A lot of the teenagers and adults who ask us about myofunctional therapy found it the same way: they saw mewing videos, started holding their tongue against the roof of their mouth, and went looking for what the "real" version is. The question usually comes out as some form of "Is myofunctional therapy just professional mewing?"
Not really. The two share one idea, and it is a good one: at rest, the tongue belongs up against the palate, with the lips closed and breathing through the nose. After that, they split on almost everything that matters, including the goal, how much force is involved, what happens to the teeth, whether anyone checks your airway first, and what the evidence supports.
The Short Answer
Mewing is a do-it-yourself tongue technique popularized online. You press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, usually with your lips and teeth closed, and hold it there on and off through the day, mainly in the hope of a sharper jawline or a different face shape.
Orofacial myofunctional therapy is a clinical program. A trained clinician evaluates how you breathe, where your tongue and lips rest, how you swallow, how well your tongue moves, and what oral habits you have. Then they teach a sequence of exercises you practice daily for several months. The goals are functional: nasal breathing, a stable resting posture, a correct swallow, clear speech, and support for dental and orthodontic health.
In effect, mewing isolates one piece of what myofunctional therapy works on, the tongue's resting position, turns it into a pressing exercise, and aims it at appearance.
What Mewing Is
The technique is named after John Mew, a British orthodontist. Cleveland Clinic's overview of mewing explains that he "developed the technique in the 1970s for use in his children and patients," believing it could correct misalignments of the teeth, jaw, and facial structure. The version that went viral on social media is mostly about looks. As the Cleveland Clinic physician interviewed in that article, Colleen Clayton, MD, put it: "Today, most people mew for cosmetic purposes."
The basic instructions that article describes are:
- Place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth, where you would make an "n" sound.
- Close your lips and lightly close your teeth.
- Flatten your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
- Hold for 20 seconds, rest, and repeat several times a day.
Online variations push further, with harder pressing, longer holds, and chewing routines. Mewing is now often grouped with "looksmaxxing," the broader online trend of trying to optimize facial appearance. Pediatricians have noticed. In September 2026 the journal Pediatrics published a commentary titled "From Mewing to Peptides: Looksmaxxing as an Emerging Pediatric Concern".
What the Evidence Says About Mewing
The orthodontic view is blunt. The American Association of Orthodontists' page on mewing says that "scientific evidence supporting Mewing's jawline-sculpting claims is as thin as dental floss," and that "there's no current research that suggests the technique provides any benefit to your jawline or oral health." It explains why: "A complex interplay of genetics, bone growth, and muscle development influences facial structure. Simply changing tongue placement isn't enough to magically correct misaligned teeth, reshape your jawline, and prevent the need for orthodontic treatment."
Cleveland Clinic's physician is just as direct: "Unfortunately, research doesn't support using mewing for any of these things. The evidence soundly suggests that it isn't effective for any of the claims."
There is one fair point on the other side. Pressing the tongue against the palate is a real exercise, and it does make the tongue stronger. A 2023 systematic review with meta-analysis in CoDAS (Fonseca et al.) looked at tongue-training studies and found that "the most performed exercise was tongue pressure against the palate." It concluded that these exercises "increased anterior and posterior tongue pressure in adults, but the quality of this evidence is low," and that "it cannot be stated whether exercises alone led to functional improvement." So the tongue gets stronger, but even the functional payoff is unproven, and a stronger tongue is a long way from a reshaped adult jaw.
The risk of pressing too hard
Resting the tongue on the palate is normal. The trouble starts with forcing it there. The AAO warns that "excessive pressure can disrupt the natural alignment of teeth, particularly if the tongue isn't positioned evenly across the palate," potentially "causing a malocclusion (underbites, overbites, or open bites), temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain, and speech difficulties." Cleveland Clinic adds that mewing "can worsen jaw tension and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders," and that it "can sometimes change the position of teeth, especially in kids and teenagers, causing worse misalignment."
What Myofunctional Therapy Is
ASHA's clinical guidance on orofacial myofunctional disorders defines them as "movement patterns that involve oral and orofacial musculature, which result in incorrect positioning of the tongue at rest and during swallowing, breathing, and speech production." It states the purpose of treatment plainly: "The primary purpose of orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT) is to create an oral environment in which typical processes of orofacial and dental growth and development can take place and be maintained."
