One of the biggest surprises from getting orthodontic treatment
wasn’t actually my teeth becoming straighter.
It was realizing how closely my bite seemed connected
to the position of my neck.
I inherited a deep bite from my father,
where my upper and lower teeth overlapped quite a bit.
As my teeth gradually shifted during treatment,
my lower jaw moved slightly backward.
And somehow,
I became incredibly sensitive
to the feeling of “how easily I can bite.”
I notice it most clearly
after long hours of desk work
or after spending too much time looking at my phone.
On those days,
my back teeth don’t quite fit together properly.
I can’t bite down comfortably.
I catch myself thinking,
“Hm… something feels off today.”
When that happens,
I gently massage or stretch
the sternocleidomastoid muscle along the side of my neck.
It’s the muscle that runs diagonally
from the collarbone to just behind the ears.
The one that starts near the hollow
between the collarbones—
right around where a necktie would sit.
I often imagine this muscle
as a kind of beam.
Like the beam that supports a bridge.
A structural support
holding up the weight of the head.
When I gently draw my lower jaw slightly backward,
I can naturally feel this muscle engage.
And somehow,
once it settles into place,
my bite feels more stable too.
To me,
the sternocleidomastoid feels like a remarkably strong muscle.
Around the area behind the ears,
it almost feels like a thick rope—
maybe two centimeters wide.
But at the same time,
people with chronic neck discomfort,
forward head posture,
or what’s often called “tech neck”—
many of them seem to have
very weak, collapsed versions of this muscle.
The “beam” that should be helping support the head
isn’t really functioning.
So instead,
the bones of the neck end up carrying the weight directly.
And the head is heavy.
The farther forward it falls,
the narrower the spaces between the seven cervical vertebrae become.
Looking up or turning the head sideways
naturally becomes more difficult too.
At least, that’s how I imagine it.
And I’ve come to feel that
this “beam” also needs a foundation.
To me,
that foundation is the rib cage.
The rib cage is made up of the sternum, ribs, thoracic spine, and collarbones.
So when the upper back becomes too rounded,
or when the body loses its natural curves altogether,
the foundation itself becomes unstable.
And of course,
that affects the neck sitting above it.
I noticed all this through my bite,
but I sometimes wonder if something similar
is happening in people who live with chronic neck or shoulder tension.
Lately,
I’ve been making time to place my hands gently on my back
and take a deep breath.
I imagine my lungs expanding
in all 360 degrees.
As if both sides of my spine
are being softly stretched from within.
Not just the front of my chest,
but my back body too.
My rib cage widening quietly with each breath.
I pause to feel that sensation
for just a few seconds each day.
Only a few seconds.
But somehow,
they feel like very important seconds
for my body.