Quick answer: TMJ exercises relieve jaw pain by retraining the coordination between the large muscles that close your jaw and the smaller muscles that open it. The routine I give my patients has four steps: a tongue-to-palate warm-up, hinge opening, extended opening, and resisted sliding movements, done three times a day, ideally before meals. A systematic review in Physical Therapy found that jaw and neck exercises combined with hands-on therapy showed promising effects on TMD pain and mouth opening. Most mild TMJ symptoms improve with this kind of conservative care.
- Most people with TMJ symptoms have mild or periodic cases that improve within weeks or months of simple home care.
- The exercises work on coordination. When the opening and closing muscles fire in the right order, the joint tracks straight, and clicking and pain drop over time.
- Where your tongue rests all day matters as much as the exercises. Tongue on the palate, lips together, teeth apart is the resting position the whole routine is built around.
- Do the routine in order, three times a day, and stop any step that hurts, creates a new joint sound, or makes your jaw catch.
- During a flare-up, skip gum, hard and chewy foods, wide yawns, and big bites. Those habits keep the joint irritated no matter how well you exercise.
- A jaw that locks, clicks with pain, or wakes you with headaches needs an exam. Exercises help manage TMD, and finding out why yours started is the part a video can't do.
Can TMJ be fixed by exercises?
For many people, yes, mild TMJ pain settles with exercises and simple self-care alone.
The TMJ Association reports that most people have relatively mild or periodic symptoms that can improve on their own within weeks or months with home therapy.
Exercises speed that along by fixing the most common driver of jaw pain, which is muscle. Clenching, grinding, stress, and a low resting tongue keep the chewing muscles contracted for hours at a time, and a contracted muscle eventually aches. Over time the big closing muscles overpower the small opening muscles, the jaw starts tracking off-center, and you get the click.
The limit: exercises retrain the muscles, and they can't reposition a displaced disc or rebuild joint surfaces. If your pain comes with locking, a bite that suddenly feels different, or clicking that hurts, you're past the do-it-yourself stage and the smart move is an exam to find out which type of TMD you have.
Start with your tongue
Your tongue should rest on the roof of your mouth, with your lips closed and your teeth slightly apart. That's the position every exercise below returns to, and it's the position your jaw is supposed to spend the day in.
When the tongue rests low in the mouth, the jaw hangs open or drifts forward, the muscles under the chin work all day to hold it, and the chewing muscles pick up the slack by clenching. Fixing the resting posture takes load off the joint between exercise sessions, which is most of the day.
The tongue-and-airway connection is a big part of how I look at TMD. A tongue that lives on the palate keeps the airway open and the jaw in a neutral, unloaded position. A tongue that lives on the floor of the mouth usually comes with mouth breathing, and a mouth breather clenches. Myofunctional therapists build entire programs around this, and the warm-up in step one is the simplest version of it.
The TMJ exercises I give my patients
Do the four steps in order, three times a day, ideally before meals. You can do the routine more often as long as it stays painless. Mild muscle fatigue is fine. Sharp pain, a new joint sound, a louder click, or a jaw that catches means stop that step and reduce the range next time.
This is the jaw muscle exercise protocol I learned at the Kois Center, and it's built to improve coordination between the opening and closing muscles so joint sounds and pain fade over time. A mirror helps for the first week.
1. Tongue warm-up.
Press the tip of your tongue firmly against the ridges on the roof of your mouth, about an inch behind your top front teeth. Say "NNNNNNN" out loud for 5 seconds, then let your tongue drop and relax. This teaches your jaw where neutral is and wakes up the tongue-jaw connection everything else depends on.
2. Hinge opening.
Curl your tongue back so the tip touches the highest point of your palate. Keeping it there, open your mouth about an inch. Your chin should drop straight down like a hinge, with no forward slide. Hold 5 seconds, then close slowly and stop just short of your teeth touching. Repeat 10 times. If your chin wants to push forward, guide it back with your fingertips and watch in the mirror.
3. Extended opening.
Start with your teeth together and your tongue tip on the deepest part of your palate. Open slowly while the tongue stays in contact and slides backward along the roof of your mouth. Hold that open position for 5 seconds. Then let the tongue drop and keep opening as wide as is comfortable. Hold 5 seconds. Close and repeat for 5 full cycles, each one starting from closed.
4. Resisted sliding.
Keep your teeth slightly apart for all three parts.
- Right. Slide your jaw to the right as far as it comfortably goes. Place two fingers against the right side of your chin and press gently while your jaw muscles resist, so the jaw stays put. Hold 5 seconds. Return to center and do two hinge openings from step 2.
- Left. Same thing to the left: slide, gentle finger pressure on the left side of the chin, resist for 5 seconds, center, two hinge openings.
- Forward. Push your jaw straight forward as far as is comfortable, ideally until your bottom front teeth pass your top front teeth. Press gently backward on the tip of your chin while your jaw resists. Hold 5 seconds. Return to center and finish with two hinge openings.
