A short YouTube monologue (by Joy Kong, MD) arguing that tongue posture directly affects neck and spinal alignment. The speaker explains anatomical and physiological connections — nerve pathways from the brainstem and fascial links — and claims proper tongue positioning helps maintain correct neck and back posture.
And the tongue can change our posture. You literally cannot have a properly aligned neck and back without proper tongue posture. It's connected to the nerve endings that come from the brainstem that goes into here, but also muscularly. The tongue doesn't just stop at the back of our throat. It goes down our throat. The tongue is the only muscle that doesn't require an attachment on both ends to move. Every muscle in our body needs an attachment point to contract, pull, and push off of. The tongue is the only organ that just sits, freely floating, doing this. But it is connected through the fascia to our spine and to our neck and going down our neck. And so that innervates all of that down there. So proper tongue posture and position can help keep your neck where it's supposed to be. And that information just doesn't stop there. It signals all the way down the spinal column.
