At What Age Does Mewing Stop Working?

Mewing, the practice of pressing the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth and maintaining that posture throughout the day, does not have a single age at which it “stops working,” because what counts as “working” changes dramatically depending on how old you are. The real dividing line is the midpalatal suture, a seam of fibrous tissue running along the roof of the mouth that allows the upper jaw to widen during growth. That suture begins closing in the early-to-mid teens and becomes increasingly resistant to non-surgical forces through the twenties. The skeletal changes mewing enthusiasts hope for become progressively harder to achieve once that biological window narrows, but softer tissue changes and functional benefits like improved tongue posture and nasal breathing may persist at any age.

Why the Midpalatal Suture Matters So Much

The roof of your mouth is not a single piece of bone. It is two halves joined by a suture that, in children, remains open and responsive to pressure. This is the same principle orthodontists exploit when they use palatal expanders on kids: gentle, sustained force widens the suture and the upper jaw grows broader. The tongue, resting against the palate, exerts a similar kind of low-grade outward pressure throughout the day. Research confirms that the tongue supports the upper dental arch and encourages healthy arch development when it rests in the correct position against the palate.

In children and early adolescents, that suture is wide open and highly responsive. A study using cone-beam CT scans to classify suture maturation found that the earliest stages of suture development, when the bone edges are still separated and unmineralized, were typically observed up to about age 13. A transitional stage appeared mostly between ages 11 and 17, and actual fusion of the suture started appearing after age 11 in girls. Among boys aged 14 to 17, only about one in four showed any fusion at all, and only in a limited region.

So the suture does not slam shut on a birthday. It closes gradually, with enormous individual variation. Another imaging study found that roughly 71% of people aged 10 to 15 still had an open midpalatal suture. That number dropped to about 21% for those aged 16 to 20, and further to about 17% for those 21 to 25.

These numbers tell you something important: even in the 16-to-20 age range, about one in five people still has an open suture. And after age 20, the suture’s width and volume continue to decrease, with the rate of bony closure increasing noticeably.

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The Childhood and Early Teen Window

If mewing has a golden age, it is childhood through early adolescence, roughly up to age 13 or 14. During this period, the facial bones are actively growing, the sutures are wide open, and the forces exerted by the tongue actually matter in guiding skeletal development. This is why orthodontists and orthotropic practitioners emphasize early intervention: the skeleton is still moldable.

Children who habitually breathe through their mouths or rest their tongue on the floor of the mouth tend to develop narrower palates, more crowded teeth, and longer facial profiles. When the tongue sits where it is supposed to, against the roof of the mouth, it acts as a natural expander. This is not controversial in orthodontics; the tongue’s role in shaping the upper arch and influencing the maxillary complex during development is well documented.

For children and preteens, proper tongue posture is less about “mewing” as a self-improvement technique and more about basic orofacial function. If a child has a tongue-tie, mouth-breathing habit, or chronically low tongue posture, correcting those issues early is straightforward because the biology is on their side. The suture is open, the bones are growing, and the forces needed to guide that growth are gentle.

What Happens Between 14 and 25

This is the murky middle ground where most of the online debate about mewing lives, and for good reason. The suture is in transition. Some people in this age range still have open sutures; most are partially or fully fused. That variation matters because it means two 18-year-olds doing exactly the same tongue exercises might have very different skeletal potential.

The data from suture maturation studies shows this clearly. At 16 to 20 years old, roughly one in five individuals still had an open suture. By 21 to 25, that number barely changed, hovering around 17%.

This means the majority of young adults already have significant suture closure, but a meaningful minority does not. If you are in that minority, the palate may still respond to sustained forces. If you are in the majority, the skeleton is largely set.

Sex also plays a role. Suture fusion tends to begin earlier in girls than in boys. One study found that complete fusion in the palatine and maxillary regions appeared after age 11 in girls, while boys at 14 to 17 showed only partial fusion and only in about 23% of cases.

Without imaging, you cannot know where you fall on this spectrum. A cone-beam CT scan is the standard tool orthodontists use to assess suture maturity before deciding whether non-surgical palatal expansion is feasible. That assessment can provide information critical to deciding between non-surgical expansion and surgical approaches for adults with narrow palates.

