Public Speaking Prep: Forward Jaw Stretch

Video Transcript

"Okay, the next jaw exercise is actually a really, really good one. What you want to do is you want to stand with your feet a little bit apart and just relax your legs, make sure that your legs are not, your knees aren't locked, and that you are standing relaxed. You're going to put your arms in front of you. I want you to reach forward as far as you can and drop your head. Now when you reach forward you're stretching, this is called the forward stretch. You're stretching forward. You're going to drop your head, you're not going to force it down, you're just simply going to drop it, and once you've dropped it you're going to yawn. And this one's a really, really easy one to do because by stretching forward it makes your body relax and you want to yawn. So you want to drop that head, don't force it down, and yawn. What happens when you yawn is you really open up that jaw, you start to relax that jaw muscle. Yawning really can relax those muscles. So you want to do the forward stretch. Maybe you do it twice, maybe you do it three times, but the important thing, again, is that your whole body is relaxed, that you're not holding tension in your arms or your shoulders, or your knees. You're just reaching forward and you are yawning."