Steps one through three teach your jaw to open on a straight, relaxed track. Step four builds coordinated strength so the joint gets support instead of strain.
A note on posture. Forward-head desk posture loads the jaw for hours at a time, and neck exercises are part of why the Physical Therapy review found combined programs promising. A simple chin tuck helps: sit tall, draw your chin straight back to make a double chin, hold 5 seconds, repeat 10 times. Do it between the jaw sessions rather than in place of them.
What not to do when you have TMJ pain
The biggest mistakes are the small habits that keep the joint irritated between exercise sessions. During a flare-up, drop these:
- Chewing gum. Hours of extra work for a muscle group you're trying to rest.
- Hard, crunchy, and chewy foods. The TMJ Association recommends a softer diet during symptoms, along with smaller bites that keep you from opening wide.
- Wide yawning and big bites. Support your chin with a fist when you feel a yawn coming.
- Resting your chin on your hand. It pushes the jaw sideways for as long as you sit that way.
- Clenching through your day. Your teeth should only touch when you chew and swallow. Tongue up, lips together, teeth apart is the resting position to retrain.
- Mouth breathing. It drops the tongue, opens the jaw, and feeds the clenching cycle. If you can't breathe comfortably through your nose, tell your dentist, because that's a separate problem with its own fix.
- Pushing through painful exercises. Pain, a new click, or a catch during an exercise is your signal to reduce the range or skip it, since forcing a sore joint makes the cycle worse.
Heat and cold earn a mention here because they pair so well with everything above. In a TMJ Association survey, 74% of respondents said hot and cold packs reduced their symptoms.
Use moist heat for a dull ache and a wrapped cold pack for sharp pain, about 10 to 15 minutes at a time. Heat right before the exercise routine makes the muscles easier to move.
When exercises aren't enough for TMJ pain
See a dentist when pain lasts beyond a few weeks, keeps returning, or comes with locking, painful clicking, ear pain, or morning headaches. The same goes if the exercises themselves create a new joint sound or make your jaw catch, because that means something inside the joint is in the way.
Those symptoms point to something an exercise routine can't diagnose:
- nighttime grinding that needs a custom night guard
- a disc problem inside the joint
- a bite issue feeding the muscle tension
- an airway problem that keeps your tongue low and your jaw working all night
At my practice, managing TMD starts with figuring out which of those is driving your pain, because the treatment that helps one cause does nothing for another. The exercises above stay part of the plan either way. They just work better once you know what you're treating.
Frequently asked questions
Can TMJ be fixed by exercises?
Mild, muscle-driven TMJ pain often resolves with daily coordination exercises, correct tongue posture, a softer diet, and heat or cold. Structural problems inside the joint, like disc displacement, need professional diagnosis and treatment, with exercises playing a supporting role.
How do I strengthen my TMJ?
Use resisted sliding movements: move your jaw right, left, and forward as far as is comfortable, hold each position 5 seconds against gentle finger pressure, and follow each one with two hinge openings. Keep your teeth slightly apart the whole time. Strengthening works best after the tongue warm-up and hinge openings, since the goal is coordination rather than raw force.
What not to do in TMJ disorder?
Avoid gum, hard and chewy foods, wide yawns, large bites, resting your chin on your hand, mouth breathing, and daytime clenching. Skip any exercise that causes sharp pain or a new click, and don't wait months on a jaw that locks or clicks painfully.
Can I do TMJ massage myself?
Yes. Massaging the masseter, the thick muscle you feel bulge at the corner of your jaw when you clench, is safe and helps many people. Use slow circular motions with two fingers for a minute or two, and do the same at your temples. Adding moist heat first makes the muscle easier to release.
About the Author
Dr. Abbey Gonzales is the owner and founder of Opal Dental Studio in Huntersville, North Carolina. She earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery from the UNC School of Dentistry after first completing a Master of Arts in Intercultural Healthcare at Wake Forest University and serving as a Public Health Fellow. She is a graduate of the Kois Center and imPRES-trained in advanced esthetic dentistry, with a clinical focus on consent-based, biocompatible care and strong attention to TMJ, airway screening, and minimally invasive treatment.
Before dentistry, she trained as a linguist and is fluent in Tagalog, Spanish, and English. Her path to dental school was personal: her mother immigrated from the Philippines and lost most of her teeth by age 20, then made it her mission that her daughter would keep every one of hers.
Outside the office, Dr. Gonzales is an Ironman athlete and marathon runner, a serious foodie, a traveler, and a pianist — you might catch her cycling through downtown Huntersville before or after a clinic day.
Jaw pain that keeps coming back? Let's find out why
Exercises manage the symptom, and a proper exam finds the cause. Opal Dental Studio is a biological dental practice in downtown Huntersville, NC, serving Cornelius, Davidson, and the Lake Norman area. If your jaw pain keeps returning, book a visit and we'll look at your joint, your muscles, your tongue posture, and your bite together.
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