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Skeletal Changes Versus Everything Else

Here is where the conversation about mewing “working” gets muddled. Online communities tend to conflate several different types of change: actual bone remodeling of the maxilla, dental tipping (teeth moving within existing bone), soft tissue reshaping, improved muscle tone in the jaw and tongue, and better breathing patterns. These are not the same thing, and they do not all have the same age cutoff.

Skeletal change, meaning the upper jaw literally widening or moving forward, is what requires an open or partially open suture and substantial growth potential. This is the hardest change to achieve in adults and the one most constrained by age. After suture fusion, the forces required to split the palate are enormous, far beyond what the tongue can produce. Even mechanical devices designed for this purpose face limitations in older patients. Research comparing miniscrew-assisted rapid palatal expansion (MARPE) and surgically assisted rapid palatal expansion (SARPE) has found that patient age is a critical factor in success, with older patients increasingly likely to require the surgical approach.

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If a mechanical appliance bolted to your bone with screws sometimes cannot open a fused suture without surgery, the tongue pressing gently against the palate is not going to do it. That is the honest reality for adults whose sutures have fully closed. Mewing in a 30-year-old is not going to widen the maxilla.

Dental tipping, on the other hand, can happen at any age. Bone responds to sustained pressure throughout life, and teeth can drift within the alveolar bone in response to forces applied over months or years. Animal and clinical studies have demonstrated that both continuous and intermittent pressure can induce bone remodeling.

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This means the tongue pressing against the teeth could, theoretically, produce minor dental movement over time, but this is not the dramatic forward growth of the jaw that mewing advocates promise. And uncontrolled dental tipping without orthodontic supervision can actually create bite problems rather than solve them.

Myofunctional Benefits That Persist at Any Age

Separate from the question of bone growth, mewing is essentially a simplified version of orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT), a legitimate clinical discipline focused on retraining the muscles of the face, tongue, and throat. OMT has been studied for a range of conditions and has shown measurable outcomes for several of them, regardless of the patient’s age.

A scoping review of myofunctional therapy research found studies addressing conditions including mouth breathing, lip incompetence, low tongue resting position, and atypical swallowing patterns.

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These are all functional problems rather than skeletal ones, and they can improve with directed therapy even in adults.

More specifically, one study examining orofacial myofunctional therapy for low tongue posture found that the group receiving therapy had a significantly higher rate of tongue posture improvement compared to the group that did not, roughly 76% versus 51%. The therapy group also showed improvements in nasal airway function, with lower airway pressure drops and less nasal obstruction.

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There is also emerging interest in tongue posture as a factor in obstructive sleep apnea. A randomized controlled trial protocol has been developed to test whether controlling tongue position can reduce abnormal breathing events during sleep.

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If maintaining tongue-on-palate posture helps with breathing during sleep, that benefit does not expire at any particular age.

The functional side of mewing, learning to breathe through your nose, resting your tongue in the right spot, swallowing properly, is probably where the practice offers the most defensible benefit for adults. These are habits that affect how your muscles support your face and airway, and muscles remain trainable throughout life even after the skeleton has stopped growing.

The Tongue Produces Real Pressure, but Not Enough for Bone Splitting

One study measuring tongue pressure against the hard palate found that even at rest, the tongue exerts continuous pressure, and that pressure increases from front to back along the palate. During swallowing, pressure spikes considerably, with measurable differences between the front and back of the palate and between males and females.

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This confirms that the tongue is not just passively sitting there; it applies force to the palate all day. In a growing child, that force contributes meaningfully to palatal shape. In an adult with fused sutures, the force is still present but the bone is no longer responding by widening. It is a bit like pushing against a door that has been welded shut: your arm still works, but the door is not going anywhere.

What the tongue’s pressure can do in adults is maintain muscle tone, influence the soft tissues draping over the bone, and possibly affect minor dental positioning over long periods. Some adults who adopt proper tongue posture report that their jawline looks more defined or their face appears slightly different. These observations are consistent with changes in muscle tone, soft tissue posture, and possibly fat distribution under the chin rather than skeletal restructuring. The distinction matters because soft tissue changes are relatively minor and take effect slowly, while the dramatic before-and-after transformations circulating online typically show adolescents photographed over years of natural facial maturation, not isolated mewing results.

