Lip Trainer

Description

Let’s keep it simple by describing the Lip Trainer as a rehabilitation training tool for the treatment of the muscular functions of the mouth cavity….or “Lip Yoga”.

And yet it is so much more than that because

Using the Lip Trainer strengthens your orbicular muscles (your lip muscles). This causes you to sleep with your mouth closed rather than open.

The result?  Nose breathing raises the position of the tongue allowing more oxygen into the brain and body. This makes more of a difference that most people realise.

Put in simple terms, it’s because breathing easier matters.

The name ‘Patakara’ was derived from papa…. tata…. kaka…. rara…. that Speech Therapists use for patients to pronounce key words in speech training. So the device was developed originally for patients who suffered from strokes.

When blood flows to the brain, turning on the synapses, the facial muscles are activated.  This stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (that part of the autonomic nervous system that controls rest and digestion). 

In his book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art James Nestor writes:

“Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

Mouthbreathing, it turns out, changes the physical body and transforms airways, all for the worse. Inhaling air through the mouth decreases pressure, which causes the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward, creating less space and making breathing more difficult. Mouthbreathing begets more Mouthbreathing.”

Link with cranial nerves

Dr Peter Julu, Breakspear Medical Group’s Specialist Autonomic Neurophysiologist, hypothesises that the Lip Trainer may activate the seventh cranial nerve nucleus in the brain stem. This sits near the rostral ventrolateral medulla oblongata, which is the area that can modulate sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and thus have effect on immunity as well. Now being studied by many health groups around the world the Lip Trainer has been used since 2000 by over one million people.  Most of the new users have come from recommendations made by existing users. 

What does the Lip Trainer do?

                 Lip Trainer

The developer has shown that, by exercising and strengthening the lips, the Lip Trainer can:

• increase cerebral blood flow

benefiting conditions including Down Syndrome – behavioural issues – attacks of epilepsy – stroke conditions – creation of synapses in newborns – mental alertness – aphasia – dementia (Alzheimers and Parkinson’s) – brain damage – mental rehabilitation.

• activate facial expressions

Bell’s Palsy – drooling – bleeding from the gums while brushing – bad breath – mouth ulcers – excess phlegm – dry mouth – teeth grinding – sagging face – double chin – stiff neck – fine wrinkles – TMJ (temporomandibular) disorders such as alignment of teeth.

• co-ordinate the movement of tongue and throat

benefiting conditions including speech and articulation disorders – swallowing disorders – snoring – sleep apnea (OSAS) –  breathing difficulties – blocked nose – hypertension – irregular heartbeat.

• boost parasympathetic nervous system

benefiting conditions including common colds – unidentified coughs – shallow sleep – toilet visits at night – bedwetting – atopic eczema – bowel and bladder issues – asthma attacks – menopause – depleted immunity – rheumatism – diabetes and blood sugar levels – kidney conditions – Sjogren’s Syndrome (an immune system disorder).

Nose Breathing vs Mouth Breathing

The act of breathing through the nose instead of the mouth raises the position of the tongue allowing more oxygen into the brain and body. The data provided by the Japanese researchers show that changing from mouth breathing to nose breathing has numerous positive effects on oxygenation of the brain, bad breath, dry mouth and abnormal salivation, positively alters the bacterial counts in the mouth and reduces blocked nose. They have also reported improvements in bladder control at night and cold intolerance.  

A healthier life (and longer lifespan) can be yours it you absorb sufficient oxygen. Dr. Arthur C. Guyton writes, “All chronic pain, suffering, and diseases are caused by a lack of oxygen at the cell level.”

Insufficient oxygen means insufficient biological energy.  In turn this may result in mild fatigue to life-threatening disease. “Oxygen plays a pivotal role in the proper functioning of the immune system,” says Dr. Parris M. Kidd.

Low oxygen conditions lead to inflammation. Once inflammation becomes chronic, it mirrors our body’s low oxygen state.

Let’s Look Closer At How We Breathe 

Breathing is about exhaling and inhaling: expiration and inspiration.  In the preface of his book The Tao of Natural Breathing, Dennis Lewis writes: 

“…two facts have become clear to me with the regard to the relationship of breath to health and inner growth. First, that our poor breath habits have arisen not only out of our psychosomatic ‘ignorance’, our lack of organic awareness, but also out of our unconscious need for a buffering mechanism to keep us from sensing and feeling the reality of our own deep-rooted fears and contradictions. There is absolutely no doubt that superficial breathing ensures a superficial experience of ourselves. Second, that if we were able to breathe more ‘naturally’ for even a small percentage of the more than 15,000 breaths we take during each waking day, we would be taking a huge step not only preventing many of the physical and psychological problems that have become endemic to modern life, but also towards supporting our  own inner growth – the growth of awareness of who and what we really are, of our own essential being.”