The treatment targets ASHA lists go well beyond tongue position. They include establishing a clear nasal airway, a closed-mouth resting posture, lip seal, lingual-palatal seal (the tongue resting against the roof of the mouth), an open nasal pathway during sleep, better speech sound placement, stopping prolonged thumb or pacifier sucking, and a corrected swallow for saliva, liquids, and solids.
That is why people are referred for it: tongue thrust, chronic mouth breathing, tongue tie before and after a release, TMJ discomfort, sleep-disordered breathing, and orthodontic relapse. None of those referrals is about the jawline.
ASHA also specifies who provides it: "Orofacial myofunctional interventions are conducted by appropriately trained speech-language pathologists (SLPs) as part of a collaborative team." At Bloom, that is Laura Friedman, who holds both the CCC-SLP and the QOM (Qualified Orofacial Myologist) credentials.
Where They Overlap
The resting position mewing teaches is close to the one myofunctional therapy works toward. ASHA describes the typical oral resting posture as "the lips closed; nasal breathing; the teeth slightly apart; and the tongue tip resting against the anterior hard palate, at the lower incisors, or overlying gingiva." Our guide to myofunctional therapy exercises describes the same target: the tongue on "the spot" just behind the upper front teeth, with the body of the tongue up against the palate.
If mewing videos made you notice that your tongue usually sits low or pushes against your teeth, that is worth knowing. Plenty of people only realize it once it is pointed out.
Where They Split
- The goal. Mewing: a sharper jawline or a different face shape. Myofunctional therapy: nasal breathing, swallowing, speech, habit elimination, and a stable environment for teeth and orthodontic work.
- Resting vs. pressing. Mewing: an active hold, often with deliberate force. Myofunctional therapy: the tongue rests on the palate without effort, and the aim is for that to become automatic rather than something you work at all day.
- The teeth. Mewing instructions usually say to close the teeth. ASHA's typical resting posture has them slightly apart. That small gap, the "freeway space," is itself a treatment target. ASHA notes that once it "has been achieved and stabilized in therapy, dental stability is expected to follow." Holding the teeth together and pressing all day is closer to clenching, which is exactly the load a TMJ plan tries to remove.
- The airway comes first. Mewing tutorials almost never ask whether you can breathe comfortably through your nose. Myofunctional therapy starts there. ASHA states that "closed-mouth posture cannot be consistently established until any airway interferences have been successfully resolved," and that therapy begins after an allergist, orthodontist, and ENT "rules out or corrects structural or physiological impediments to nasal breathing." If enlarged tonsils or adenoids, allergies, or a deviated septum are keeping your mouth open, no amount of tongue pressing fixes that.
- Evaluation. Mewing: none. Myofunctional therapy: a full look at airway, posture, swallow, speech, habits, and tongue mobility, including whether a tongue tie is physically stopping the tongue from reaching the palate.
- The swallow. Mewing addresses posture only. Myofunctional therapy retrains how you swallow, because a tongue that pushes forward with every swallow can undo a good resting posture.
- Scope and referral. A myofunctional therapist does not diagnose your bite. ASHA notes that "diagnosing malocclusions or TMJD is not within the SLP's scope of practice," so bite and jaw concerns go to a dentist, orthodontist, or oral surgeon. Mewing has no referral step at all.
What Myofunctional Therapy Has Evidence For
Myofunctional therapy has limits of its own, and it helps to be honest about them. Its strongest evidence is for specific functional problems, not appearance.
For sleep, a 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis in the journal Sleep (Camacho et al.) found that myofunctional therapy "decreases apnea-hypopnea index by approximately 50% in adults and 62% in children," and concluded it "could serve as an adjunct to other obstructive sleep apnea treatments." That means alongside medical care, not in place of it. ASHA adds that "more studies are needed to evaluate compliance and the long-term effects of OMT on obstructive sleep apnea outcomes."
