We have all grown up to believe that our bodies need to be worked out in order to tighten and tone our muscles. However, we forget the most important part – Facial exercises – an influential aspect that can help improve our facial muscles.
In case you were wondering why you are noticing fine lines and sagging skin even before you hit your 30s is because your face needs a workout too.
Although, Facial Exercises have gained a lot of attention in the past couple of years. It is still something that isn’t talked about enough, Hence, today we are going to be discussing Facial Exercises and everything you need to know about them.
A facial exercise is an attempt to build stress on the facial muscles and promote blood flow and rise in oxygen supply.
Facial Exercises are also supposed to help in hypertrophy.
Hypertrophy is the enlargement of a tissue from the increase in size of its cells. So when your muscles increase in size, it gives your face a fuller appearance, making you look more youthful.
Just as any other part of our body our face consists of various muscles. There are 43 muscles in our face which includes the Masseter muscle.
The Masseter muscle is the strongest muscle in the human body and also an important one. It is the muscle that connects your cheek bones and the lower jaw.
Why do you need Facial Exercises?
There are various studies conducted to prove the legitimacy of Facial Exercises or Face Yoga. It has various benefits that will make sure you age gracefully, here are a few of them:
Anti-Ageing
We can all agree that as we step into adulthood, we step into our busy work schedules and often ignore the needs of our skin and body. With aging comes fine lines and wrinkles, and when we start to notice them, it is already too late.
Facial Exercises stimulate production of collagen which in return gets rid of the fine lines and wrinkles on your face.
Releases Muscle Tension
Our modern lifestyle has obligated us to be seated in one place for several hours. What this leads to is it puts excessive tension on the spinal cord, neck and shoulder area, and core muscles.
Facial Exercises helps your muscles to relax and releases any tension that might be formed.
Double Chin Eliminator
A common complaint amongst youngsters is the presence of a double chin meaning access fat around the jaw area, under the chin.
Facial Exercises help you stress on your neck muscles resulting in reduction of facial fat. This can have a huge impact on your jaw area. As you stretch your neck muscles it burns down any unwanted fat and tones the skin on the neck.
Doesn’t Involve Going Under the Knife
People spend millions of dollars for facial enhancement surgeries and end up botched. Just imagining the mental and physical trauma will give you some additional muscle tension!
Facial Exercises are an all natural alternative that only demands consistency and shows mind-blowing results. On top of that, if you couple it with a healthy organic product, you’ll be able to see considerable results in a short time.
Science behind Facial Exercises | Do Facial Exercises really work?
A few years back there were no formal studies made on the effects of Facial Exercises whatsoever. However, in 2018, a study conducted by the researchers of the Northwestern University in the state of Illinois made some interesting conclusions.
The study was led by author Murad Alam, a dermatologist from Northwestern University, quoted
“Now there is some evidence that facial exercises may improve facial appearance and reduce some visible signs of aging. The exercises enlarge and strengthen the facial muscles, so the face becomes firmer and more toned and shaped like a younger face.”
Though this was a proof-of-concept study and involved only a small sample size of 16 people, this research needs to be replicated in a much larger group.
“Assuming the findings are confirmed in a larger study, individuals now have a low-cost, non-toxic way for looking younger or to augment other cosmetic or anti-aging treatments they may be seeking,” said Alam.
The study
Sixteen women were recruited that belonged to the 40-65 age bracket. They were trained by a facial exercise instructor in 2 face-to-face one and a half hour training sessions.
They were asked to religiously follow these Facial exercises for 20 weeks. Initially, for the first 8 weeks they performed these facial exercises for 30 minutes a day, and for the rest of the weeks they followed the same exercises every alternate day.
These women were taught 32 different facial exercises, each practiced for about a minute. Two of the exercises involved in the study were :
The Cheek Lifter
Here one had to open their mouth in a big o shape, with your lips curled inwards your teeth. Further, you had to smile by lifting your cheek muscles upwards and placing your fingers lightly on the top portion of the cheek so you can feel them lifting.
This had to be repeated for 1 minute, where in you smile and then lower your cheek muscles and then smile again so on. Hence, by lowering and lifting the cheeks you could exercise your facial muscles.
The Cheeks Sculptor
Here, one had to press their lips to cover the teeth and then smile wide Placing the fingers on both corners of the mouth and sliding them upwards t the top of the cheeks. They were told to hold this position for about 20 seconds.
The Results
The results were measured by photographs and then assessed by dermatologists. They assessed the photos using a standardized facial aging scale and rated 19 features on each face at the beginning, middle, and end of the study.
At the start of the study, the dermatologists rated the patients to be 50.8 years on average, and that dropped to 48.1 years over the course of the study.
“That’s almost a three-year decrease in age appearance over a 20-week period,” Alam said.
The most drastic effect was upper and lower cheek fullness, which rounded out and appeared fuller all through the study.
