The Winter Embouchure Care Guide: Simple Habits to Stay Pain-Free During the Busy Season

If your chops feel inflamed, stiff, or unreliable right now… you’re not imagining it.

Holiday gig season is the perfect storm for tension, tightness, and overuse: back-to-back shows, dry indoor air, long rehearsals, cold weather, tight timelines, and different types of stress that leak straight into your jaw, neck, and breathing system.

And for many musicians, winter becomes the season where these small, but subtle shifts feel discouraging and worrisome, or worse, start to affect your confidence and ability to play.

The good news?

Your body is incredibly adaptable when you give it the right inputs, and small changes make a big difference this time of year.

Let’s walk through some essential habits that will protect your embouchure, boost recovery during this busy season, and keep you performing at a high level through the holidays.

A quick story you may relate to…

A client of mine once told me, “I feel like my embouchure ages five years every December.”

He wasn’t practicing more than usual or doing anything wild with his setup. But the combination of dry air, late-night rehearsals, dehydration, a decline in sleep quality and quantity, and constant performance pressure started to compound.

He would wake up feeling similar to when he went to bed. Aka, mentally and physically tired, tight jaw muscles, and an embouchure that felt “slow” to respond.

When we zoomed out, the problem wasn’t just local. It was whole-body tension creeping up: ribcage compression from stress, neck stiffness from rushing between gigs, poor sleep, dehydration, and no real recovery plan.

Once he made a few simple adjustments, such as adding just 3–5 minutes of decompression work between shows, his playing became more comfortable and reliable, and he was able to go through gigs unharmed.

During this time of year, diving into a full-fledged program or recovery plan is the last thing I'd advise. Time is already short. Stress is high, and mental bandwidth and distraction are low. Let's save this type of program for the New Year! Instead, let's focus on the basics, prioritize short recovery habits every day, and zoom out to look at the bigger picture.

The Basics That Make a Big Difference

These might sound simple, but remember, this time of year is about the basics. And just like with music, the basics are what will carry us through a busy season. The same applies to our health.

1. Stay hydrated (especially in heated, dry environments)

Indoor heating can pull moisture from your tissues, including the lips. Dehydration will limit the amount of playing you can do, as it can limit blood flow, flexibility, and elasticity of the tissues. This can result in a quicker response to fatigue, swelling, cracking, stiffness, and, if this cycle continues, inflammation.

A helpful guideline: If you wake up with a split lip, this is not an embouchure issue - a potential combination of hydration, dryness in the air, and lack of moisture in the lips.

2. Use a humidifier at night.

If you wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning and notice a dry or scratchy throat, an inflamed nasal passage, or lips that feel rough and scaly, this is a sign that your bedroom or sleeping area is too dry. A bedroom humidifier can help you avoid waking up dry, cracked, or puffy. I also recommend getting some lip ointment to put on at night. Be liberal. Protect and hydrate the lips! My personal favorite is Aquaphor.

3. Protect the skin barrier.

As I already mentioned, use Aquaphor, Vaseline, or a similar ointment — especially overnight or during long days. If you go outside and it is windy, it's helpful to put on a layer before and after. Depending on the ointment, we are both providing a protective barrier AND hydrating our lips.

**4. Prioritize sleep.

This seems self-explanatory, but the real recovery happens here. During sleep, the tissues around the lips, neck, and face rehydrate, repair, and down-regulate tension. Without sleep, every system in our body starts to work less efficiently.

**5. Keep your body moving.

Personally, this one is difficult for me during the wintertime. Our bodies are meant to move, and at a bare minimum, if we aren't getting in a proper amount of daily steps (some say 7k, 8, or 12k - I'm not convinced this number isn't dependent on many variables), activity, or overall movement, the body will start to become stiff, making overall movement, breathing, and playing more laborious. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but one of the key factors affecting the development of performance-related injuries is the amount of effort required to play.

Ackermann et al. 2002

As this tension accumulates through the pelvis, eventually rising up the rib cage and neck, the cranium and jaw will start to twist and torque, affecting the overall capacity of your embouchure.