Breathe Through Your Nose

The renowned spiritual pathfinder G. I. Gurdjeff said: “Without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered”.

To breathe is to live and to breathe fully is to live fully.  The natural, full-body breathing we are born with is compromised as we cut ourselves off from our feelings and emotions, most commonly to survive the often traumatic challenges of childhood.  The result? Chronic shallow breathing reduces our breathing capacity to one third of its potential. The effect of that? Diminished exchange of respiratory gases that in turn reduce our cellular energy depriving us of many health-giving actions that natural breathing would have in our inner organs.

Want to look like Denzel Washington or Jennifer Aniston?

Look critically at certain film stars and you’ll see a facial symmetry.  For aspiring thespians this is a distinct advantage when auditioning for a part as it’s one of the features casting directors look for.  Men and women have a greater appeal when they have symmetrical faces and bodies. Denzel Washington, People Magazine’s sexiest man  way back in 1996 was found to have an almost perfectly symmetrical face.

Thanks to Readers Digest for the image of Denzel Washington.

Stimulating the muscles of expression through regular use of the Lip Trainer can catalyse such facial changes, including an improvement in posture.  By increasing the facial expression muscles, an improvement of posture results as strengthening cheek muscles directly impacts the muscles at the back of the back of the neck.

The Lip Trainer has benefited the following conditions 

1.   Down’s Syndrome

Those with Down Syndrome were born without developed facial expression muscles (ie weak strength of lip closure).  Consequently their faces have a similarity – an open mouth, a chubby face with conditions such as sleep apnea, difficulty swallowing, speech disorder and hearing difficulties. When Down Syndrome sufferers start to exercise their lips to strengthen their orbicular muscle, there will be a recovery of those symptoms.

Lip Trainer can help people with Down’s Syndrome

This image above speaks for itself. This girl’s father in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia said at a special needs education conference in 2011 that his daughter developed the ability to talk using the Lip Trainer and after 3 years of its use can now speak fluently.

2.   Gum Disease (Bleeding from the gums while brushing teeth)

A recent report from the Singapore Government shows that 85 % of Singaporeans have gum disease because the incidence of breast feeding is low.  Breast feeding is of course where the orbicular muscle of mouth develop; this is not the case with bottle feeding as considerably less sucking is required with the latter.  When these children grow up and become adults, their weak orbicular muscles will cause them to sleep with an open mouth.

Statistics from the USA show that 46% of men and women over 30 years old suffer from gum disease.

3.   Anti-Ageing and Face Slimming

Gravity and age are generally believed to combine resulting in a sagging of the facial skin.  This is reversible as the ‘gravity’ aspect is merely the facial muscles becoming weaker.   Use of the Lip Trainer will tighten the facial muscles as well improving breathing.

4.   Dementia

The speech therapists at the Okuno Hospital (Tokyo) announced, for the first time in the world that “The dementia (Alzheimer) can be improved with the Lip Trainer Patakara”.

Blood flow to the frontal lobe of the brain increases when lip exercises are carried out with the Lip Trainer.  The brain works as an energy source. It is normally found that the function of the brain decreases in those with Dementia as blood flow to the brain has decreased. There are four parts of the brain, the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, temporal lobe and the occipital lobe.  It is believed that with dementia, blood flow to the frontal lobe reduces first.

5.   Mouth Ulcers 

People suffering from painful mouth ulcers have reported that, after breathing through their nose, their ulcers stopped immediately.  The reason for this is that nose breathing allows saliva to be retained in the mouth at night and saliva is key to the prevention of mouth ulcers.  Saliva is indeed the best mouthwash available, far superior to the damaging commercial mouthwashes advertised on TV.   

6.   Night Toilet Visits

Those trips to the toilet in the middle of the night will decrease within a few weeks and then stop if you use the Lip Trainer correctly, 4 times per day. These disturbances are caused by an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system that create shallow sleeping patterns. The increased cerebral blood flow brought about by lip-training will stimulate a deeper sleep and help release antidiuretic hormones from the pituitary gland reducing or eliminating altogether any need to visit the toilet.

