Facial Yoga Exercises for Wrinkles: The Best Exercise for Your Face & Neck
Most of us have probably donned our activewear and taken out our mats for an hour of warrior poses and downward-facing dogs at some stage in our lives. We know the benefits yoga can have on our muscle strength, flexibility, and our mental health.
But what about yoga specifically for your face?
Face yoga has become popular as a means of performing facial exercises that target the muscles in your face and neck for beauty purposes. It's typically done at home as part of your daily beauty regime, without the need for a yoga instructor.
These types of facial exercises have been endorsed by celebrities like Megan Markle, Jennifer Aniston, and Gwyneth Paltrow, and they have become all the rage in the health and beauty world as a kind of natural facelift, without the need for dermal fillers.
Maybe you feel like you're spending too much time and money on expensive skincare products and you aren't getting the results you may have wanted? Or, perhaps your face just needs an extra lift?
Whatever your reason, it makes sense that many women are looking for a good non-invasive alternative to botox injections or visiting a plastic surgeon to improve the look and feel of their skin. In fact, incorporating home facial sessions along with facial yoga can be an excellent way to refresh and rejuvenate your skin.
But you might be wondering does facial yoga really work, or is it just another health and beauty fad?
Let's take a look at the reasons we may need to exercise our facial muscles, the principles behind face yoga, and some sample exercises to get you started.
How Do Our Faces Change Over Time?
The proteins responsible for taut, smooth skin are collagen and elastin, both of which help to delay the signs of aging and are produced naturally in the body. As we age, our natural supplies of these proteins decline, resulting in side effects like loss of elasticity, wrinkles, and even age spots.
The area around the eye and lip becomes especially thin and prone to wrinkles. And, this is where we see the first results of collagen degradation in our crow's feet and smile lines. Collagen degradation also causes side effects like sagging cheeks, nasolabial folds, and double chins as gravity begins to pull your face southwards.
This loss of elasticity is the main reason that many women and men may look for anti-aging beauty products and exercises to lift the face.
So What Exactly Is Face Yoga?
Gary Sikorski, the founder of Happy Face Yoga, says that face yoga is a natural way to tone your facial muscles, reduce sagging and wrinkles, and improve your overall complexion.1
Put simply, face yoga is a series of exercises and stretches that target your face, designed to strengthen and tone the muscles around your face and neck. We have 57 muscles in our face and scalp, so facial movements play a key role in exercising and toning these areas!
Face yoga is related to some traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, both of which also use facial massages, stretches, and microneedling to simulate skin cells, relieve pressure, and reduce blemishes.
The main goal of face yoga is to tone and tighten sagging skin, wake up some underused facial muscles, and stimulate collagen production for a healthier complexion.
Does Facial Yoga Really Work?
Although there are many skeptics, two 2018 studies have shown conclusive evidence that facial yoga can have anti-aging benefits.2
One study had a group of fifty women undertake facial exercise every day for eight weeks, and the results showed stronger, thicker facial muscles which resulted in firmer, rejuvenated skin, an improved neck line and face shape.3
The downside for anyone who may like to try it at home is that the exercises need to be done daily, for about 30 minutes each day. If you are aiming to do this every day for eight weeks to see optimum results, this adds up to be a big time commitment.
But yes, if you are willing to commit your time and effort every day, facial yoga can have good anti-aging impacts on your complexion, but it works best when paired with high-quality skincare products. Incorporating it with a home spa routine can make the process more enjoyable. However, it is not intended to replace home facial, and a healthy diet, which all make a huge impact on your overall beauty and skin health.
Plump & Rejuvenate From Within With Taut Hydrate
If you are looking for ways to plump up your dermis and fill out your wrinkles, we have just the product for you! Taut Hydrate is a potent plant-based hyaluronic acid supplement designed to hydrate your complexion from the inside out.
Hyaluronic acid works together with collagen and elastin to keep the dermis supple and flexible. As we age, our hyaluronic acid levels decline and our skin begins to become prone to dryness and wrinkles, particularly around our eyes, lips, and hands.
