How To Do Face Yoga To Look Younger: There are more than two dozen individual muscles on either side of your face, but you won’t find any equipment at your gym to help strengthen or tone any of them. If you’ve been diligent in exercising your body, can you do the same thing for your facial muscles?
Many experts say that it’s absolutely possible, as long as you remain committed to a consistent practice of facial yoga.
Does science back it up?
“A lot of people hold tension in their faces, and facial yoga can help alleviate that tension,” physical therapist Sandra Gail Frayna told. “Facial-focused yoga exercises can help you achieve a more sculpted and slimmer look by allowing muscles to relax and appear more youthful,” she said.
There is some scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of facial toning exercises, also known as facial yoga. During a five-month Northwestern Medicine study, a 30-minute daily or alternate-day facial exercise program improved the facial appearance of middle-aged women, resulting in a younger appearance, with fuller upper and lower cheeks. Evaluators observed almost a three-year decrease in age appearance over the five-month study.
Stronger facial muscles can do wonders for sagging, aging fat pads. “If the facial muscles become bigger, the skin has more stuffing underneath it, and the firmer muscles appear to make the shape of the face fuller,” senior study author Emily Poon, an assistant research professor in dermatology at Feinberg, said when the study was published. “It increases facial volume and counteracts the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening.”
How Facial Yoga Works
The facial exercises used at Northwestern were developed and provided by Gary Sikorski of Happy Face Yoga, who is a co-author of the study. A certified facial toning yoga instructor, he told HuffPost: “These exercises are a natural alternative to plastic surgery. The isometric and resistance work is just like using weights for strength-training the body.”
Sikorski suggested that facial yoga can help with increasing blood circulation, and said that improvements often are visible in just two to three weeks. “The skin will become more elastic and softer to the touch,” he said. A consistent program can also “widen eyes, lift cheeks, lift mouth corners and firm the jawline. And, as muscles are toned and lifted, skin will be tightened and smoothed, helping to smooth away fine lines.”
Here are some good starting points for your practice:
Cheek lifter
Open your mouth and form an O, position your upper lip over your teeth, smile to lift cheek the muscles up, put your fingers lightly on the top part of cheek, release the cheek muscles to lower them, and lift back up. Repeat by lowering and lifting the cheeks.
Happy cheeks sculpting
Smile without showing teeth, purse lips together, smile forcing the cheek muscles up, place your fingers on the corners of the mouth and slide them up to the top of the cheeks, hold for 20 seconds.
Lion’s pose
Dermatologist Jeannette Graf recommended this pose to HuffPost. First, sit in a comfortable position. Lean your arms forward, with your hands stretched on the floor. Take a deep breath in and, on an exhalation, open your mouth and make a loud “haaa” sound, like a lion’s roar. Exhale completely, pointing your tongue toward your chin. “Over time, you’ll notice benefits in your breathing, throat chakra, neck, eyes and skin smoothness,” she said.
The good news is that you don’t have to sweat yourself into submission to pull off these exercises, which could easily be done during routine Zoom calls (camera off, of course). Elsa Jungman, who has a Ph.D. in skin pharmacology and began her career working in research and development for L’Oréal in Paris, takes a relaxed, holistic approach to facial toning.
