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What Is Mewing- Correct Way To Do It!
If you’re wondering what is mewing and it can change the shape of your face or not, you must read the information given here and have a brief idea if you want to follow the technique or not.
Mewing is basically the technique in which the tongue is placed to shape the face and jawline. You might be thinking what is mewing exactly after seeing various influencers and people on Instagram as well as other social media sites trying it, right?
It is increasingly popular on any site but you should also know that no scientific evidence exists yet to support the idea of mewing.
Proponents believe that mewing can reshape their face along with correcting orthodontic, facial structural, and breathing issues. Also, it was developed by an orthodontist in the 1970s named John Mew.
Here’s what you need to know on what is mewing and how it affects your facial features.
What Is Mewing?
Mewing is the technique that helps to improve the aesthetic of the jawline as per the proponents. It involves placing your tongue against the roof of your mouth and closing your lips and setting your teeth together.
The supposed benefits of mewing as per proponents are that it provides you a well-defined jawline and improves the alignment of the nose and chin. Anecdotal reports also suggest that mewing can be helpful in the following:
- Treating sleep apnea.
- Swallowing and breathing issues
- Speech disorders
- Sinusitis
- Temporomandibular joint dysfunction.
As per the internet sites or social media sites where people use these techniques too often and support the technique, mewing is simply placing your tongue against your mouth’s roof. Your whole tongue is supposed to rest on the roof of the mouth and sit between your molars.
Advice is to keep your tongue in a position whenever your mouth is closed until it matches a natural resting position. If holding your tongue in this new position seems new to people, they might get tired of it first. Apparently, a mild pressure should be felt to a person across the chin, jaw, and middle of their face if they are following this technique properly.
Only the people who know what is mewing can perform the technique well. You can follow your favorite YouTubers and watch tutorials on how to do it perfectly.
Let’s see where did mewing start.
History- What is Mewing
The name “mewing” is derived from the person that introduced Mewing first- Dr. John Mew. He was an orthodontist who came up with this useful technique and coined a specific term- “orthotropic” for it.
Later on, his son, Mike Mew, who was also a practitioner of orthotropic just like the father mentioned that orthotropic are a practice or technique that focuses on altering your face she and jawline through oral and facial exercises and posture.
As per new reports, the General Dental Council took away John Mew’s dental licenses recently. This was decided because of the criticism John had on traditional orthodontic treatments along with many unconventional practices and beliefs he had.
Over the past 2 years, many users all over social media and popular video sites such as YouTube, are increasing the popularity of mewing as a practice or technique that helps improve the shape of one’s jawline.
How Does Mewing Work?
Now that you know what is mewing, you might be thinking what is the right way to practice it to change your face shape or have a sharper jawline. From social media sites, most all the users are in support of mewing and have gained benefits from mewing so far. However, there is no expert regulation on the subject yet.
Some blogs and articles warn against the dangers of becoming obsessed with the technique after practicing it for long. Mewing is not proven scientifically and it may or may not give you the desire results you are looking for.
Some anecdotal evidence has reported visible results within few months of practicing mewing but most sites also mention and agree that it may even take years for the person to notice visible results if they ever try doing mewing.
Many social media advocates for mewing are adolescents, whose jawline and faces are most likely to naturally change over the puberty age rather than as a result of practicing mewing.
There are no pieces of evidence yet to support mewing as a great alternative therapy to jaw surgery or scientifically proven procedures and scientifically backed face shaping procedures.
Many different face shaping procedures are backed by science you can try.
Theory on how mewing works
According to the Mew family, people have smaller jaws compared to their ancestors. They believe that lifestyle and environmental factors like allergies that may lead to breathing in the mouth and having quick access to food that is very soft and gently to be chewed have contributed to smaller jaws.
The smaller jaws will leave the teeth to be crowded and thus they become crooked. It also further contributes to a less pleasing face aesthetically as per Mews. They argue that practicing a good posture for the tongue can fix such issues resulting in larger jaws that are more squared and stringer.
The Mews also argues that mewing is a good technique to fight conditions like sleep apnea and encourage healthier functions of the respiratory system.
Mewing and Incel Movements
Besides just rejection of more orthodontic practices that are traditional in nature like braces, mewing has other controversial elements as well. Its association with involuntary celibate or incel movement is one. This movement is just the internet or social media phenomenon of men who blame society and men for not being or not feeling sexually attractive and active.
The incel movement became highly fascinated after mewing came into the picture when a video of Mike Mew was uploaded on the incel message board in the year 2014. Mew started engraving with people on this message board. All these individuals were hoping to overcome the celibate status they had developed by chaining their facial features.
Since then, the mewing concept has been associated loosely with the incel movement. However, mewing has gained a lot of attention on the internet, and searches for this technique are increasingly high from the year 2019.
Mewing does not cause any harm except for some people being obsessed with it. Some ideas exposed through this procedure by the mews like the importance of chewing for long during childhood are supported by the studies. However, the practice of mewing is not dependably evaluated by the scientist or researchers because of a lack of scientifically baked reasons.
Face Shaping Alternatives
Now that you know what is mewing exactly, you must have learned it could take months or years to see results. If you have a misaligned jaw, which the doctors may call malocclusion, you may require jaw corrective surgery. Jaw surgeries are also referred to as orthognathic surgeries.
Surgeries can be highly useful in aligning your upper and lower jaws into place by moving either one or both the Jaws forward or backward into a perfectly aligned position. Some people have braces on their teeth too to help with this aligning process.
An orthodontist might prescribe some jaw exercises too to be done after the surgery. It is important to follow all the exercises carefully to gain the best results from the performed surgical procedure.
For all those, who wish to shape their face for some reason like cosmetics, then facial contouring can be a great option. Many processes like facial sculpting and facial contouring use cosmetic surgery procedures to alter the shape of cheeks, jawline, and chin.
Cosmetic surgeons may use dermal fillers and botox injections to change the appearance of your face. When you visit a clinician, they will also carry out a thorough consultation with the client and take a complete medical history report before going for the treatment to make sure it is entirely safe for the client.
Another technique used is radiofrequency that people often use for reshaping their faces. People sometimes go for this procedure to treat dropping kin issues also known as skin laxity that appear around the cheeks and jaws.
Radio waves are produced in radiofrequency that produces an energy current that is applied to the client’s skin by the clinician. The radiofrequency causes damage from heat to the skin which later stimulates the production of collagen in deep skin layers to repair the tissues thus giving a radiant appearance and changes droopy skin.
The radiofrequency method used for skin laxity can vary widely, and you should know that still, not many pieces of information do not exist which can help us determine is it completely safe or not. It may have side effects affecting your health.
The Bottom Line
You are very well aware of what is mewing by now. It is a technique that can reshape your jaw over time as per proponents. It involves paling the tongue on the roof of your mouth which can reshape your face supposedly.
However, no scientific evidence backs up this theory and its effectiveness in people. Although few anecdotal reports suggested that mewing works well, comparison photos of before and after on the internet and social media can be quite misleading.
People may or may not see any results after performing mewing and it may take even years for seeing results. If people wish to realign their jaws for medical or cosmetic reasons, it is best they visit an expert healthcare provider for guidance rather than following social media sites where adolescents use these techniques as they may be misleading.
Other face reshaping procedures performed by clinicians may help provide results.
