Jaw left/right training
Each photo shows one side of a person’s jaw. Decide whether it is their own left side or right side. Answer as quickly as you comfortably can.
What this exercise asks
This is a body-side recognition task, like deciding whether a picture shows a left hand or a right hand. You are identifying which side of the jaw you can see. You are not judging any jaw movement, and the direction the person is looking doesn’t change the answer.
How to do it
- Find the jawline, from below the ear to the chin, and decide whether you are looking at the person’s own left or right side.
- Keep sets short. A set of 20 takes about a minute. Rest between sets if you need to.
This kind of exercise is also called left/right discrimination, laterality training or implicit motor imagery. New to this? Start with no time limit and feedback on. The beginner’s guide explains how to build up slowly and what your scores mean.
Who might find this useful
You don’t need a diagnosis to try this. If your jaw, face or temples have been sore, stiff or “guarded” for three months or more, that counts as long-term (chronic) pain, even if no one has called it that. Research on left/right judgements of the jaw and face is still small, so treat this as a reasonable, low-effort thing to try, not a proven treatment.
- Jaw pain and TMJ disorders (TMD). People with painful jaw disorders were slower at left/right judgements, including pictures of the head and neck,1 and less accurate at judging jaw movements.2
- Chronic facial pain. In a small study, people with long-term facial pain were less accurate than people without pain at judging whether the jaw or tongue in a photo was positioned to the left or the right.3
- Jaw clenching, teeth grinding and jaw tension. No studies have tested left/right judgements in people who clench or grind. It is included because it often comes with jaw and face pain, and practising telling the two sides apart is low-effort to try.
- Headaches and migraine. People with frequent migraine made more mistakes judging neck and face movements, and their results changed with their migraine cycle.4
- Jaw pain together with neck or head pain. Jaw, face, head and neck pain often occur together.5 If that sounds like you, you may want to use this alongside the neck exercise.
- Fibromyalgia and widespread pain. People with fibromyalgia were slower and less accurate at left/right judgements.6
The evidence is mixed. A 2024 review of studies in people with chronic headache and facial pain rated the overall quality of evidence as very low and found no clear answer on whether left/right judgements are affected.7 No trial has yet tested jaw left/right training on its own.
If your pain is mainly in your lower back, sides, hips or pelvis, try the waist exercise. Tools for the hands, feet and other areas are planned.
About the photos
There are 60 photos of adults of different ages and backgrounds, seen side-on or at an angle. Some people are sitting upright and some are leaning back or lying on a sofa, which makes them harder. Half show the left side of the jaw and half the right. With mirrored photos switched on, each photo can also appear flipped, which reverses the answer, so there are 120 possible images. Each set is drawn at random, never shows the same photo twice, and favours photos you haven’t seen recently. Every photo has been checked against its answer.
All photos are AI-generated. They don’t show real people.
Common questions
Why is the answer sometimes the opposite of the neck exercise?
The two exercises ask different questions. The neck exercise asks which way the head is turned. This one asks which side of the jaw you can see. When someone turns their head to their left, you usually see the right side of their jaw, so a similar photo can have opposite answers in the two exercises.
What counts as a good score?
There are no published averages for this exact exercise. Comparing your own results over time, and your left with your right, is more useful.
Why is one side harder for me?
Many people are a little better at one side. A clear, steady gap between your left and right results is worth mentioning to your clinician or dentist. Small differences from day to day are normal.
Does this work on a phone?
Yes. Tap the Left or Right button under the photo. Each set loads only the photos it needs, about 1 MB for 20.
Where are my results stored?
Only in your browser, on this device. Nothing is sent to us. Clearing your browser data removes them. Your results for each exercise are kept separately.
Please read: this site is for education and practice. It is not medical advice and does not replace care from a qualified clinician. If an exercise makes your pain or other symptoms worse, stop and rest, and talk to your clinician before trying again.
References
- Uritani D, Nishida T, Sakaguchi N, Kawakami T, Jones LE, Kirita T. Difference in response to a motor imagery task: a comparison between individuals with and without painful temporomandibular disorders. Pain Research and Management. 2018;2018:6810412. Link
- Diaz-Saez MC, Gil-Martínez A, Iglesias González I, et al. A novel mobile application to determine mandibular and tongue laterality discrimination in women with chronic temporomandibular disorder. Medicina Oral, Patología Oral y Cirugía Bucal. 2020;25(6):e775–e783. Link
- von Piekartz H, Wallwork SB, Mohr G, Butler DS, Moseley GL. People with chronic facial pain perform worse than controls at a facial emotion recognition task, but it is not all about the emotion. Journal of Oral Rehabilitation. 2015;42(4):243–250. Link
- Luedtke K, et al. Laterality judgements in patients with frequent episodic migraine. Musculoskeletal Science and Practice. 2021;51:102316. Link
- von Piekartz H, Paris-Alemany A. Assessment and brain training of patients experiencing head and facial pain with a distortion of orofacial somatorepresentation: a narrative review. Applied Sciences. 2021;11(15):6857. Link
- Martínez E, Guillén V, Buesa I, Azkue JJ. A distorted body schema and susceptibility to experiencing anomalous somatosensory sensations in fibromyalgia syndrome. The Clinical Journal of Pain. 2019;35(11). Link
- Taxer B, de Castro-Carletti EM, von Piekartz H, Leis S, Christova M, Armijo-Olivo S. Facial recognition, laterality judgement, alexithymia and resulting central nervous system adaptations in chronic primary headache and facial pain – a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Oral Rehabilitation. 2024;51:1881. Link