When Professional Intervention Beats DIY

For adolescents and young adults who genuinely have a narrow palate or a significant jaw discrepancy, relying on mewing alone wastes the very growth window that makes change possible. Orthodontic palatal expansion using a device like a Hyrax expander is far more effective in young patients because it applies controlled, measured force directly to the suture. For post-pubertal patients, miniscrew-assisted devices (MARPE) represent a valid alternative because they anchor into bone and can generate enough force to open a partially fused suture.

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For adults whose sutures have fully fused, even MARPE sometimes fails, and surgically assisted expansion becomes the necessary route. The progression is straightforward: the older the patient, the more intervention required for the same skeletal result. A teenager might need a simple expander. A 20-year-old might need MARPE. A 30-year-old might need surgery. And none of these outcomes can be replicated by tongue posture alone.

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If you are in your teens and think your palate is too narrow or your bite is off, talk to an orthodontist while growth is still on your side. Mewing is not a substitute for orthodontic treatment, and the window for the easiest, least invasive corrections is finite.

The Social Media Problem

Mewing’s popularity has exploded through social media, particularly among adolescent boys and young men, and the claims made online frequently outpace the evidence. Dermatology researchers have noted that mewing has gained widespread popularity on social platforms despite limited scientific evidence supporting its efficacy, and that these trends shape beauty norms especially among adolescents who are more susceptible to internalizing aesthetic ideals.

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The before-and-after photos that drive mewing’s appeal online are nearly impossible to evaluate. Lighting, angle, body fat changes, natural growth, and puberty all confound the comparison. A 15-year-old who starts mewing and takes a photo three years later will look different because faces change enormously during adolescence regardless of tongue posture. Without controlled conditions, these images tell you nothing about what mewing specifically contributed.

This does not mean tongue posture is irrelevant. The underlying idea, that the tongue should rest against the palate, that nasal breathing is healthier than mouth breathing, that facial muscles benefit from correct function, is sound and supported by legitimate research. The problem is the extrapolation: that these habits alone will reshape an adult’s facial skeleton, give you a wider jaw, or replicate the results of orthognathic surgery. They will not.

A Practical Age-by-Age Perspective

For readers trying to figure out where they fall, here is a rough framework based on the biology discussed above:

Under 13: The suture is almost certainly open, and facial growth is in full swing. Correct tongue posture, nasal breathing, and proper swallowing patterns can genuinely influence how the face develops. If there are functional problems like chronic mouth breathing, this is the time to address them, ideally with professional guidance.
13 to 17: The suture is transitioning. Some skeletal responsiveness remains, especially in boys, but it is decreasing. Adopting good tongue posture is still worthwhile for functional reasons, but if there is a structural jaw problem, an orthodontic evaluation makes more sense than a DIY approach.
18 to 25: The suture is closed or nearly closed in most people. Skeletal changes from tongue posture alone are unlikely. Functional benefits of proper tongue posture and nasal breathing still apply. If palatal expansion is needed, MARPE with individual suture assessment via imaging is the clinical path.
Over 25: The suture is almost certainly fused, with ongoing ossification making it increasingly rigid. Skeletal change from mewing is not a realistic expectation. Muscular and soft tissue benefits remain available. Surgical options exist for those with significant jaw discrepancies.

What the Tongue Is Actually Good At

The tongue exerts measurable, continuous pressure against the palate in both sitting and lying positions, with that pressure varying by location and increasing toward the back of the mouth.

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This is not nothing. A low tongue posture, where the tongue rests on the floor of the mouth rather than against the palate, is associated with mouth breathing, poor swallowing mechanics, and in some cases airway compromise during sleep.

Training yourself to maintain correct tongue posture can help with nasal breathing, reduce snoring, improve swallowing function, and potentially support better airway patency during sleep. These are clinically meaningful outcomes that have nothing to do with reshaping your jawbone. For adults, this is where mewing’s real utility lives. The practice is not useless after your sutures close; it just stops being a skeletal intervention and becomes a muscular and respiratory one.

If you are an adult who recently discovered mewing and feels disappointed that it probably will not change your bone structure, consider reframing the goal. Breathing better through your nose, keeping your tongue off the floor of your mouth, and maintaining decent muscle tone in your face are all things worth doing for their own sake. They just are not the dramatic facial transformation that internet culture promises.

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PubMed Central. Comparison of Side Effects Between Miniscrew-Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion (MARPE) and Surgically Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion (SARPE) in Adult Patients: A Scoping Review
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