How to Stop Sucking Your Tongue: Effective Methods

Tongue sucking is a repetitive oral habit in which the tongue presses against or suctions to the roof of the mouth, the teeth, or the cheeks, and stopping it requires a combination of awareness-building, targeted muscle retraining, and sometimes professional intervention. Unlike many habits that fade on their own after childhood, tongue sucking can persist into adulthood and quietly reshape your teeth, jaw, and swallowing pattern. The good news is that several well-studied methods exist, from behavioral techniques you can start today to clinical approaches that retrain the tongue’s resting posture over months.

Why Tongue Sucking Matters More Than You Might Think

Tongue sucking might seem like a harmless quirk, but the tongue exerts steady force against whatever structures it contacts. Over time, that pressure can push the upper front teeth forward, weaken the lip seal needed for normal swallowing, and contribute to a gap between the upper and lower front teeth known as anterior open bite. The relationship between tongue habits and bite problems runs in both directions: abnormal tongue posture can drive the bite open, and an existing open bite can force the tongue into a forward, thrusting position as a way to create a seal during swallowing.¹ When thumb sucking or other oral habits are also in play, the combination tends to make things worse, weakening lip muscles and accelerating incisor protrusion.²

Beyond the dental consequences, tongue sucking and the abnormal tongue posture it creates can affect speech. Research comparing children with tongue-thrust habits to those without found that the tongue thrusters scored significantly worse on tasks requiring precise tongue-tip movement and oral shape recognition, regardless of whether they also had a lisp.³ The takeaway is that the habit does not just move teeth around. It can dull the tongue’s sensory precision in ways that ripple into speech clarity and swallowing coordination.

Start With Awareness

You cannot change a habit you do not notice. Tongue sucking is especially tricky because it often happens during moments of concentration, stress, or sleep, when your conscious attention is elsewhere. The first practical step is to identify your personal triggers. Some people suck their tongue while reading or watching screens; others do it in response to anxiety; still others only do it at night. Keeping a simple tally of how many times you catch yourself in a day gives you a baseline and, just as usefully, trains your brain to flag the behavior in real time.

A few concrete awareness tricks help. Set random reminders on your phone throughout the day, and when one goes off, check where your tongue is. Another approach is to place a small physical cue in your environment, like a colored sticker on your computer monitor, that prompts a tongue-position check every time you see it. The goal at this stage is not to stop the habit perfectly but to shrink the gap between doing it and noticing you are doing it. That gap is what the more structured methods below are designed to close.

Habit Reversal Training

Habit reversal is a behavioral technique originally developed for tics and repetitive body-focused behaviors, and it has strong evidence for oral habits specifically. The core idea is straightforward: once you detect the unwanted behavior, you immediately perform a competing response that makes the habit physically impossible. For tongue sucking, a common competing response is to press the tongue tip firmly against the small ridge just behind the upper front teeth (the alveolar ridge) with the lips closed and teeth slightly apart, and hold that position for about a minute. That posture is incompatible with sucking, so it disrupts the cycle each time.

In a controlled trial comparing habit reversal to a different technique called negative practice (where patients deliberately repeat the habit to build fatigue and awareness), the results were dramatic. Patients who received habit reversal treatment for oral habits like biting, chewing, licking, or pushing of the cheeks, lips, teeth, or palate showed roughly a 99 percent reduction in habit frequency over a 22-month follow-up, compared to about a 65 percent reduction for the negative-practice group. Both groups received treatment in a single two-hour session.⁴ That kind of durability from a single session is unusual in behavioral interventions, and it makes habit reversal a first-line approach worth trying before anything more involved.

You can practice habit reversal on your own, though working with a therapist who specializes in habit disorders can help you fine-tune the competing response and build motivation. The key elements are awareness training (covered above), the competing response itself, and social support, such as enlisting a partner or friend to gently point out when they notice you doing the habit.

Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy

If the tongue sucking is entangled with broader problems like a low resting tongue posture, mouth breathing, or a dysfunctional swallowing pattern, a structured program of orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT) is the standard clinical approach. OMT is a set of exercises prescribed by a trained therapist, usually a speech-language pathologist or a dental hygienist with specialized certification, that retrain the muscles of the tongue, lips, and cheeks to function in their correct positions at rest and during swallowing. Clinically, OMT has been shown to improve swallowing patterns, correct tongue posture, address improper muscle function, and reduce relapse after orthodontic treatment.⁵

A recent study looking specifically at low tongue posture found that patients who completed OMT improved their tongue position at a rate of about 76 percent, compared to roughly 51 percent among those who did not receive therapy. The OMT group also saw higher rates of improvement in nasal airway obstruction, about 81 percent versus 48 percent in the control group.⁶ Those numbers suggest that OMT is not just a tongue exercise; it appears to influence the entire airway and breathing pattern, which makes sense given how tightly tongue posture, nasal breathing, and oral habits are linked.

