How to accelerate the process with a flat mouthguard?

Many things will accelerate the process, some more than others.

I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. “How do I accelerate the process?”

And so I wanted to provide my perspective on it. But note that I won’t be sharing the the ‘fast approach’ for the reasons i’ve mentioned in past posts.

Given that I know that approach, however, you’d be logically very astute to pay attention to this article. Because i’m not going to try to lead you astray.

That would be evil.

And EGK stands for “End Game Ken” and not “Evil Guy Ken” hahahaha

Ok let’s begin.

Setting some context: It takes a long time to plateau

Some folks doing Reviv have remarked that they think they’ve plateaud because they sleep comfortably with it every night and don’t feel anything major happening.

This does not mean you have plateaud.

You need to remember that I hit that point well over two years ago and I am still progressing everyday for the last two years.

So I am very sure that you can too. But it takes more effort.

You see at the beginning even wearing the Reviv appliance is difficult. Gums and teeth will hurt. You will get headaches. You might feel things shifting in your body.

But then this ‘remodeling’ process starts to slow down. And you then need to turn up the effort in order to keep the progress moving fast.

The key question is knowing what is most effective and then having a way of measuring progress. To ensure that you are in fact progressing.

This is even contacts on all teeth. When you improve, the marks should be heavier in the front and so you drill them even, which creates more curve of spee on the splint

You should be able to continue to progress for several years

Occlusion continues to change for a long time with the appliance.

If you were using a tracking splint than you would notice that even if you didn’t do anything to accelerate the process, your occlusion is probably changing on a weekly basis.

And using a tracking splint for a few months (till it no longer fits) is something i recommend everyone try at least once. I talk about how to do that here:

A 'tracking splint' is the compass for your TMJ journey

Because you will see how the process works.

You will see what kinds of exercises accelerate the process faster vs. slower. How? By seeing how much they change the occlusion.

Also remember the connection to flexibility

This is another tenet I think you should all keep in mind over the longer term.

The more you progress the more flexible you should get. Because the soft tissue you are releasing in the mouth/jaw/skull area is connected to the same tissue that covers the rest of the body.

Finishing this process, by my definition, means that you should be fully flexible and have an almost perfectly symmetric face and skull. Why? I talk about this here.

Flexibility and Facial Symmetry are two sides of the same coin

And so for this reason this is a key milestone to you fully understanding how this puzzle works.

As you wear the Reviv you should also learn to feel the ‘stuck’ points in your body.

The primary one is your waist.

What i generally find is that as you wear the Reviv you should almost constantly switch between these two positions depending on which one feels like more of a stretch.

This is actually a key component to my ‘fast approach’ so this is a very important puzzle piece ;)

Jaw & myofunctional exercises

So this should be at the core of how you approach this problem. Why?

Because it is about stretching soft tissue, particularly in the jaw and face.

And jaw stretches like the ones in this video above are really key to loosening things up and learning how to feel what is tight.

This lady, Allison Tanner, has 26 videos in total in her program and you should try all of them. But then focus on the ones that you think are providing the best stretch.

I cannot tell you exactly what to stretch and which exercise works best because your problem is most likely a bit different than mine. Because the jaw and neck compensate in many different ways.

Repeat the ones you find most helpful each day. Make a schedule and stick to it.

Some of the exercises focus on the tongue and that is also good. Why? Because the tongue connects to pretty much all the soft tissue around the jaw.

Body exercises

Pretty much any exercise helps accelerate the process.

But I don’t recommend lifting very heavy weights.

It’s not that i’ve seen it create problems but theoretically i don’t think it’s a good thing because your entire skeleton is still twisted. And so I like things that are easier on the body and not going to take the structure to the point where it might further compensate.

So things like yoga are great. Particularly if you wear the Reviv while you do it.

Why? Because of the jaw <> body connection. You want to stretch ‘both ends’ of the skeleton as Marcello used to put it.

Running, sports, aerobics are all good too. Just keep it at mediocre intensity.

I’ve never seen any advantage to killing yourself with exercise in this recovery process.

Getting body work done to you is generally good

The more active the body work the better in my view.

Meaning things like Thai massage where they are putting your body into a stretch is going to be much better than just getting an oil back massage.

Also, I don’t think osteopathy/craniosacral therapy will change much as it is just too gentle.

If you are using a tracking splint you should test different massage methods. I did some tests like this years ago but I can’t say I came to some revolutionary conclusion other than the fact that typically it always did change the occlusion.

Closing thoughts

So remember that you can recover for a very long time with the Reviv appliance. I literally think the vast majority of you can progress a bit each day for several years before you truly plateau.

But keeping that progress going needs to become more active as time goes on.

And i recommend doing some mix of the jaw/myofunctional stretches with the body exercises. Every day!

The body work is more of an optional, occasional thing in my view.

Also do the tracking splint at least once to see how your occlusion changes. It’s one thing to hear me talk about it, but when you do a session of yoga and then actually see your dental contacts change it really locks it in your head.

That you do not change structure without changing the occlusion.

And play the long game. Yes this stuff takes a long time and that might perhaps demotivate some of you.

But remember this… instead of declining a bit each day as the normal aging progress does to all other humans… you will be improving every day of your life from here on out.

And that is pretty fucking cool in my book ;)

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