TMJ Jaw & Neck Massage - Yoga-Inspired Practice to Relieve Jaw Pain & TMJ Syndrome

Transcript

hello it's joelle and welcome to this 10 minute self massage for the tmj joint in our john just generally for jaw and neck pain as well we'll be using a massage ball today and you can just rest your elbow on a table or a desk and a little later we'll be using a wall or a corner so let's start by bringing the ball to the right temple and just hold it in place and start nodding the head up and down just nodding yes here and this is one of those sequences where we can pretty much guarantee that we'll feel very different by the end of it self-massage is so nice for this whole part of the body and then keeping the ball where it is let's just start shaking the head no so taking the head from side to side you might close the eyes here take some nice deep breaths thanking yourself for taking care of yourself managing any pain for today and then again keeping the ball where it is let's just start kind of screwing it from side to side so imagine you were really driving that ball into the temple and i like to use massage balls here i'll put a link for the ones i'm using but you can of course use whatever you've got at home and now let's just kind of roll the ball around that temple area you can take it backwards along the head a little bit if that feels nice just find the right spot for you and now we'll move the ball bringing it towards the jaw now so kind of right underneath the right cheekbone and just hold it in place so just a little bit of sustained compression here just pressing that ball into the face definitely something a little bit different from most of my videos and then again we'll try that screwing motion so just kind of moving the ball rotating it against the cheek this is one of those areas where we sometimes don't even know that we have tension and yet it feels so good and then just hold the ball in place again and just gently start opening and closing the mouth it's probably the most intense one for me and you might like to hold your mouth open if that feels good for a moment or two beautifully done and now let's take the ball to the neck so right underneath the jaw and we'll take those knotting motions again so just nodding the head up and down just finding a nice juicy spot on the neck and you could keep the ball there maybe move it up or down an inch as we start shaking the head shaking it no now back and forth keeping those nice deep breaths going and then we're just going to tilt the head from side to side and again you might choose to relocate the ball find another tender spawn just to pray a little bit of a different sensation here if that feels nice today and then we can roll the ball in some gentle circles maybe moving up and down the neck just exploring that whole region really finding any spots that feel particularly tense and if you find one you could always choose to hold in place or come back to it beautiful so let's release that take one deep breath just notice how you feel notice if there's any difference from the side we've just worked to the other and i would bet there is and then we'll switch the ball to the other side other temple and start nodding the head [Music] so tmj our temporomandibular joint is an area where many of us will carry tension as we start to shake the head no still keeping the ball in the temple and that can be caused by any number of factors by stress teeth grinding clenching our teeth as well [Music] and it can really be very painful if we develop any tmj disorders in those muscles that control the jaw and now let's try that screwing motion so again just kind of rotating the ball into the temple still keeping those nice deep breaths going such a nice way to spend 10 minutes i felt great by the end of this and then you can choose to roll that ball around rolling it around the temple maybe taking it a little bit forwards and back and then we can move on towards that jaws again settling the ball in just underneath the left cheekbone holding it there for that sustained compression just gently pressing the ball into the cheek and then again we'll try those rotation movements so a little bit of i'm sorry to say it this way but a little bit of screwing the ball into the cheek i really don't know a better way of describing that i'm afraid but i think you get the idea and this might feel a little bit different from one side to the other and then we can hold in place start opening and closing the mouth really gently take it slow here notice how that feels the sensations are at all different on this second side and then we'll move the ball down to the neck and again start nodding the head so find a place maybe right underneath the jaw where it feels good to hold the ball there and then we'll shake the head no once again there should never be pain when doing any of these moves this should really be about getting rid of tension loosening up these muscles and then we'll try tilting the head side to side so again you might shift the ball to a slightly different spot up or down the neck gentle tilts here with the eyes closed for our last little move here you can roll the ball in some gentle circles either keeping it right underneath the jar maybe moving it up up and down on that left side of the neck maybe a little bit backwards and forwards we've just been doing these moves for about 20 seconds each but you can always repeat this if it feels nice so let's release that we'll just take one gentle neck circle in both directions noticing any different sensations as compared to when we started hopefully you're feeling a little bit looser already and then we'll be moving to our wall or our corner next so you can pause the video if you need to and when you do get to the corner we're going to wedge that ball against the top of the right shoulder blade and lean into that corner so you can see why it's nice to have a corner here so your head has somewhere to go you can kind of move the ball around in little circles on top of that trapezius muscle you might make some tiny little circles with that right arm this can be a pretty intense one for so many of us as well great for neck tension and shoulder tension it's loosening up that whole area and then we can catch hold of the ball with our other hand we'll switch to the other side of that corner or wall or door frame wedge the ball into that lift top of the left shoulder muscle between the neck and the shoulder blade and again just holding still or perhaps making little circles or circling the arm and if the ball falls and rolls away no problem they are prone to do that you can always grab hold of it and start over i'm so grateful that you joined me for this today it's not always about working really hard sometimes we can feel better by just taking 10 minutes to look after ourselves and try something a little bit different and when you're ready we can catch hold of that ball let's try one more gentle neck circle in both directions and i do hope that if you enjoyed this video you'll hit the like button if you'd like to spend 10 more minutes today with me i also have a neck pain video which i will link below and do for future sequences so we can practice again together soon thank you so much well done today and namaste