A typical OMT program runs several months and involves weekly or biweekly appointments combined with daily home exercises. The exercises themselves are not exotic. They include pressing the tongue to the palate and holding, practicing correct swallowing with a small amount of water, strengthening the lip seal, and training yourself to breathe through your nose during the day and, eventually, during sleep. Compliance matters enormously. The therapy works by building new neuromuscular patterns, and like any muscle retraining, consistency is the difference between lasting change and a temporary improvement that fades.

Tongue Exercises You Can Practice at Home

While a full OMT program is supervised, several foundational exercises are safe to do on your own and can help break the sucking pattern by strengthening the tongue and reinforcing correct resting posture.

Spot hold: Place the tip of your tongue on the “spot,” the small bumpy ridge right behind your upper front teeth, and press upward firmly. Hold for five seconds, relax, and repeat ten times. This trains the tongue to default to the correct resting position rather than suctioning to the palate or pressing against the teeth.
Tongue pop: Suction your entire tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, then release it with a popping sound. The goal is to build awareness of the suction action (the same mechanism behind tongue sucking) so you can catch and redirect it. Do ten repetitions, twice a day.
Cheek resistance: Push your tongue firmly into the inside of one cheek, then use your finger to push back from the outside, making the tongue work against resistance. Hold for five seconds on each side. This strengthens the lateral tongue muscles, which tend to be weak in people with oral habits.
Correct swallow practice: Take a small sip of water, place your tongue tip on the spot, and swallow while keeping the tongue pressed against the palate. Your teeth should be lightly together and your lips closed. This retrains the swallowing reflex to use the tongue correctly rather than thrusting forward or suctioning.

These exercises are supplementary, not a replacement for professional evaluation if the habit is causing dental or speech problems. But for mild cases or as maintenance after formal therapy, they form a solid daily routine. Tongue exercises have also shown benefits beyond habit correction, including improved quality of life for people with obstructive sleep apnea, reduced snoring, and better sleep quality.⁷

Orthodontic Appliances for Persistent Habits

When behavioral methods and myofunctional therapy are not enough, particularly in children whose habits are actively distorting their bite, orthodontic appliances can physically block the tongue from assuming the wrong position. The most common designs include palatal cribs (metal frameworks cemented behind the upper teeth that prevent the tongue from pressing forward), bonded spurs (small pointed projections that create mild discomfort when the tongue pushes against them), and Bluegrass appliances (a roller bead on a wire that gives the tongue something to play with, redirecting the habit).⁸

Fixed appliances generally outperform removable ones, for the simple reason that compliance is not a factor when the device is cemented in place. In a study comparing the two approaches in children with anterior open bite caused by tongue thrust, the fixed appliance group achieved about 76 percent correction of their open bite, while the removable group achieved about 51 percent. Complete bite closure was reached in 70 percent of children with fixed appliances versus 40 percent with removable ones, and the fixed group finished treatment faster, averaging about ten months compared to nearly twelve for the removable group.⁹

Importantly, these appliances do more than just block the tongue mechanically. Tongue pressure measurements taken during crib therapy show that the tongue actually adapts its behavior over time. Resting tongue pressures measured at twelve months of crib use remained lower than the values recorded before treatment, suggesting the tongue learns a new baseline rather than simply being held in check while the appliance is in place.¹⁰ That adaptive behavior is encouraging, because it means the appliance is retraining the neuromuscular pattern, not just physically restraining it. Hybrid designs that combine restraining and muscle-retraining functions are also available for patients who need correction of multiple habits simultaneously.¹¹

Why Figuring Out the Cause Changes the Treatment

Not all tongue sucking or tongue thrusting has the same origin, and the distinction matters for choosing the right approach. Some people develop the habit as a leftover from infant sucking reflexes, thumb sucking, or pacifier use. Others develop it as a compensatory response to a structural issue: if there is already a gap between the upper and lower front teeth, the tongue naturally moves forward during swallowing to seal that gap, and the repetitive motion can become habitual even after the structural problem is corrected.

