One of the most important and busiest muscles in the body besides the heart and the diaphragm is the tongue. Tongue movement is crucial for talking, breathing and eating, but the tongue is also imperative for taste, digestion, immune function and in our developmental years is crucial to palate formation, teeth, and a functional bite. The tongue is so important that the innate wisdom of the body dedicated a specific nerve supply direct from the brain stem via cranial nerve 12 – The Hypoglossal Nerve.
The tongue really is very busy!
But your tongue is more than ‘all that’ it can also provide you with important health feedback. And learning it is simpler than what you may think. I imagine every morning you likely look at yourself in a mirror when getting ready for the day. But do you simply look in the mirror and move on or do you really look in the mirror including inside your mouth?
The tongue is a reflection of our health and there is a lot we can learn about what it’s attempting to communicate with us. The ancient and very wise health professionals were not able to look into the body, certainly not like we can today, they relied on the observations they made. The tongue was but one body part these ancient wise health professionals would look closely at, as a tool, for understanding the persons health. Believing that the tongue may hold a clues to a person’s health they would set about observing it’s coating, moisture, shape and colour, and this is still used today.
If you listened to the radio interview I did on the wisdom of our teeth you would have heard me share about how our teeth have an energetic connection to our organs and your tongue is no different, it’s all mapped as well.
Let’s take a look at what parts of the tongue relate to what organs:
- Sides of the tongue = liver and gall bladder
- Tip of the tongue = heart
- Back of the tongue = kidneys and bladder
- We can further divide the area between the tip and the back of the tongue into thirds:
- Front 1/3 = lungs and colon
- Middle 1/3 = stomach, pancreas and spleen
- Back 1/3 = small and large intestines
Did you know a healthy tongue is pinkish in colour and contains around 9,000 papillae which are small bumps visual to the eye and contain our taste buds. But what if your tongue colour deviated from pink, what could that possibly indicate?
Well…
- Pale pink may indicate a vitamin deficiency, decreased energy and a weakened immune system.
- White may indicate an infection or detoxification.
- Yellow may indicate an infection or too much tobacco, alcohol or coffee use.
- Grey may indicate long term digestive challenges associated with antibiotic use.
And..
- A thick tongue may indicate poor intestinal health.
- A thin tongue may indicate dehydration.
- A hairy tongue may indicate a reaction to certain medications.
- And a scalloped tongue may indicate poor nutrition and decreased absorption of nutrients.
Genius, isn’t it?
Perhaps you haven’t thought of your tongue as a communication pathway to help you understand what might be changing inside.
Time to take a look!
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