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[For Seniors] Oral Exercises to Keep Eating Deliciously and Enjoyably
Daily meals are important for staying healthy for years to come.
To help older adults enjoy their meals, try actively incorporating oral exercises into your daily routine.
As we age, it becomes harder to swallow food, and the risk of choking and aspiration increases.
To help prevent aspiration, simple oral exercises before eating are recommended.
In this article, we introduce easy pre-meal oral exercises recommended for older adults.
To improve swallowing, it’s important not only to exercise the mouth but also to loosen the muscles around the mouth, as well as the shoulders and neck.
Incorporate these oral exercises and enjoy your meals.
[For Seniors] Oral Exercises (1–10) for Enjoyable, Delicious Eating—Now and Always
salivary gland massage
When you swallow food, you may produce less saliva and it may not pass smoothly through your throat.
This exercise aims to stimulate the secretion of saliva—essential for eating—from the outside.
It’s a simple routine in which you massage the three salivary glands with your fingers: in front of the earlobe, inside the bone below the ear, and under the tongue.
While the massage promotes saliva production, it also seems to help strengthen the facial muscles at the same time.
It might be good to stay aware of where the saliva is coming from and think about the mouth’s movements when eating.
clearing one’s throat
Sometimes food or phlegm can get stuck while you’re eating.
It’s important to practice coughing in case that happens.
Don’t worry—the practice only involves two steps.
First, clear your throat three times with your mouth closed.
Next, cough three times with your mouth open.
This way, it’s easy to remember and put into practice right away.
By the way, doing three each helps prevent your throat from getting tired.
Also, be cautious when people are nearby, as the risk of infection increases.
AIUEO exercises
This is an exercise that strengthens the muscles inside the mouth and across the entire face through pronouncing the basic syllables “a-i-u-e-o.” Because these are the first characters everyone learns in the Japanese syllabary, it feels familiar, and as vowels, the key point is that the shape of the mouth changes.
By opening your mouth wide to pronounce them and expressing the sounds with conscious facial expressions, you can train various parts of the face in a well-balanced way.
If you add small variations—such as rearranging the letters and pronouncing them, or paying attention to pitch—you can also expect benefits as brain training.
AIUEBE exercises
This is an exercise that trains the face through the pronunciation of “a-i-u-be,” which is also used as a small-face (facial slimming) exercise.
By making various mouth movements in this routine, it may also help you become more aware of how your mouth moves when eating.
The key is to pay attention to the shape of your mouth and to pronounce clearly while focusing on the movement of your throat.
Additionally, by being mindful of how widely you open your eyes and your facial expressions during pronunciation, you can effectively train not only your mouth but the muscles of your entire face.
The “be” part, where you stick out your tongue, is also important; moving the tongue helps improve the ability to carry food toward the throat.
Chin-lifting exercise
The muscles in your throat are important for swallowing food.
This exercise helps strengthen your swallowing while keeping your attention on that area of the throat.
First, make fists with both hands and place them under the tip of your chin, then gently tuck your chin in.
From there, apply upward force with your fists as if lifting your chin, while pressing your chin downward against your fists, and hold that position.
The key point is that having something clear to push against makes it easier to visualize the direction of force.
It’s important to apply firm pressure without straining your neck.
Uiui Gymnastics
When it comes to bringing food properly into the mouth and keeping it from spilling out, the lips are also an important muscle, aren’t they? This exercise helps you focus on lip movements while simultaneously training the facial muscles.
It’s simple: just alternate pronouncing “u” and “i,” with the movement of the lips in each sound being key.
To pronounce clearly, you move the lips forward and back, which helps you learn how to engage the lips.
Firmly changing the shape of the mouth also stimulates the inside and helps promote saliva secretion.
mouth exercise
The muscles in the face and mouth are important not only for eating but also for pronouncing words and creating rich facial expressions.
This exercise steadily trains those facial muscles by slowly performing basic mouth movements.
First, pronounce “a-i-u” slowly with exaggerated mouth movements, paying attention to the movement of your cheek muscles and your throat.
Next, move your tongue in various directions.
By applying tension to the tongue and moving it slowly, you can build awareness of how you move it while also strengthening the muscles.