The suction hold when it comes to mewing leaves many newcomers confused. Some wonder if they’re doing it right or if it’s even necessary.
You don’t have to use the suction hold. Many people have gotten results without it. However, the suction hold helps with mewing by requiring less force to keep the tongue on the roof of your mouth.
The tropic premise states that ideal tongue posture is “tongue resting on the palate, the lips sealed, and the teeth in light contact for between four and eight hours a day.” A suction hold is not necessary for this to happen. However, a suction hold does happen to arise naturally with perfect posture.
What is the Suction Hold?
The suction hold is an advanced mewing technique. The goal with the suction hold is for your tongue to latch onto the roof of your mouth, sucking and pushing at the same time.
The suction hold is not an intraoral vacuum. It is a vacuum that’s only between the part of your tongue you can feel, and your hard palate.
Your tongue should naturally be suctioned to your hard palate. Babies are born keeping their tongue in a suction hold on the roof of their mouth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-TO-ZvNEM
How Do You Do the Suction Hold?
The suction hold for adults can be accomplished with the following steps.
- Assume the normal mewing position. Back straight, lips sealed, tongue on the roof of the mouth.
- When spit begins to develop, gather it in one spot.
- Roll the spit down your tongue and into your esophagus, without using your cheek or face musculature.
- Keep repeating until pressure builds up between your tongue and hard palate.
This is a subtle technique. You might already be doing this naturally anyway. You shouldn’t have to force a suction effect. All you’re doing is rolling your tongue against the roof of your mouth and letting it stick naturally. Just imagine your tongue doing the worm dance.
Practice this with your mouth & lips open so that you get the hang of it.
Does the suction hold help with the back third of the tongue?
The back third of the tongue is too far back. Notice the position of the hard and soft palates:
The back third of the tongue can’t suction onto the soft palate. You can only suction onto hard things (i.e. the hard palate). The suction hold would only help with getting the back of your tongue up there if you struggle to get the tongue on the roof of your mouth in the first place.
But getting the back part of your tongue to go up requires conscious elevation on your part. This can be a difficult thing to get right when you’re brand new to mewing. You need to practice getting the back of the tongue up and over time, you’ll have more conscious control over those nerve endings in the back part of your tongue.
To practice, do a large exaggerated swallow. Can you feel the back part of your tongue hit your soft palate? Try to replicate this feeling and hold it for as long as you can.
Suction Hold and Hard Mewing
Hard mewing refers to pressing the tongue on the roof of the mouth with extra force. So can the suction hold help with hard mewing?
Maintaining the suction hold while mewing can be very difficult and shouldn’t be combined with hard mewing. Pressing very hard on the roof of your mouth will actually cause you to break the suction hold.
So what’s better? The suction hold? Or hard mewing? Dr. Mike Mew recommends the suction hold. He always states the importance of keeping proper tongue posture 24/7. The suction hold can assist you with that because it requires less force to keep the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Hard mewing, on the other hand, can be counterproductive, because if you wear your tongue out from overexertion, then you won’t be able to keep the tongue on the roof of the mouth 24/7. The results from mewing come from duration, not force.
However, Dr. Mike and John Mew both also say that change is very slow and very difficult to get in adults. I personally believe that if you’re at least in your 20s, you should be doing some form of hard mewing. The light pressure that the suction hold gives you won’t be enough to cause bones to significantly remodel. I alternate between hard mewing and the suction hold. I push hard on the roof of my mouth as long as I can, and then use the suction hold after my tongue gets tired.
Is the suction hold only for beginners?
If you’re new to mewing, should you do the suction hold? I don’t recommend for beginners to start using the suction hold right away. You must first learn how to push, with all parts of your tongue. Get good at pushing with your tip, middle, and back of your tongue. Get good at pushing evenly with your whole tongue, instead of focusing on one spot like the back.
Mewing requires an active concentrated effort from its user. Even the suction hold does not allow you to be passive. You must first ingrain the habit of pushing, and this is the hardest part. You should be pushing so much and so often that you begin to do it subconsciously in your sleep. Ingrain the habit of pushing first. That’s the hard part. Do this for 6 months at the least, until you’re mewing easily in your sleep. You should wake up on your back, with your whole tongue on the roof of your mouth including the back. Only then should you move onto advanced techniques like hard mewing or suction hold.
AstroSky got amazing results just from pushing:
You can too. For more information on mewing and detailed explanations, see my Ultimate Guide to Mewing.
