The Most Ignored Muscle in Your Body Could Be Affecting Your Sleep, Breathing & Health

Darin Olien (0:03)

Welcome to SuperLife with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all.

Get ready to start living your super life. SuperLife with Darin Olien SuperLife with Darin Olien By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Over 500 toothpaste tubes have been thrown away since I've started this ad. You don't think of these small little things, but they add up a lot over time and we can do something about it. That ends up to be over a billion plastic toothpaste tubes a year alone. That ultimately end up in our environment and in our waterways and ultimately ends up in the ocean. Do you want to add to this or do you want to do something different? Plus, maybe that exposure to that plastic, getting the plasticizers and the endocrine disruptors and then putting that toothpaste in your mouth also is not a good idea. There's some great solutions. You can DIY stuff. I've got many of these in my Fatal Conveniences, but the easy ones that I use every day and I'm about to travel a lot more and the traveling makes them really easy, I go to bite. I bite down on a little tablet which is not interacting with any plastics because it's in a glass bottle and it's refillable and reusable and sustainable and there's no unwanted toxic fluorides, flow agents and solvents in my mouth.

My favorite is this Bite Toothpaste, 100 percent home, compostable pouches, subscription models, you don't even have to think about it again. You're helping you by putting clean products in your mouth and you're helping the environment because Bite Toothpaste is one of the best company, as I've seen, looking at all aspects of their supply chain and their refillable, reusable, sustainable, regenerative practices. So Bite is offering you, all my listeners, 20 percent off your first order. Go to trybite.com, T-R-Y-B-I-T-E forward slash Darin20 or just use the promo code Darin20, D-A-R-I-N, and you can get 20 percent off your first order with a great new toothpaste without using the tube. Right now, without changing anything, notice where your tongue is. That's right.

Is it up on the roof of your mouth or lying low behind the bottom of your teeth? Jaw clenched, lips apart, what's going on there?

Most people have never once thought about where their tongue sits.

Yet, that one muscle shapes our face. You heard me, it shapes our face. It guards our airway.

While you sleep, it also feeds bacteria that help control your blood pressure and connects through fascia all the way down to your feet. We brush, whiten and straighten our teeth. The tongue we ignore.

Today, the most ignored muscle in your body. And at the end, a two minute routine you can do with me right now, unless you're driving. Welcome to SuperLife. So, the tongue didn't break on its own. Four modern conveniences took its job away. What are you saying, Darin?

Yeah.

Number one, soft food. For the most of human history, we chewed roots, mostly fibrous plants. Yeah. On occasion, not on some bone. Now, our calories come soft and processed.

In Jaws, the book, Sandra Kahn and Paul Enrich argued, this is a big reason modern jaws are smaller and teeth are more crowded. We didn't evolve to drink our meals. On occasion, of course, I still eat all my veggies, but I also drink a smoothie. It's okay every once in a while. Your face is built to chew.

Number two, why is everybody mouth breathing? When the mouth hangs open, the tongue drops to the floor.

In classic primate experiments, blocking the nose changed the shape of the growing face and jaw. I hope, I hate, you know what, I hate it, side note. When I'm reading experiments that there's no way I would have supported, makes me sick. Even though this one's not a bad one, they're doing it all the time.

Number three, you're not gonna think of this one, antiseptic mouthwash. That's right. The back of your tongue hosts bacteria. It helps regulate your blood pressure.

Sterilize them, and that pathway gets shut down.

Now, keep in mind, I have the show notes to all of this incredible research. Number four, you guessed it, screen posture. Head forward over a phone, pulls the tongue and hyoid bone down and back, and loads the jaw and neck all day. All of these Fatal Conveniences. Okay, so here's a little deep, deep dive on the science. Couple myths.

You know how they used to say, maybe you heard it, I did, the tongue map from school said with sweet on the tip. So we receive sweet on the tip of the tongue and bitter in the back. That's wrong. It came from a misread 1901 German paper, every part of the tongue taste every taste. The tongue map you learned in school was a mistake that lasted for 70 years. And it's not your strongest muscle.