From TikTok, you might think that the whole session is spent with someone’s hands in your mouth. In reality, the intraoral part only lasts a few minutes and serves to stretch and massage harder-to-reach areas of the face. The majority of the massage is external.

Mernier starts by pushing down my shoulders, gently rotating my head and giving my neck a deep rub. Then, she moves up to massage my whole face in long sweeping movements before getting to work on the jaw. There’s rubbing, kneading, pulling, rocking, tapping – every kind of stroke and touch possible. And after about 20 minutes, she hits a spot just under my right ear on the very top of my jaw which is incredibly sensitive. She stays on it, pressing and rubbing, and after a while, it feels like something moves. It’s then that I realise the blood rushing I keep hearing is linked to my jaw because, suddenly, my right ear feels a lot clearer.

Mernier tells me that tinnitus is a common issue among teeth grinders; those phantom sounds are caused by our bone structures responding to all that grinding and clenching, and the more you clench, the more ringing you’ll hear.

“I tried buccal face massage for stress relief – here’s why I’m recommending it to all my friends”