LogFAQs > #979241444

Blue_Thunder posted...

More like a medical one but my jaw used to ache on the side I didn't chew on (because having my wisdom teeth removed left a pocket on that side that was a pain to clean food out of). I hypothesized that if I could exercise that side of my jaw it would get better, so I started chewing gum on that side for a few minutes daily. Sure enough, the pain went away.

Less formally, this is in the same vein as "this muscle is stiff, I'll wiggle it around a bit to see if it helps." Often it does, sometimes it doesn't, and it's when it doesn't that we start to wonder if there might be a deeper problem like an injury that needs further attention.

Really, we do this sort of thing all the time without formally identifying it as "science experiments." We're constantly aware of and observing the state of our bodies and subconsciously comparing that to how we expect it to respond to our surroundings and recent experiences. That's pretty much the scientific process: Establish expectations, make observations that test those expectations, evaluate how those results line up with your expectations and draw conclusions accordingly.