Facial yoga exercises might be the oldest anti-aging technique in the book. Ancient Indian yogis have practiced it for thousands of years with several asanas. After all, the logic behind facial yoga is sound. Just as we exercise to tone our body and keep it supple and strong, regular yoga facial exercises would make our facelift taut.
Gary Sikorski, the founder of Happy Face Yoga has a specific program built to stimulate all the 57 muscles that help us hold our neck and face up. According to him, when we do facial yoga, we strengthen our facial muscles and move them back into place. This naturally smoothens our skin. Now, let’s understand what facial yoga is.
What is Facial Yoga?
Facial yoga is a set of exercises that you can do either by moving your face with its muscles in certain ways or by using your hands. These exercises target your neck, face, and shoulders, which increases the blood flow to your face and can naturally bring about lasting results.
Research has shown that facial yoga exercises are really effective and improve the structural appearance of your face by making your face and cheek muscles strong. A few face yoga practitioners have also reported a younger appearance.
The founder of Danielle Collin’s Face Yoga, Danielle Collins says that a balanced face yoga regime has massage, exercises, acupressure techniques, and relaxation. Danielle also recommends sleeping well, eating healthy, and reducing stress levels. She also says that when you take care of yourself from the inside it shows on the outside.
You can create a routine for a specific area of your faces such as forehead lines, frown lines, or crow’s feet. Danielle says regular face yoga practice will bring forth positive long-term changes. There are several online tutorials where you can learn techniques from a yoga instructor during workshops, individual sessions, or courses.
Benefits of Face Yoga
- Facial yoga for the face and facial yoga for the double chin go beyond the skin. It is considered a natural facelift that improves your overall well-being. Danielle states that facial yoga exercises promote healthy glowing skin, lift, and firm up the muscles under your skin, which further smoothes wrinkles and lines.
- Facial massage improves blood circulation, releases tension, and improves lymphatic drainage. Different acupressure techniques relieve stress and increase blood circulation, which in turn can release sinuses, prevent headaches, and improve the quality of your sleep.
- It can also relax overactive muscles and tone weaker muscles, which prevents expression lines and sagging. A small study named, “Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging,” examined the effectiveness of 32 facial yoga exercises in middle-aged women.
- After 8 weeks of daily 30-minute sessions and then 12 weeks of alternate-day sessions, the participants witnessed improvements in the fullness of their faces and were happy with the visible results. Additionally, 18 out of 20 facial features showed significant improvements.
Another small study conducted in 2018 named, “The effects of facial exercises on the mental health in elderly adults,” investigated the effectiveness of facial yoga in improving older people’s mental health. According to the study, the participants had to perform facial yoga exercises for 30 minutes twice a week for 12 weeks. Along with that, they had to perform rhythmic facial movements, yogic breathing, and muscle stretching. The results showed improved mental health, tongue muscle power, and facial expression.
A few anecdotal reports mention that facial yoga improves facial appearance and improves awareness and mindfulness. When practitioners relax or strengthen specific muscles, they experience fewer headaches, improved posture, reduced teeth grinding, and better sleep. Other benefits of facial yoga exercises include:
- Firms up your neckline
- Better control of face muscles
- Improves nostril breathing
- Reprograms your muscle memory
- Relieves symptoms of temporomandibular joint (TMJ)
- Reduces dark circles
- Tones facial muscles
- Makes your face symmetrical
- Reduces sagging
- Gives definition to your face
- Improves confidence
- Creates positive emotions
Which Types of Yoga are Good for Your Face?
It has already been established that traditional yoga has immense benefits. Noting these benefits, Danielle says that forward folds are great for your facial skin as it increase the circulation of fresh blood and oxygen, which increases a healthy glow. If you perform backbends, it strengthens the neck muscles and side-to-side twists release neck tension.
Asanas with slow movements and holding poses may help you bring awareness to your facial muscles. You can also relax your facial muscles during pranayama, meditation, or yoga Nidra.
When you are performing traditional yoga postures, try to bring awareness to your face. Observe if your face is tense or if you are making any facial expressions. Try to notice if, in an attempt to relax your face, you are furrowing or lifting your eyebrows.
A few instructors tell their students to do a Mona Lisa smile or Buddha smile with the corners of their mouths turned to indicate a more relaxed face.
Does Facial Yoga Work?
We’ve already seen some studies and some benefits of yoga facial exercises to deduce that facial yoga does work. However, let’s look at another study done on Gary Sikorski’s facial yoga program to reach a conclusion.
As per the study, 20 women between the ages of 40 and 65 were asked to attend a 90-minute session twice a week. Within the first few weeks, four women dropped out of the study, but the rest of the 16 continued. For the rest of the eight weeks, the remaining participants were asked to perform yoga facial exercises for 30 minutes a day. After that, they were asked to do the same exercise for 12 more weeks.
At the end of 20 weeks or 5 months, both the dermatologists and the women mentioned that their faces looked younger. However, according to Sikorski, a few of his clients have seen results sooner. But, everyone’s face is different; therefore, the results will be different too depending on factors such as the diet, the environment you are exposed to, and your genes.
Sikorski mentions that a few people might notice a brighter complexion because of the increased blood flow to the face. This “glowing appearance” can be seen in just a few weeks. So, with this, the answer to the question of facial yoga work is definitely a ‘yes.’
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Conclusion
Facial yoga is non-invasive, nontoxic, and safe for almost everyone. Also, it is inexpensive and you can do it at your own convenience. However, anti-aging procedures such as lasers, fillers, and neuromodulators are regularly used in dermatology. They reduce the visible signs of aging and they are not going anywhere. So, if you want an inexpensive solution to anti-aging, facial yoga is the way to go.
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