This isn't about starting a complete workout routine. If you have a regimen, great! Keep doing you. If you are someone who doesn't know where to start, the idea is to get into the movement that you didn't get that day. For example, if you were in a double today, chances are you sat down all day. In that case, get your body moving! Go for a walk, perform some yoga, or perform my personal favorite: breathing positional drills.

6. Add in a short Warm-down/Cool-down (on the instrument)

This is one habit that separates consistent players from players who struggle during gig-mas.

A warm-down doesn’t have to be elaborate. Think light airflow, gentle range, and slow releases of tension. As a trombonist, I love doing soft lip bends, glisses descending into the lower range, pedal tones, or small long tones w/ a slight crescendo/decrescendo to get in some relaxing aperture movement.

Even 3–5 minutes helps:

• promote blood flow, ultimately bringing swelling down

• reset jaw and neck tone

• normalize pressure patterns

• Keep your breathing mechanics from collapsing between shows

I recommend experimenting after rehearsals or between double-show days.

7. Recovery and Cool Down

This is the last habit that will help you restore the foundation of your embouchure’s mechanics and get you through to the end of the season without injury.

Your jaw, neck, cranium, and ribcage form a single pressure system. When they’re compressed or overworked, twists and torques will be present through the neck, cranium, and jaw, ultimately affecting embouchure position and the overall effort needed to play.

Adding any of the following exercises daily, either after you are done playing, before you go to bed, or even before you warm up, can significantly improve consistency, reduce pain, and restore capacity:

• Gentle release work of the ribcage, neck, cranium, or jaw

• Basic joint mobility for the jaw, neck, and ribcage

• Positional breathing to reduce tension accumulation restore movement capacity

• Short decompression sequences for the skull, neck, and airway

These don’t need to be long or intense. Short, strategic work gives your system the room it needs to do its job.

Quick Assessments to Check In With Yourself

Daily assessments can help you determine how much tension your body is holding onto and how stressed your nervous system is. If you monitor these over a month and things aren't feeling well one day, checking into these assessments will give you insight on which areas you will need to focus on to reduce tension, restore space, and improve overall capacity.

Here are two simple assessments to gauge how your system is responding:

1. Jaw Opening Assessment

Open your mouth slowly as wide as you can. Notice:

• Does the jaw shift?

• Is there clicking?

• Does one side feel tight or “late” to open?

• Does your neck flare or lift?

• Do you have any random muscle activity that feels tight, tender, or sore?

These are signs of compression patterns, not “bad embouchure," or "unhealthy playing habits."

2. Neck Rotation Assessment

Turn your head slowly to the left, then turn your head slowly to the right.

Observe:

• Is one direction tighter?

• Is one side easier?

• Does your ribcage move with your head?

• Does the movement feel blocked behind the eyes or skull?

This tells you whether your upper body is holding stress in a way that affects breathing, phrasing, and lip control.

There is a trend to assume these issues are purely embouchure or technique problems. In reality, they’re whole-body adaptations that show up at the embouchure.

Remember, you don’t need a complicated routine; you need something simple and effective.

If you’re overwhelmed by rehearsals, shows, traveling, or teaching right now…this is exactly when your body needs support that’s simple, not time-consuming.

And that’s why I created something specifically for this season.

If you want guided relief this holiday season…

The 7-Day Jaw & Neck Reset is now available!

A short, accessible routine designed for busy musicians who want to:

• reduce jaw and neck tension

• decompress the cranium

• improve breathing efficiency

• restore embouchure responsiveness

• feel better between demanding shows

This downloadable PDF routine offers daily guided sessions (5–10 minutes), gentle decompression work, and recovery strategies you can use long after the holidays.

If your embouchure feels tight, inconsistent, or “just not bouncing back” — this is the simplest place to start.

👉 Grab the 7-Day Jaw & Neck Reset here.

Or

👉 Go to this page for more detailed information

I've posted a few screenshots of the pdf below as a sample.