If you sleep on your back, gravity can cause the tongue to fall back. This narrows the airway, which reduces the amount of air that can reach your lungs. The narrowed airway causes snoring by making the tissue in back of the throat vibrate as you breathe.
It is not possible to swallow the tongue. Bodily tissue firmly connects the tongue to the mouth, which prevents people from accidentally swallowing it. It is a common myth that a person can swallow their tongue during a seizure, while asleep, or if they become unconscious.
Choking on Your Tongue With Sleep Apnea
This is when air is physically blocked from getting to your lungs while you sleep. It generally happens when a person is sleeping on their back. As the muscles relax, the tongue can fall back to the rear of your mouth.
Known as “tongue positioning,” there is a right and wrong way. When closing the mouth, the teeth should be slightly apart while the tongue rests on the roof of the mouth but not against the teeth. Not only does this correct form of tongue positioning ensure better oral health, but it also prevents teeth from shifting.
Having poor tongue posture can lead to issues with grinding your teeth or sleep apnea, which is a breathing disorder that particularly affects people during sleeping hours.
Gravity pulls the tongue down right? Actually, your tongue should be resting entirely on the palate. Not just the tip of the tongue, but the middle and posterior sections should be resting up. Your lips should be together, and your breathing should be through the nose 95-100% of the time.
The good news is you can work to improve your resting tongue positioning by first becoming more aware of where your tongue falls at rest. If you notice that your tongue is falling to the bottom of the mouth or is pushing up against your teeth, focus on consciously changing its position.
Proper Tongue Positioning
When your mouth is at rest, your tongue should be against the roof of your mouth, but it should not be pressing against any of your teeth. Your teeth should be slightly apart, and your lips should be closed.
We recommend that tongue exercises are done over a period of at least 12 weeks. In the first week, you can start with just one spot daily to get used to the exercise and to gradually change your tongue.
Poor tongue posture can significantly affect the overall appearance of your face as it can pull the bones of your face down. The weight of gravity on the tongue, jaw, and cheeks impact bone alignment, which can ultimately affect your facial appearance.
Sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, bruxism, and teeth clenching and grinding may cause pressure on the tongue. For example, sleep apnea may cause you to press your tongue down against your teeth to open up the airways.
Sleeping on your back can also cause your airway to become blocked or narrowed. Central sleep apnea is another sleep disorder during which breathing can stop. It occurs when the brain temporarily stops sending signals to the muscles that control breathing.
Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the muscles that support the soft tissues in your throat, such as your tongue and soft palate, temporarily relax.
The teeth should not touch ever – except when swallowing. This comes as a big surprise to most people. When not chewing or swallowing, the tip of the tongue should rest gently on the tip and back of the lower incisors.
While clenching your teeth together, the top and bottom front teeth should overlap slightly. The Side: At the side, your teeth should lock easily in together like cogs in a wheel. The top teeth should sit just on the outside of the bottom teeth, so they fit snugly together.
When your tongue is at rest, the tip of your tongue should touch the roof of your mouth, just behind your front teeth, as a study published in Radiology and Oncology notes. The tip of your tongue shouldn't rest low on the floor of your mouth.
The tip of your tongue should rest gently behind your top front teeth. The border of your tongue should be gently in contact with the roof of your mouth, right where the teeth and gums meet.
Incorrect tongue posture is related to the tongue resting against the teeth, between the teeth or on the floor of the mouth. Low tongue posture typically develops due mouth breathing, a sucking habit or tongue tie and must be corrected as soon as possible to restore normal function and balance to the orofacial muscles.
Overgrowth conditions such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and vascular anomalies of the tongue can lead to its enlargement. Other conditions such as Down syndrome, trauma, inflammatory conditions, primary amyloidosis, and congenital hypothyroidism may also be associated with a large tongue.
This involves placing the tongue lightly on the top/roof of your mouth wherever it is most comfortable while allowing the teeth to come apart, and relaxing the jaw muscles. Often putting your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth like when you softly say “n” or “no”, “never”, “nothing” is a comfortable position.
Anxiety state: The anxiety state can be acute (reaction) or chronic (neurosis). Rubbing and thrusting of the tongue against the teeth occurs as a manifestation of anxiety in the tense, apprehensive, pent-up individual; it occurs par ticularly when the person is subject to emo tional stress.
A healthy (or normal) tongue is pink and covered with small bumps known as papillae. The shade of pink can vary (provided it's not red), and the bumps should cover a good majority of the upper surface. These bumps are also on the underside of a tongue, but maybe less easy to spot.
The Wrong Way – A common, yet wrong, way to hold your tongue in your mouth is to rest it on the bottom teeth or the at the bottom of the mouth. This can cause the tongue to put constant pressure on the teeth and make them shift, become crowded, or create a bad, sometimes painful, bite.