When I first came to London, aged 22, I responded to an advert for a flatshare. The person answering the phone said “Hello” in a perfect high pitched Monty Python voice. My response was to put the phone down; I couldn’t have shared a flat with this person!

Occasionally we all meet people that appear tense due to a nervous pulse in their jaw area. It makes us feel ill at ease, as they don’t appear to be fully engaged in the conversation but ‘worrying’ about something.

In most cases, the cause is a tense jaw. Such tension impacts on the quality of the speaker’s voice or causes the pulse in a person’s jaw area. Both verbally and non-verbally, it has a negative impact on the person’s ability to communicate with others.

Additionally, a tense jaw can also create headaches. These are not only unpleasant, but they reduce the ease of communication and engagement with others on the phone or face to face.

So, to avoid headaches, giving off negative non-verbal signals or creating a voice that has a negative impact, here are five tips for relaxing your jaw. In all cases, never force your jaw to move where it is uncomfortable. If you do any of these exercises before an important telephone conversation, meeting, or whenever you get a headache, you will feel the difference.

1. Very gently move your lower jaw from side to side. Repeat 10 times.

2. Open your mouth as far as you can. Make sure your tongue is behind your bottom teeth. Slowly close your mouth and lips until your lips make a small ‘o’. Repeat 5 times.

3. Open your mouth slightly. Gently move your bottom jaw forward, then do a circular movement down, round towards your head, up, then stick your jaw out again. Repeat 5 times.

4. Gently massage your jaw sockets on either side of your face.

5. Every half hour, check you aren’t tensing your jaw. Remind yourself to have a gap between your top and bottom teeth of at least 1 cm.

In appearing and being relaxed, we can interact with others comfortably and easily.