Taut Hydrate works to replenish your hyaluronic acid levels and moisturize from within. The antioxidant effects of grape seed extract work synergistically with hyaluronic acid to reduce imperfections and protect against free radical damage.
With just two capsules a day, you can say goodbye to dry sagging skin and hello to your new radiant glow!
4 Benefits of Facial Exercises
Facial yoga is a simple and natural way to achieve a radiant complexion. But, it comes with a wealth of other benefits. Let's take a closer look:
1. Reducing Fine Lines & Wrinkles
While your new regime of face yoga is not likely to entirely remove deep-set wrinkles, it can improve the look of fine lines. Facial exercises work to tighten the muscles in your face while also improving elasticity, helping reduce the appearance of those forehead frown wrinkles, crow's feet, under eye wrinkles and laughter lines around the mouth.
2. Avoiding The Dreaded Double Chin
Many of the exercises in face yoga focus on tightening and strengthening the muscles around the jaw and under the chin, which specifically helps to lift any loose skin under there and improve the appearance of your jawline. Anything that helps us say goodbye to turkey neck is worth a try in our books!
3. Reducing The Appearance of Jowls
Jowls are a common concern, caused by a loss of elasticity in the dermis over time. You may be starting to notice the beginnings of the dreaded sag around your mouth, down from your cheekbones towards your jawline. Luckily, facial yoga can help you tighten and firm up the muscles in your cheeks, which in turn helps the skin stay in place for a more youthful, taut look.
4. Relaxing & Relieving Tension
Alongside the cosmetic beauty benefits of face yoga, these exercises can also help relieve much of the tension and pain in your head and shoulder areas. Facial yoga and massage have been known to relieve tension headaches, reduce the pain of TMJ, and alleviate neck and shoulder pain. It can also help reduce sinus issues and even help get rid of snoring!
Relax & Unwind In 15 Minutes With a Taut Collagen Mask
What if we told you that you can relax while improving your skin’s elasticity and radiance in just 15 minutes?
With Taut Collagen Mask, you can target dull, stressed, and dehydrated skin with a rejuvenating boost of collagen peptides, hyaluronic acid, botanical squalene, and vitamin C by giving yourself a collagen facial.
Our supercharged formula is designed to hydrate, firm, and brighten the complexion with a rich, cooling, and soothing collagen essence. Simply apply the mask and put your feet up for 15 minutes, then follow up with a gentle facial massage to fully absorb all of the anti-aging collagen essence.
Ready, set, glow!
7 Yoga Exercises For Your Face
Before starting any routine of facial yoga, it is essential to make sure your face is well hydrated, in order to avoid damaging the epidermis. As part of your skincare routine, after cleansing, apply a lightweight serum, some eye cream, and a moisturizer or oil before beginning these exercises. These products help your hands to glide over the skin easily without causing any damage.
Posture is also key during your face yoga routine, so make sure you can sit or stand up straight with your core muscles engaged, shoulders back, and head held high.
You might feel like you look a little silly doing these exercises to start, as they certainly make some facial expressions you aren’t used to seeing! Try out your first face yoga session in a private place or with friends you can have a giggle with.
1. Smooth Your Forehead
This first face yoga exercise will help you target those pesky forehead wrinkles. It’s a natural alternative if you’re not quite ready to try Botox teatment.
Use both fists to place a gentle pressure at the center of the forehead, then slide both fists out towards your temples, gently stretching the skin as you go. Repeat three to five times.
This exercise feels like a much-needed pressure-relieving massage for your forehead muscles, and it has the added bonus of relieving tension headaches, too.
2. Firm Your Jaw & Avoid A Double Chin
This next face yoga exercise will tighten your jawline and help to get rid of a double chin.
To start, tilt your head back and raise your chin towards the ceiling so that your neck is stretched nice and tight. While holding this position, make a wide smile, hold for a few seconds, then release. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
While in this position, you can follow up by placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth and swallowing, which you will feel working on the muscles in your neck straight away.
