Happy is the real pretty. This technique is called TMJ love. TMJ stands for temporal mandibular joint. It’s where your temporal bone and your mandible come together. You may have heard of TMJ syndrome and that’s when that area has unnecessary tension, clenching, sometimes the jaw can be out of alignment.

Well besides bones and muscles and skin, this particular technique is about creating an upward flush from your chin towards your ear and then a downward flush in your throat towards what’s called your thoracic duct.

You can look it up. It’s a very fascinating body part. It’s a part of your lymphatic system. Well how is this relevant? When you wake up in the morning and you maybe had a wild night out on the town or even just a little more food than usual, maybe even some wine, you know what it’s like to look puffy.

It’s usually here and sometimes just your whole face has a swollen look to it. So instead of focusing on the negative, let’s learn a technique to help create an upward flush of that pooling liquid so that it can get towards this magical body part called your thoracic duct.

So imagine there was a little garden hose right here and you’re trying to get all the swelling in your face to move towards that area. Good news, you can use your fingers. If you have a roller, it’s also a great time to use your roller.

So you’re going to start at your jaw and go up. If you keep your roller in the refrigerator, it’s even more luxurious and it creates a constriction of your cells as that’s what happens to us when something cold is on our tissue.

So I’m cruising up here. It feels wonderful and in my imagination, which is fundamental to this method, I’m visualizing swelling and puffiness moving out of my face. so that it can drain back towards the thoracic duct.

So, I’m gonna do the other side so I’m not crooked. I obviously believe in this method or I wouldn’t be worried about that. And as I get up towards my ear, I’m visualizing it moving out. You can go a little higher in your cheeks if you want.

Always go over and below the lips. Then I might use the skinny end or the big one, whatever feels best to you. I’m gonna turn and face the mirror so you can really see what I’m doing here. I’m going from the ear down, moving in a gentle glide.

If you ever have what’s called lymphatic drainage, and they always pronounce it drainage, which is a fancy way to say drainage, you are going to feel that the practitioner uses what’s called a nickel’s weight.

So literally a nickel, five cents. On your hand, a nickel’s weight feels like nothing. It’s barely touching you. And so when you have lymphatic drainage, which really helps with swelling and moving your fluids around, the practitioner is barely touching you at all.

It can almost seem like, is anything really happening here? But I was taught that the lymph system has these very silky little strands that are right underneath our skin. And so that very light touch actually really helps.

Remember, you can use your roller. You can also do this in the shower with your fingertips. I live in a place where we have a lot of pollen and people are always complaining about their sinuses. So I’ve learned how to take my own hands in the shower after I’ve massaged my face and just kind of gotten everything moving.

Blow your nose a few times, you know, get it all out. To take your chin up like this and to drag your fingers towards this garden hose that’s called the thoracic duct. So this movement is called TMJ Love because it does initiate on the jaw line, bringing that love towards your TMJ.

Relaxing your jaw along the way, moving your mandible side to side will really help. But remember, there’s so many layers. We’ve got bones, muscle, skin, lymph, circulation, and we’re just trying to stimulate all of it through these gentle techniques.