Hey Everyone. I'm Priya Mistry, the TMJ doc, and this video is all about releasing the Temporalis
muscle. This muscle is a key player in clenching and grinding and when it becomes dysfunctional,
it can cause tension headaches, pain at the temple that kind of feeds all around the head,
and even pain into the jaw. If you're prone to tension headaches, if you're prone to headaches
in general, or pain at the temples into the jaw watch this video until the end and then you'll
have some good techniques on how to release the Temporalis muscle on yourself from the comfort of
your own home! For those of you who don't know me, I'm a General Dentist with a practice in
beautiful Portland, Oregon where we are dedicated to taking care of patients with TMJ Disorders. I
work here with my wonderful mentor, Dr. Arthur L. Parker. I've learned so much from him, I'm so
grateful to him.. and if you haven't already, check out our website! Check out my Instagram
handle. I post on there quite frequently - tips, tricks, trivia about TMJD so if you're interested,
check that out! So let's get right into it! The Temporalis muscle! This muscle originates
in the temporal bone and the temporal fascia - or connective tissue - and it's kind of like a
fan shape and it comes down and inserts into the coronoid process of the mandible. The function of
this muscle is to elevate and retract the jaw, so it closes and pulls the jaw back. To release this
muscle, I recommend three different moves. The first move runs with the fibers of the muscle,
so you can use your middle knuckles - which are these guys right here.
And place them against the temporalis muscle and as you kind of go back, apply pressure towards the
center of your head and actually spread your fingers or splay them away from each other.
This muscle is fan shaped and quite wide, so when you spread your fingers away from each other you
can get into all of that muscle. Here's the demo for that one! Take your middle knuckles, start
right where you would guess the coronoid process to be and then just go ahead and move backwards.
I am spreading my fingers away from each other.. it's kind of hard to tell that I'm doing that,
but if I start with my fingers together, I'm slowly separating them away from each other
as I go along and this muscle actually goes a little further back than you might imagine. So
you can just sort of keep going back as you get into it more and more. The second move is going
perpendicular to the fibers of the muscle, so you can take your middle knuckles, you can take your
fingertips.. doesn't matter. But basically, you're just going to go perpendicular to that muscle
so you're just going to take your fingertips, put pressure in, apply pressure onto your head - not
too much just, so that it feels good - and go backwards... and ah that feels really great!
Just such a good way to release the muscle because you're running with the fibers and you're running
kind of perpendicular to them. So the third, last, and arguably most effective move to release this
muscle is focused only on the anterior fibers. For many of us the anterior fibers are much more
involved in clenching and grinding activity than the middle or the posterior fibers of this muscle.
So for this move, you're basically just going to take your pointer
and middle fingers. You're going to feel above your zygomatic bone, so your cheekbone here,
and right behind your orbital or your eye bone. There's a little depression there,
and you're just gonna place your fingers there and press inwards for five to ten seconds at a
time and that's enough to release that muscle. And you can do that throughout the day if you
feel a tension headache coming on or you know you've been clenching a lot that day. Just take
your fingertips and apply some inward pressure. It feels really really good for those anterior
fibers of that muscle, so really you can do all three of these moves two to three times a day
to help release tense or fibrotic areas in the Temporalis muscle. So that's really it,
my friends! Pretty straightforward! If you like what you heard or you learned something new,
click "Like" below, Subscribe to my channel, feel free to reach out with comments or
questions! I'm always happy to answer them, and remember - you can never have TMI about TMJ!