For bites, our article on whether myofunctional therapy can fix an overbite goes through the research. In short, therapy does not move teeth. It changes the muscle forces working on them, which matters most for keeping an orthodontic result stable.
Can Myofunctional Therapy Change Your Face?
This is often the real question underneath the search. Myofunctional therapy is not a cosmetic treatment, and we do not offer it as one.
In a growing child, the goal ASHA describes, an oral environment where typical growth can happen, is meaningful. That is part of why dentists and orthodontists refer children with chronic mouth breathing or tongue thrust. In adults whose facial growth is complete, the goals are functional. As the AAO puts it, moving teeth and jaws is done with "braces, aligners and other orthodontic appliances," and in more extreme cases orthognathic surgery. If you want a different jaw position, that is a conversation with an orthodontist or oral surgeon. Be skeptical of anyone, clinician or influencer, who promises a new jawline from tongue exercises.
A Note for Parents of Teens
If your teenager is mewing, there is no need to panic. Resting the tongue on the palate is harmless. Pressing hard, clenching, or following more extreme online routines is where the AAO and Cleveland Clinic warnings apply, and Cleveland Clinic flags children and teens as the group most likely to see teeth shift. Mewing also sits inside a wider looksmaxxing culture that includes far riskier practices. The title of that Pediatrics commentary, "From Mewing to Peptides," gives a sense of the range.
It is worth asking what got them interested. If the answer is "my mouth is always open," "I snore," or "my tongue pushes on my teeth," those are real functional questions that an evaluation can answer. If the answer is "I don't like my jaw," the right first stop is a dentist or orthodontist. Our adult myofunctional therapy page covers what treatment looks like for older teens and adults.
When an Evaluation Makes Sense
Consider an orofacial myofunctional evaluation if you or your child:
- Rest with the mouth open or breathe through the mouth most of the time
- Snore, or have been told you have sleep-disordered breathing
- Push the tongue forward against or between the teeth when swallowing
- Had orthodontic treatment and the teeth are shifting back
- Clench, have jaw tension, or have been diagnosed with a TMJ disorder
- Have a tongue tie, or cannot lift the tongue to the palate comfortably
Laura sees patients in person in Dallas and nationwide through online myofunctional therapy. Our myofunctional therapy overview explains the full service, and our explainer on what myofunctional therapy is is a good place to start if the whole field is new to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is myofunctional therapy the same as mewing?
No. Both put the tongue on the roof of the mouth at rest. Mewing is a do-it-yourself technique mostly used to try to reshape the jawline. Myofunctional therapy is an evaluated clinical program that clears the airway first, then retrains resting posture, breathing, lip seal, the swallow, and habits, all for functional goals.
Does mewing work?
Not for what it is usually promoted for. The AAO calls the evidence for its jawline claims "as thin as dental floss," and Cleveland Clinic says the evidence "soundly suggests that it isn't effective for any of the claims." Pressing the tongue against the palate can strengthen the tongue, but that is not the same as a reshaped jaw.
Is mewing bad for you?
It can be when it involves force. The AAO warns that uneven or excessive tongue pressure can shift teeth and may contribute to bite problems, TMJ pain, and speech difficulties. Cleveland Clinic notes children and teens are most at risk of teeth shifting. Resting the tongue on the palate is fine. Forcing it there with the teeth clenched is not.
Can myofunctional therapy change my jawline or face shape?
It is not a cosmetic treatment. In children it supports an environment for typical growth. In adults the goals are functional. Changing tooth or jaw position is orthodontic or surgical work.
Can a myofunctional therapist help if I have been mewing?
Yes, especially if what drew you to mewing was mouth breathing, snoring, a low tongue posture, or jaw tension. An evaluation sorts out what is actually going on. If the concern is really your bite, you will be referred to an orthodontist.
Want to Know What Your Tongue Is Actually Doing?
If mewing videos made you wonder about your tongue posture, your breathing, or your child's open-mouth habit, schedule a free consultation with Laura Friedman, CCC-SLP and Qualified Orofacial Myologist, in person in Dallas or online nationwide. You will get an honest read on whether myofunctional therapy fits what you are dealing with, and if what you really need is an orthodontist, you will hear that too.