A Disclaimer
This study was conducted on a small sample size, and hence is limited. It focuses on middle-aged women hence effects on other demographics remain unknown.
The study does not mention what other rituals were followed by the women. However, it is promising to see that by toning your facial muscles we can achieve results early on.
The Conclusion
The study conveys that as we age, our skin loses elasticity and fat pads that are placed between muscles. By losing these fat pads, the skin becomes thinner which results in the face to sag.
According to senior author Emily Poon, “But if muscle underneath becomes bigger, the skin has more stuffing underneath it and the firmer muscle appears to make the shape of the face more full. Muscle growth is increasing the facial volume and counteracting the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening.”
Does Diet affect your Facial Structure?
This is interesting! What we are generally taught is that the food we eat affects our skin. That being very true, what it also affects is our jaw and skull growth. Our facial development is closely linked to what we ate when we were growing up and also our current diet.
Bone growth is a response to the mechanical force applied to the muscles. Our shift from a naturally tough diet to soft processed foods prevents normal jaw and facial growth.
Our ancestors meaning the early age hunter-gatherers and traditional people that relied on hard food, generally had broad dental arches, well-aligned dental teeth, and ample room for third molars (teeth at the back of the mouth).
A study of younger Australian native families that recently started eating processed foods is one of the many examples of cases where the effects of diet on the jaw are seen. This study found that the younger family members had smaller jaws and serious tooth crowding problems compared to elder members of their families who grew up eating traditional food.
Moving to the effects of diet on your skin, increase in sugar levels can cause sagging of the skin. The increase levels of insulin can also dis-balance the bacteria in your gut, making you breakout.
Facial Exercise Transformation
We have showcased some Facial Exercises Before and After photos for you to take inspiration from.
Myths about Facial Exercises | Do Facial Exercises cause wrinkles?
It is important to know how a wrinkle is formed rather than to believe something that isn’t quite true. You cannot ‘rub a wrinkle’ on to your face, a wrinkle is a physical element which takes a prolonged amount of time to form.
Activities such as sleeping on one side with your face squished on the pillow for long hours, making repetitive facial expressions like frowning or smiling can be amongst the various reasons behind a wrinkle. Other reasons include UV damage, smoking and gravity.
We only exercise for 10-20 minutes a day and that is not a sufficient amount of time for a wrinkle to be formed.
Different Types of Facial Exercises
We have classified various types of Facial exercises for you guys into different categories so you can choose from what you suffer from the most or what your goal is.
Facial Exercises for Skin Tightening | Eye-firming and Cheek Plumping
- Place both hands horizontally just below your eyes and on top of your cheekbones.
- Squint your eyes and squeeze your cheeks up toward the eyes.
- Hold for 5 seconds and repeat 3-5 times.
Facial exercises for Sagging Jowls
- While looking straight ahead, place your finger tips at the bottom of your neck and lightly stroke the skin downwards while you look up.
- Bring your head back down to the chest. Repeat 2 times.
- This time, project your lower lip out as far as possible.
- Place your finger tips on the collarbone and look up again. Hold for 4 long breaths.
Facial Exercises for Double Chin
- Maintain a relaxed posture.
- Look up to the ceiling till you feel your neck and chin muscles stretch.
- Alternate making the duck face and sticking your tongue out, holding each pose for 5 seconds each.
- Repeat thrice.
Facial Exercises for Sharper Jawline
- Stand or sit straight, and tilt your head back to look at the ceiling.
- Touch your tongue to the roof of the mouth.
- Now let go, and tuck your chin down to your neck region.
- Repeat exercise in sets of five, holding your tongue for about 25-30 seconds.
This tongue posture is the correct way to place your tongue throughout the day and is called Mewing.
Facial Exercising Tools
CHISELL
CHISELL is a jaw training tool that is meant to give you a better-structured face. Its main purpose is to accelerate jaw muscle growth.
It is a silicone chewing gum made from the highest quality food-grade silicone, making it safe for usage. It comes with a soft-touch carry case and an instruction sheet with 4 different workout routines and a progress tracker to keep you motivated.
Jawliner
Jawliner is a jaw training gum targeting three-jaw muscles – temporalis, masseter and pterygoideus medialis, muscles that contour your jaw.
The equipment is uniquely designed to be compact and comfortable while chewing. The gum is made of 100% BPA and PVC free food silicone and has the right amount of firmness for you to train your jawline.
Conclusion
Facial Exercises are meant to help sagging skin and bring back elasticity and firmness to your skin. It is an all natural way to look younger than your age.
The above mentioned facial exercises can be practiced by both men and women.
We would highly recommend Facial Exercises over any surgical procedure that promises quick results. These procedures can leave behind permanent damage to your health and body.
Facial Exercises do take time to show results, hence, make sure you are consistent with it.
