Why your tongue might be contributing to snoring and grinding your teeth at night

Most people think of the tongue as something we use for talking, tasting, or swallowing. But one of it's most important roles happens quietly (or not so quietly!), especially at night, helping keep your airway open so you can breathe.

When this function is disrupted, the body often compensates in ways we don’t expect, including snoring, jaw clenching, and teeth grinding.

Link between sleep bruxism and airway disruption

 

Numerous sleep studies show that sleep bruxism (grinding your teeth at night) is closely linked to brief breathing disruptions and micro-arousals during sleep. Rhythmic contractions of the masseter (clenching) muscles often occur immediately after these breathing disturbances.

Contracting the jaw muscles can move the jaw forward slightly and increase muscle tone around the airway, helping to reopen space through a partially collapsed throat and restore airflow.

The link between airway disruption and the tongue

One of the main reasons the airway can narrow or collapse during sleep is the tongue. When the tongue rests gently against the roof of the mouth, it supports the airway from the inside and promotes nasal breathing.

If the tongue falls back, sits low, or loses coordination, it can partially block the airway. This creates resistance to airflow, causing surrounding tissues to vibrate, what we recognise as snoring. In some people, this becomes a significant contributing factor to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Why this can lead to bruxism

The nervous system’s priority during sleep is to keep us breathing. When oxygen levels drop or airflow becomes restricted, it quickly recruits other muscles to help reopen the airway.

One of the fastest ways it can do this is by activating the jaw muscles. Clenching or grinding advances the mandible (lower jaw) and stiffens the surrounding airway muscles, temporarily increasing airway space.

In this way, bruxism can be understood not just as a dental or stress issue, but as a protective response when the tongue is unable to maintain an open airway on its own.

How to keep your tongue supporting your airway 

Small changes in tongue posture can make a huge difference, start by ensuring you have correct tongue posture to support your airway during the day. By having the tongue resting in the right position, this often leads to a reduction in subconscious jaw clenching and teeth grinding during the day too. 

Achieving correct tongue posture

The simplest way to figure out where the tongue should be is to make a “click” noise with your tongue, the moment before the sound is produced, is where the tongue should be resting. You will feel it sit just within the round shaped ridge on the roof of the mouth (alveolar ridge). It should not be resting against the teeth. Many people assume that they have correct tongue posture simply because the tongue touches the roof of the mouth (palate), but this is not always the case. Doing the “click” method will ensure that the back of the tongue as well as the tip is lifted. 

Once you achieve this position, let the tongue soften a little so the suction isn't quite as strong but still maintaining the position. To test, pinch your nose, part your lips, and try to breathe through the mouth, if the tongue is positioned correctly, you should notice it becomes impossible to breathe through the mouth. The more frequently you achieve this position during the day, the more your nervous system will begin to associate this position as “correct” and it will become your normal.  

Who may struggle with correct tongue positioning

• Inability to nose breathe: 

  In order to maintain correct tongue posture, you must be able to properly breathe through your nose, as having the correct tongue posture won’t permit mouth breathing. People who have allergies, asthma, nasal polyps, nasal/sinus congestion and general breathing difficulties may struggle to achieve this. Over time, habitual mouth breathing lowers the tongue away from the palate, which can further reduce support for the airway and reinforce the reliance on mouth breathing.

• Anatomical variations: 

  People with a narrow palate and crowded teeth may struggle as there is less room for the tongue to rest comfortably at the roof of the mouth (palate). Incorrect tongue posture during childhood and adolescence is thought to be one contributing factor to why the palate does not always grow wide enough to support the teeth and tongue in the first place. Pressure from the tongue signals the bone to grow. 

  
  

  A narrower palate also forms the floor of the nasal cavity, which can reduce nasal airway space and make nasal breathing more difficult, further reinforcing incorrect tongue posture. Hence why it’s very important to check this in growing children who exhibit difficulty breathing through the nose and/or teeth crowding to address the root cause before growth finishes. People with deviated septums (nose) and flatter nose bridges may naturally struggle to breathe through their nose predisposing them to poor tongue posture. 

• Tongue ties: 

  The band of tissue connecting the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth can be short, tight, thick, or positioned in a way that restricts normal tongue movement and function. This is the case from birth. Healthcare providers may check for tongue tie in babies that struggle to feed/latch. In a lot of cases it goes unnoticed into adulthood, where we are now very unlikely to be checked for tongue ties, despite the fact that it is very common and does not self-resolve. It is a good idea to check for tongue tie in people who had feeding or latching difficulties as babies or speech difficulties in childhood (or now). 

What we do at Posture Positive

Because jaw tension, breathing, and tongue posture are closely connected, assessment needs to address the bigger picture. We have a specialist TMD (Jaw) appointment for help with the following symptoms:

• Unable to stop clenching or grinding your jaw and/or teeth either during the day, at night time, or both

• Have been prescribed or encouraged to wear a night guard or mandibular advancement device by your dentist or remarked that you have tooth wear

• Have a diagnosis of or suspect you might have TMJ/TMD (temporomandibular dysfunction), including symptoms of jaw clicking, locking, or pain in the jaw joint, limited mouth opening, pain when chewing 

• Forward head posture

• Snoring, disturbed or low quality sleep or OSA (obstructive sleep apnoea) 

• Swallowing or speech difficulties

• Orofacial pain, headaches, persistent jaw, face, neck or head tension

• Tinnitus with unknown cause

We will check your ability to breathe through your nose, your resting tongue posture, whether you may have a tongue or lip tie, your head and neck posture, teeth and palate, jaw joint and jaw muscle pain and functioning, and more depending on what you need and present with. We will discuss oral habits and advise on changes you can make at home, prescribe home exercise plans that include tailored posture, tongue and/or jaw exercises and provide some hands -on treatment or onward referral if needed for further investigations. 

Our examination and hands-on treatment often involve working intra-orally (from the inside of the mouth) to most effectively assess and release tight and overworking jaw and/or tongue muscles, as long as you are comfortable with this. As always, we explain our reasoning and the process as we go so that everything makes sense and you understand what is going on and how to resolve things. 

In summary 

Not all snoring or bruxism is caused by tongue posture alone, and not everyone will improve with posture changes, there is often a need to rehabilitate tongue function with specific exercises as well as addressing other contributing factors. There’s lack of high-quality research showing a direct, strong link between tongue posture and bruxism. 

It’s also important to recognise that tongue posture and airway function remain vastly under-researched areas of healthcare. Awareness of the airway’s role in conditions such as bruxism is relatively recent, and education around this is only just beginning to expand across dentistry, orthodontics, and physical and manual therapy professions such as physiotherapy, osteopathy, and chiropractic.

It’s worth remembering that there is rarely a single cause for any problem in the body (that would be too simple and put us osteopaths out of a job!). Bruxism is not just caused by your bite, tongue, stress, or posture alone, it is more likely the result of several interacting factors. Understanding how these systems interrelate is key to addressing the root cause rather than simply managing symptoms.

For more information, visit our Jaw/TMD hub on our website: https://www.posturepositive.co.uk/jaw-tmdhub where we will be adding further blogs exploring these connections in more detail.

Holly Keeler, M.Ost.