter that much?

To explain this, I will use a concept I’ve heard several times: posture affects function, and function affects posture.

The posture of your tongue, is basically Mewing. If you’re “Mewing” unevenly, that means when you’re resting one side of your tongue is up on your palate more than the other.

The FUNCTION of your tongue, in this case, is the swallowing pattern.

These affect each other. In other words, if you improve the posture of your tongue (more of your tongue up on your palate), your swallowing pattern will improve.

If your swallowing pattern improves (swallowing with the tongue, instead of lips and cheeks) then your tongue’s resting posture will improve.

So, if they both affect each other, why am I saying to focus on swallowing pattern?

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Was it that you had poor tongue posture, and that lead to an improper swallowing pattern? Or did you learn to swallow improperly, and that led to poor posture?

Really, it doesn’t matter. There’s no point in looking back: all we know is, we want to even out both now, the posture and the function.

Ideally, you want to swallow evenly with both sides of your tongue, and you want both sides of your tongue to push up on your palate at rest (even Mewing).

What I’m saying, is that you should focus on swallowing evenly. Why? Because it’s where the rubber meets the road.

It's a pattern that you repeat hundreds of times per day, and if you can improve this pattern, it will naturally over time help to even out your asymmetry caused by uneven pressure of the tongue.

But for now - let's talk about what I even mean by a "proper swallowing pattern".

Proper vs. Improper Swallowing Pattern.

So if I was swallowing more with my right side of the tongue than the left, what was happening to the left side?

Good question.

The leads to the question of, what is a proper swallowing pattern anyways?

Proper Swallowing Pattern

In an ideal world, the entire tongue is “vacuumed” to the upper palate, in a sort of negative suction hold. It is lightly pressing against the palate, all the way along the alveolar ridge (outside of the upper palate).

It is not touching the teeth. The edges of the tongue are pressing against the bumpy ridge of the palate (alveolar ridge) just above the teeth.

Then, when you go to swallow, the tongue presses against this alveolar ridge, and that initiates the swallow.

Improper Swallowing Pattern

To illustrate what an improper swallowing pattern looks like, imagine we have someone who has been a mouth breather all their life.

The tongue is very low in the mouth (it’s never been up on the palate). THe palate is also narrow, so it’s even more difficult to GET the tongue up there.

Now, when this person goes to swallow, their tongue is unable to vacuum, tongue sweep, and push up on the palate. So what does it do instead?

It goes forwards, or sideways, and pushes against the teeth. Then the lips purse, the cheeks press inwards against the tongue, and that’s how they swallow.

This is called a tongue thrust. This is the improper swallowing pattern.

But it’s not black or white…

The important thing to note here: is that it’s not like the entire population falls into 2 buckets, perfect swallow, or tongue thrust.

The reality is, in my opinion, most people will fall somewhere in between. What this means, is that their tongue pushes up on their palate to some extent (but probably not ideally and fully), and they use their lips and cheeks to swallow to some extent as well.

Most people won’t have a perfectly correct swallowing pattern, but they also won’t have an extremely drastic tongue thrust.

Most people fall somewhere in between, and chances are, you do as well (and I do as well, so don’t worry).

Why this matters for Asymmetry

Back to my asymmetry (and yours). I’m going to explain my asymmetry using a poorly drawn diagram with hypothetical numbers (visuals are better than no visuals, and I’ve got to work with what I’ve got).

The right side of my tongue was great. It was suctioned against my palate, all the way to the back molars. It was pushing up when I swallowed. Say for this diagrams sake, 80% of my tongue was up on my palate.

On the left side however, different story. On the left side, only 55% was pushing up on the palate. The back half, was essentially not pushing up.

So where was it going?

Between the teeth. A lateral tongue thrust (but moreso on the left side). This means that to compensate, I was also using the cheeks and lips more on the left side as well.

So you can imagine - every time I swallow, my tongue is following this pattern. The right side pushes up (great), and the left side… not so much (not great).

This has lead to my breathing being worse on the left side (less toned soft palate, more tongue obstruction of the airway, worse facial development of the maxilla).

It also meant I just looked worse on the left side than the right, which nobody likes (and by nobody, I mean me 🙂 ).

The question of course is: how do we fix this? And why did I ramble on for so long with all of this information?

Well, if I didn’t explain how these things work, it wouldn’t make sense when I explain the solution.

How to Balance out the Swallowing Patter.

Ok, finally Ryan can stop talking now, and we can figure out how to fix this, great!

For me to correct my facial asymmetry, I had to figure out how to swallow more evenly. And I did!

Once I started swallowing the same way on the left side, as I did on the right, my asymmetry started to correct itself naturally. Because the pattern was corrected.

Imagine now, thousands of times per week, swallowing with the left side of my tongue at last! The nostril! The breathing improved! The jaw started looking more evenly! And the rest of my face did as well.

Well, finally after all of this explanation, I’m going to tell you how I did it. Here we go.

How I Balanced out my Swallowing Pattern and Mewing

Remember, the goal for this, was to have my tongue swallow the same way on the left, as on the right.