7.   Bad Breath

With mouth breathing, saliva in your mouth quickly evaporates. Mouth breathing also allows bacteria to enter with each air intake.  While bad breath is caused by bacteria in the throat as well as trapped food between teeth, we now know that gum disease and ‘furry tongue’ do not cause halitosis as we have been told.  So If you could start closing your mouth during sleep, those bacteria will be washed up by saliva each day. Your bad breath could be gone in as little as 2 weeks.

8.   Sleep Stress / Flu / Common cold / Sore throat / Dry Mouth / Phlegm / Bad attack of coughing / Attack of Asthma

When Lip Trainer users successfully change to nose breathing and started lip-exercising regularly, they wrote to let us know these conditions listed above were resolved. The main cause of the symptoms were largely caused by mouth breathing. 

80 % of bacteria are filtered out by nose breathing.

9.   Blocked Nose (Sinus)

There is correlation ship between volume (size) of nasal chamber and strength of facial expression muscles.  Mouth breathing when asleep and a lack of strength of the facial expression muscles can bring about a shrunken nasal chamber.  This can be exacerbated in those who have had ENT operations to straighten or enlarge nasal channels. To reduce or stop a blocked nose consciously change from mouth to nose breathing and strengthen the facial expression muscles. 

10.   Snoring

Many snorers have swollen soft tissue around the pharynx.  This is also brought about by years of mouth breathing.   To stop snoring it may take anything up to 6 months of nose breathing and lip training to reduce the swelling. The snoring sound is caused by the speed of exhaled and inhaled air passing through the narrow passage around the swollen pharynx or at the root of the tongue when the passing air causes it to vibrate.

tongue position

Here’s a brief interview (4:19) with Oya Seiichiro in Singapore on the Lip Trainer

Let’s see what some Lip Trainer users have to say:

“My wife bought the Lip Trainer from you a few months ago in Singapore and it is working very well for her. She managed to breathe through her nose after 3 days! And she has stopped snoring at night too.” Dentist in Australia

“Thank you very much for recommending me to use Patakara. Im very grateful.  I have had a brain tumour surgery in Taiwan when I was 9 years old. Post surgery, my left face was left paralysed. Symptoms were like Bell ‘s Palsy. I have been affected with my appearance my whole life. I’ve been searching for solutions all these years. I am already 36 years old now.  2 years ago I passed by your stall and you introduced me to Patakara. I started to see results for the next 1-2 months . It has improved my smile a lot . Even my plastic surgeon in novena Mount Elizabeth hospital encouraged me to continue using when I visited him in may 2014.  I would like to urge everyone to try this device because it will help you. Don’t give up. We will always have hope.”  36 year old Female Makeup Artist in Singapore.

My snoring stopped one day after buying lip trainer, it was very helpful!  Let me carry on using it in order to verify the effectiveness to the other my symptoms. Translated from Japanese

User Guide

Inserted in the mouth to fit under the lips, the user exerts pressure on the lips to keep them together, thus strengthening facial muscles.  This encourages breathing through the nose other than the mouth.  The result?  Saliva is prevented from evaporating and problems such as mouth ulcers and bad breath are kept at bay.

Recommended use is to insert the lip trainer and close the lips together for at least three minutes.  Do this four times a day.  If your lips can’t close the device completely  for 3 minutes continuously, the effectiveness will not be 100%.  The device must be fully closed in order to align your facial muscles around its shape. If your lips can’t close upper & lower device completely without gap for 3 minutes continuously and 4 times per day, the effectiveness will not perform 100%, the hardness is not important but device must be fully closed in order to roll up orbicular muscle of mouth and your facial muscles by the shape of device.

 It is said that the 3-min session just before bedtime is especially effective, so try to do it as often as you can.

You can use the extensions to stretch for 5 second intervals in each direction (left, right, upwards and downwards).

The Lip Trainer is manufactured by combining the elastic properties of plastic and rubber.  The resilience of this material applies pressure directly to the muscles of the mouth and cheek, strengthening them.   Developed by a Japanese dentist and registered for use as a Medical Device with the Ministry of Health in Japan, the daily use of the Lip Trainer appears to have a curative influence.  Whilst the improvements may be gradual, they can also be visible because they are linked with improved motor movements (brains and limb co-ordination; autonomic nervous system) as well as cognitive functions.