A gummy smile, where more than 2 to 4 mm of gum tissue shows above your upper teeth when you smile, isn’t something you can fully eliminate with home remedies alone. But depending on the cause, certain exercises and techniques can reduce how much gum you show, and understanding your options helps you decide what’s worth trying before considering clinical treatments.
What Causes a Gummy Smile
Showing 1 to 2 mm of gum tissue when you smile is completely normal. Dentists generally consider 4 mm or more of visible gum tissue to be excessive, though some experts draw the line at 2 to 3 mm. Several different things can cause it, and the cause determines which approaches will actually help.
A hyperactive upper lip is one of the most common reasons. The muscles that pull your upper lip upward are simply stronger or more active than average, lifting the lip higher than it needs to go. This is the type most responsive to exercises and non-surgical fixes. Other causes include teeth that didn’t fully emerge from the gum line during development (passive eruption), a longer than average upper jaw bone, or naturally short upper lip anatomy. Some people have a combination of these factors.
Lip Muscle Exercises That Can Help
If your gummy smile is caused by overactive lip muscles, training those muscles to control how high your lip rises can make a visible difference. These exercises work by building awareness and control over the muscles around your upper lip and nose. They won’t reshape bone or move teeth, but they can teach your lip to rest lower when you smile.
One well-documented exercise focuses on retraining your smile itself. Practice smiling with full tension in the muscles, pulling laterally (toward your ears) rather than upward. Focus on keeping your gum tissue covered, with only the tips of gum between your teeth visible. Hold that position for 10 seconds. Repeating this trains the muscle pattern your face defaults to when you smile naturally.
A second exercise targets the specific muscles that lift your upper lip:
- Open your mouth slightly and flare your nostrils
- Wrinkle your nose as far as possible while relaxing your upper lip
- Slowly draw your upper lip upward as high as you can and hold for 10 seconds
- Concentrate on your upper lip and slowly bring it back down, then relax
A more advanced version adds resistance. Place your middle and index fingers on your cheekbone just below your eye. With your mouth slightly open, curl your upper lip upward slowly and hold for 10 seconds. Then curl it as high as possible against the finger pressure and hold another 10 seconds before slowly returning to the starting position.
These exercises need consistency over weeks to build lasting muscle memory. Think of it like retraining a habit. Your smile is a motor pattern your brain runs automatically, and reshaping it takes repetition. Results are most noticeable in people whose gummy smile is mild (2 to 3 mm of excess gum showing) and primarily caused by lip muscle activity rather than bone structure.
Does Mewing or Tongue Posture Work?
Mewing, the practice of pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth to supposedly reshape your jaw, has no scientific evidence supporting its use for gummy smiles or any other structural change. The American Association of Orthodontists has stated directly that claims about reshaping your jaw through exercises or oral posture “hacks” are not supported by research. The technique has generated enormous social media attention, but no published studies show it provides any benefit to jaw alignment or smile aesthetics. Save your time for the lip exercises above, which at least have a documented mechanism.
When the Cause Is Structural
Exercises only address the soft tissue component of a gummy smile. If your gum display comes from teeth that sit too low in the jaw (over-eruption) or a jaw that grew longer than average vertically, no amount of lip training will fix it. These structural causes need physical repositioning of either the teeth or the gum tissue itself.
Orthodontic treatment can push over-erupted teeth upward into the jaw bone, a movement called intrusion. In one documented case, a patient’s entire upper set of teeth was moved upward and backward over about nine months using a combination of clear aligners and small temporary screws placed in the palate for anchorage. The gummy smile improved because the teeth and surrounding gum tissue physically shifted to a higher position. This is a real, lasting correction, but it requires professional treatment and typically takes many months.
For gums that simply cover too much of the tooth surface, a procedure called crown lengthening removes or reshapes excess gum tissue to expose more of the tooth underneath. This is a one-time fix when the issue is gum overgrowth rather than tooth or jaw position.
Botox as a Middle Ground
If exercises aren’t enough but you’re not ready for orthodontics or surgery, small injections that temporarily relax the lip-lifting muscles are the most common next step. A typical treatment uses only 4 to 10 units total, split between both sides of the nose, targeting the spot where the muscles that elevate the upper lip converge. The effect is subtle: your lip simply doesn’t rise as high when you smile.
Cost is relatively low compared to most cosmetic treatments. Most patients pay somewhere between $50 and $170 per session depending on how many units they need and local pricing. A mild gummy smile (2 to 3 mm) might need only 4 to 6 units, while more pronounced cases (over 5 mm) could require 8 to 10 units. The tradeoff is that results last only three to four months before the muscles regain full function, so it’s an ongoing expense.
Matching the Fix to Your Cause
The most important thing you can do is figure out why your smile shows excess gum. Stand in front of a mirror and smile naturally. If you can use your fingers to gently hold your upper lip a few millimeters lower and the smile looks the way you want, your issue is likely muscular, and exercises have the best chance of helping. If your teeth look short even when you pull your lip out of the way, the issue is more likely gum tissue coverage or tooth position, which exercises won’t change.
For the muscular type, commit to the lip exercises daily for at least six to eight weeks before judging results. Practice your lateral smile pattern throughout the day, not just during dedicated exercise sessions. Some people find that simply becoming aware of their smile mechanics and consciously adjusting how they smile leads to a natural-looking change over time, especially in photos where you have a moment to set your expression. The exercises won’t eliminate a severe gummy smile, but for mild to moderate cases driven by muscle activity, they’re a legitimate and free starting point.