That means, the left side of the tongue would have to LEARN, how to push up against the palate. Especially towards the back third of the palate.

And how do we teach it to do that?

The answer is: Stimuli.

Stimulating the Left Side of the Tongue

It’s very difficult in my opinion, to try and control the back third of your tongue, on one side. The swallowing pattern is usually quite subconscious, so to try and consciously tell the back third where to go, is quite difficult.

Unless you guide it. And the way to do that, is by stimulating it.

I did this using Myospots. You can learn more about what Myospots do at the page here.

I essentially put 2 myospots on my upper palate. One just above tooth 7 (first molar), and one just above tooth 3 (canine).

What this did, was it guided the left side of the tongue on where to go. When the myospots is on the palate, it feels like it’s going to fall off (which it won’t if adhered properly).

This feeling of something being up on the palate, makes the tongue jump into action. The tongue goes up to press against that Myospot, to stop it from falling (which it won’t do, but the tongue still acts anyways).

In short, the left side of the tongue was now pushing up on the palate the way I wanted it to. Towards the back, and the entire left side of the tongue, was now up on the palate.

Improved Posture, Means Improved Function

Now, what I’ve essentially done is improved the posture of the tongue. Because, now the tongue is “resting” up on the palate. And it’s pressing against that myospot at rest. So the tongue is more evenly up on the palate.

Now, when I go to swallow, the tongue will press against the myospots and the palate, instead of against the teeth. If the myospots last for 60 minutes for example, that means I’m practicing 40-60 swallows with a more correct pattern.

Training the tongue in this way, is teaching is a new pattern. That new pattern over time, will become the normal pattern.

Once you are swallowing more evenly all the time, naturally your tongue will rest in that more even position as well.

And just like that, you’re now Mewing more evenly.

What Happened for Me the First Time I Did This

Now I can’t take full credit for this - because Dr. Shehab Feragelluh (founder of myospots) is the one who told me he does this with his patients who only use one side of their tongue.

But after I did this for the first time, I was quite amazed. It immediately made me swallow more evenly. And this proper swallowing pattern just felt right. It felt like this was the way my body was designed to function (it is).

It felt so easy and effortless to swallow using only my tongue, now that the left side was working.

And the amazing part about it, was that even once the myospot dissolved, my tongue STILL wanted to swallow evenly.

It got used to that pattern, and even once the myospot was gone, it carried on the momentum of that newly learned pattern.

But… there’s one problem.

The Relapse

The old pattern came back. The right side started dominating again, and the left side went back to it’s old pattern.

This makes sense, though. Because the left side had learned that pattern over my entire life. Decades of practice of one habit, doesn’t get overridden in one single hour.

So, obviously, I would have to use the myospots again the next day. And then the new pattern became a little more solidified.

And then again the day after.

And again the following day.

Until eventually, this pattern became more and more solidified, and now, my tongue was swallowing evenly almost all the time.

Our bodies intuitively their ideal function. This balanced swallowing pattern is something by body liked. It felt more natural. It helped me breathe better. And it was overall quite natural to solidify this new pattern.

One More Key Component

There’s another aspect of evening out the tongue that I didn’t mention, and that is: balancing the posture of the head and neck.

Whenever there is asymmetry in one part of the spine/body, it will manifest in the rest of the body.

The entire spine is connected. That is why, whenever I speak to people who have asymetry in their jaw, it usually follows into their head, neck, upper body, and lower body.

When you stretch your neck and upper body, you can even out this imbalance. The more you can even out the posture of your head and neck, the easier it will be for that weaker side of the tongue to function properly.

For me for example, the left side of my body had worse posture. Meaning, my neck muscles were tight, and my head was further forward. It had more forward head posture.

Whenever I would improve this and balance out the posture, my tongue would immediately have an easier time pushing up on the palate on the left side.

This is because the more neutral the position of the head, the easier it is for the tongue to function.

So, in short, if you want to make it easier for the weak side of the tongue to function properly, make sure to also focus on evening out the posture.

I have another article and video dedicated to showing you the exercises for how to do this as well.

Want to try this for yourself?

The bottom line is: I improved my asymmetry, and you probably can as well. Can you create perfect symmetry? Maybe not. Will it work as fast as mine did? I don’t know.

However, if you are swallowing with one side more than the other, it’s worthwhile to try the exercises I mentioned in this article to see if it makes a difference for you.

And if you’re ready to take it a step further, you can join our 60-day program to improve facial and body asymmetry.

It includes daily exercises for your posture and tongue, to help you stay on track with a plan and guided program to make it easy to improve.

The Final Word

Improving asymmetry is important. It’s often the first thing I recommend people do. I’ve noticed a major improvement in my overall ability to do Mewing properly, without thinking about it.

Now, my symmetry is just better. My tongue functions better, I feel better, breathe better, and look better.

I hope the exercises and information in this article can help you do the same.

I want to thank you for reading this article, especially if you’ve made it all the way to this point.

Until next time, keep putting your best face forward, and let’s come together to make the world a better place.

Stay well,

Ryan