stylohyoid muscle

Tensing the stylohyoid muscles and posterior bellies of the pair of digastric muscles also helps.

The stylohyoid muscle is a slender muscle, lying anterior, and superior of the posterior belly of the digastric muscle.

It also innervates the posterior belly of the digastric muscle, the stylohyoid muscle, and the stapedius muscle of the middle ear.

The stylohyoid muscle, stapedius and posterior belly of the digastric muscle are also innervated by the facial nerve, but are not considered muscles of facial expression.

The posterior auricular artery is a small artery and arises from the external carotid artery, above the Digastric muscle and Stylohyoid muscle, opposite the apex of the styloid process.

In the neck, its origin is superficial, being covered by the integument, platysma, and fascia; it then passes beneath the digastric and stylohyoid muscles and part of the submandibular gland, but superficial to the hypoglossal nerve.

The facial artery arises in the carotid triangle from the external carotid artery a little above the lingual artery and, sheltered by the ramus of the mandible, passes obliquely up beneath the digastric and stylohyoid muscles, over which it arches to enter a groove on the posterior surface of the submandibular gland.