3. Target Crow's Feet
This face yoga exercise is a good one for tightening the skin around your eyes to help you get rid of crow's feet. As with any skincare around your eyes, you need to be very gentle, as much of the skin here is sensitive and easily damaged. You don’t want to make anything worse!
To start, place your middle and index fingers just above your temples on both sides of the face. Now pull your fingers gently upwards towards your hairline, look upwards (like you are rolling your eyes), and squint without moving your eyebrows or forehead. You should feel the facial muscles around your lower lids working! Hold for five seconds and release, and repeat three to five times.
This facial exercise works by strengthening the muscles around the lower eyelid, helping tighten the skin, prevent smile lines, and reduce any crinkling.
4. Plump Your Lips
This face yoga exercise works to reduce fine lines and wrinkles around your mouth while helping you to create a fuller lip.
Tilt your head back and point your chin towards the ceiling, then pucker up each lip like you are going for a kiss and hold for 5 seconds. You'll feel this working to lift your mouth muscles and shape the lips.
Release then repeat 5 to 10 times.
5. Firm Your Cheeks & Reduce Jowls
This next exercise will make your cheeks work, plumping the muscle tissue in your cheekbones to lift the skin, which in turn will reduce the appearance of jowls.
Take a deep breath in through your mouth, close your lips and use the air to puff up your cheeks – you'll look and feel like a blowfish!
You should feel this working the muscle in your cheeks. Try to hold this position for 20 to 30 seconds, then repeat five times.
6. Reduce Frown Lines
Try this much-needed exercise to get rid of frown lines and relieve tension in the muscle beneath your eyebrows.
Place your index and middle fingers of both hands on the inner corner of your eyebrows, on either side of the frown lines you are targeting. Placing a gentle pressure, slide your fingers outwards, stretching the skin between your brows slightly. Hold this pressure and frown slightly – you will feel your brow muscles working beneath your fingers now.
Hold for five seconds, and release. Repeat 3 to 5 times.
7. And Relax!
This last movement is more like a meditation than a vigorous exercise, designed to relax and relieve tension in the facial muscles. If you have been to a yoga class before, you might recognize similarities to the Shavasana (or “corpse pose”) at the end of every session, which brings you into a quiet state of relaxation.
To do this for your face, sit up straight, close your eyes, and form a slight smile. Take a minute to consciously release all tension in the face, starting with your scalp and forehead, moving around each eye, and then all the way down into the muscle around your chin and neck.
Try this for 60 seconds to relax and end every facial yoga session peacefully.
Transform Sagging Skin With The Taut Intense Transformation Program
If you are looking for a noticeable transformation from sagging and wrinkles to a radiant and firm complexion, the Taut Intense Transformation Program could be the one for you.
In any improvement program, diet and exercise go hand in hand, and your skin’s transformation journey should be no different. Why not combine your daily facial yoga exercises with a nutrient-dense supplement that hydrates and plumps up your complexion from within?
At Taut, we truly believe that healthy, radiant skin starts from within. The very best way to improve your skin’s health, texture, and appearance is to focus on collagen and elastin, the building blocks responsible for the structure and integrity of the skin.
Our 24-day transformation program supplies you with a daily dose of Taut Liquid Collagen, the advanced formula collagen drink designed to dramatically reverse the signs of aging.
Each bottle contains a potent concentration of 13,000mg of marine collagen peptides, as well as a healthy dose of hyaluronic acid, elastin, grape seed extract, and vitamin C. By drinking one bottle per day of this potent skin-loving formula, you can provide your body with all of the very best proteins, acids, and antioxidants it needs to turn back the hands of time. Start today to see results for your face and body in as little as three weeks.
So there you have it, the secret to a radiant, firm, plump complexion that looks as young as you feel! Got questions about facial yoga or one of our transformation programs? Contact our team today and they'll be happy to help you on your journey to achieving red-carpet radiance!
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