Nabho Mudra / Jihva Bandha / tongue lock / Myofunctional therapy.
Transcription of video above:
Lift your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Rest it on your palate. Not touching your teeth, but sitting behind the little ridge there. You have found your Nabho mudra or Jhiva bhanda. In the West we call the practice Myofunctional therapy popular in circles that treat TMJ.
A Sanskrit verse explains Nabho Mudra as follows:
The yogi who stays constant in all aspects at all times, controls the breath by placing the frontal part of tongue on the palate inside the mouth. It puts an immediate stop to all mental turmoil. All the diseases of yogi are destroyed by the practice of this mudras
My own story around this practice began over 5 years ago.
And I actually posted something on it in 2021 on our website under Jhiva Bhanda / Myofunctional therapy. There's many names for it, so when I began, I pulled my pallet raw more than once.
And had to take breaks. This is not recommended, finding out, well, I always knew that, but I was very determined.
From my practice, I noticed how tense my throat was, especially awkward posture and to stretch the arms forward and maintain those triceps contracted revealed to me how tight the front of my throat was, and I was shocked and I wanted it to end. I started doing this.
And then it came across my path, more advantages of it, a cleaner jawline, and that as we age that piece between the chin and the throat tends to go droopy, while we are we letting our tongue hang down. We pick the tongue up and it's has cosmetic benefits. That remains highly motivating. OK. You got to figure out what motivates you. And of course, we all do the yoga because we want to feel good, but also I wanna be fit, you know, wanna look as good as we feel, right?
OK.
Tying into, it's not just the tongue, but the signals on the palate, and so there's channels connected to energy centers all over the body. Yogis have different names for them, it's like buttons and we're resting our tongue on these buttons to activate these channels.
We generate heat, fire / pita, when we practice and this balances and cools.
It cools the mind with all the energy that we're generating. Our Hatha prepares us for meditation off the mat.
This mudra connects our mind in our body in relationship to the world.
There's scientific evidence and very real evidence when you apply it and you'll see, you'll notice immediately when you start to do it. I think, uh, when you, my experience, when you raise, you put the tongue there, and you, your mind, the erraticism in the mind. there's an observation that happens.
There's a way to think of it, the mind is the sky, the palette, and thoughts that come and go like the clouds - you're connecting to your observational state, you're bringing awareness to these things so that you can navigate accordingly. OK! I'm going to read you a bit from this website which I will put link with us on our website for you to look up more but it's super cool.
Nabho Mudra in very mechanistic terms, acts by virtue of the anatomical proximity of the root of the tongue to the carotid sinuses in the neck and through access to the parasympathetic nervous system through the nerve supplying the tongue.
The pull at the root of the tongue by applying a subtle drag on the sinuses in the neck, causing them to react as though they had detected high blood pressure, with the result that the heartbeat and the blood pressure decrease.
This leads to relief in stress response and overall physical mental relaxation.
These carotid sinuses, as well as the sinus nerves were well known in ancient times.
This website continues to explain more of the medical and yogi benefit with quite a bit of jargon there.
Motivation to really share this with our Hatha yogis comes as I experience great benefit with it and I've taken my time in really sharing about it to get to a point where I feel more comfortable with my experience around it.
One of the things that I noticed along the way of applying it and having it become a space from where I function.
Is that when you're building the muscle memory, I noticed, you know, I'm obsessing about this thing. And I realized that when I was really thinking about doing it was when I didn't really need to be thinking about doing other things.
I mean, doing the dishes or driving in the car listening to music, listening to a friend speak, you know, holding space for people I care about.
The wandering mind there's no need for that.
Using it as a tool has been a blessing.
It's exceptionally telling on mental and emotional state.
When you have a baseline of the tongue lock and an irritation comes along.
You have, you have something, you know, you have a connection with yourself underneath that irritation to go back to, you have a real knowing that in that inner space you can go back to regulating your breath, regulating your heart rate, you can respond from a place of awareness rather than an emotional story.
I wish everybody all the happiness and feel it's my responsibility to share these things with our Hatha community.
And there's more coming.
As you can see, episode one.
Lots to ponder on.