What Is Gleeking, and Can Everyone Do It?

Gleeking often occurs when people accidentally project saliva under their tongues while eating, talking, or yawning. Still, anyone can gleek if they want to. You can train your tongue to apply pressure to your salivary glands and gleek on command. 

Gleeking happens if your tongue applies pressure to the glands under your tongue that make saliva. Those glands release saliva into your mouth through ducts to break down nutrients and help lubricate your food for digestion.

Read on to learn about gleeking, including how it happens and how to maneuver your tongue to spit in this unique way. 

Meaning of Gleek

"Gleeking" is not a phrase that healthcare providers or researchers use in a clinical setting. There's actually "no medical term for this" at all, Janet O'Mahony, MD, an internist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, told Health.

Still, most healthcare providers have at least heard of gleeking before—even though they say the practice of gleeking is pretty useless. 

"There's nothing medical about it. But there's nothing harmful about it," Mark S. Wolff, DDS, Ph.D., dean of the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, told Health. "It's the salivary glands doing what the glands are supposed to do."

How It Works

There are three pairs of major salivary glands in your mouth, including:

• Parotid glands, which are found in front of and below your ears
• Sublingual glands, which sit right below your tongue
• Submandibular glands, which sit below your jaw

Salivating is essential in digestion, which begins in your mouth as you eat. Your saliva helps break down carbs and moistens your food to pass from your esophagus to your stomach easily.

You may gleek if your tongue accidentally applies pressure to your sublingual glands. Gleeking comes from "built up watery saliva" in your sublingual glands, Steven Morgano, DMD, chair of the department of restorative dentistry at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, told Health. 

Then, "pressure on the glands from the tongue [...] causes the saliva to squirt out," added Dr. Morgano.

A study published in 2019 found that a participant had excess saliva in their parotid glands six weeks after receiving Botox injections near their salivary glands. As a result, the researchers reported that the participant was gleeking from their right parotid gland.

Although the saliva excreted from your salivary glands has a purpose while you eat, being able to gleek does not have any benefits.

"It is a quirk," added Dr. Morgano.

How To Gleek

Many people gleek by accident, explained Dr. Morgano. There are some ways to prime your mouth for gleeking if it seems like something you want to do. 

"If you tense the muscles in the tongue right, it squeezes the duct, and saliva squirts right out," said Dr. Wolff.

Try gleeking by following these steps:

1. Eat something sour, noted Dr. Wolff. Some evidence suggests that sour foods—such as tart cherries, kimchi, or vinegar—can stimulate your salivary glands.
2. Push your tongue out of your mouth and lift it. 
3. Curl the tip of your tongue back so it rests behind your top teeth.
4. Tense your tongue muscles to squeeze the sublingual gland.

"Everyone can [gleek]," added Dr. Wolff. Still, it can take some practice to gleek on command.

A Quick Review

Gleeking is one of the human body's most unique talents. Many people who gleek do so accidentally while eating, talking, or yawning. 

You can train yourself to gleek by using your tongue and applying pressure to certain salivary glands. Although, healthcare providers point out that there's no health benefit to gleeking.