Clinicians sometimes distinguish between an “adaptive” tongue thrust, which develops in response to an existing bite problem, and an “endogenous” tongue thrust, which is thought to originate from the tongue’s own dysfunctional neuromuscular pattern. In practice, telling the two apart is extremely difficult. The challenge of this distinction is well recognized in orthodontic literature, and it has practical implications: treating a structural problem without addressing the underlying tongue habit risks relapse, while training the tongue without fixing the structural issue may be futile if the tongue is simply compensating for anatomy it cannot change.¹² This is why the most successful treatment plans tend to combine approaches, using appliances or orthodontics to correct the bite while simultaneously retraining the tongue through OMT or behavioral strategies.

Dealing With Nighttime Tongue Sucking

Tongue sucking during sleep is harder to address than daytime habits because you cannot consciously redirect the behavior. Daytime oral parafunctions, which include clenching, grinding, tongue pressing, and cheek biting, are remarkably common. In a large study of 38-year-olds, nearly half reported daytime parafunctional habits, and about a third reported nocturnal parafunction. Those with either type had measurably worse oral-health-related quality of life.¹³

For nighttime tongue sucking specifically, the strategies shift toward indirect approaches. Reducing daytime stress and practicing relaxation techniques before bed can lower the overall drive toward oral parafunctions during sleep. A custom-made oral appliance, similar to a night guard for bruxism, can create a physical barrier that discourages tongue suctioning. Some OMT therapists also use taping techniques (narrow medical tape across the lips) to promote nasal breathing during sleep, which indirectly discourages the tongue from dropping into abnormal positions. Fixed orthodontic appliances like palatal cribs work around the clock, which is one reason they outperform removable devices: they are still active while you sleep.

How Clinicians Measure Tongue Pressure and Track Progress

One challenge with treating tongue habits is that progress can be hard to measure objectively. You might feel like you are doing better, but is the tongue actually exerting less pressure? Newer sensor technologies are making this measurable. Thin, flexible force-sensing strips can be placed inside the mouth to record tongue pressure against the palate in real time, both at rest and during swallowing.¹⁴ These sensors are thin enough to be comfortable and sensitive enough to capture the difference between a relaxed tongue and one that is suctioning.

Even more recently, mouthguard-type devices have been developed that can continuously monitor tongue pressure over longer periods, capturing each swallowing event as a distinct pressure spike. In testing, these devices measured an average tongue pressure of about 182 grams per square centimeter per swallow, consistent with previously reported values.¹⁵ While these tools are currently used mostly in research settings, they are moving toward clinical use, where they could give therapists and patients objective feedback on whether the tongue’s behavior is genuinely changing over the course of treatment. Biofeedback devices that show you your tongue pressure visually, in real time, already exist for use in clinical swallowing rehabilitation, and the principle translates directly to habit correction: seeing a number go down when you relax your tongue is a powerful motivator.

When Children Should Be Evaluated

Parents often wonder whether a child’s tongue sucking will resolve on its own. Many oral habits do fade by age four or five as the child matures and develops more complex oral motor control. But if the habit persists beyond that window, especially if the child’s front teeth are visibly separating or flaring forward, early evaluation is worthwhile. Orthodontists and pediatric dentists can assess whether the bite is being affected and whether a habit-breaking appliance or referral for myofunctional therapy is warranted.

Timing matters because the jaws and palate are still growing in childhood, which means both damage and correction happen faster. A palatal crib placed at age seven or eight can take advantage of active growth to close an open bite while simultaneously breaking the tongue habit. Waiting until adolescence means the skeletal growth window is closing, and correction may require more extensive orthodontic treatment or, in severe cases, surgery. That said, adult treatment is absolutely possible. The tongue is a muscle, and muscles can be retrained at any age. The process simply takes longer and may need to be combined with orthodontic correction if years of abnormal pressure have already shifted the teeth.

Combining Methods for the Best Outcome

The most reliable results come from layering approaches rather than relying on any single method. A reasonable sequence for an adult who notices they suck their tongue habitually might look like this: start with awareness training and a simple competing response from habit reversal. Add daily tongue exercises to build strength and reinforce correct resting posture. If the habit is tied to a swallowing dysfunction or a low tongue posture that does not respond to self-directed work, seek out a certified orofacial myofunctional therapist. If dental changes are already present, or if the tongue habit keeps relapsing after behavioral and muscular approaches, consult an orthodontist about whether an appliance or bite correction is needed.

For children, the path often starts with a dental evaluation, moves to an appliance if the bite is affected, and includes myofunctional therapy either alongside or after the appliance to make sure the tongue does not revert once the hardware is removed. The combination of mechanical correction and active muscle retraining addresses both the structural and neuromuscular sides of the problem, which is why relapse rates tend to be lowest when both are used together.