A healthy and fresh face adds a lot to your introduction. Facial exercises can be as good for your face as physical exercises for your body. You need to do some facial exercises to keep your body active and fresh. There are approximately 47 muscles in your face; you must provide due care to them.
Usually, facial muscles become saggy, dull, or wrinkled due to fat accumulation or age. There has been a long debate about the efficacy of facial exercises. The best response is to practice these facial exercises for a few weeks and find the truth for yourself.
Several cosmetic procedures are available in the market, usually expensive. And have a probability of side effects. Facial toning, yoga, and exercise can be healthy substitutes.
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Benefits of Facial Exercises
You can do facial exercises at home and don’t need to visit a gym. Nor do you need special equipment. Just wash use hands, moisturize them, and you are good to go.
Wrinkles appear with the impact created by facial muscles, and they get deepened with time. More stretching may cause more damage. You can do gentle movements to retain your skin’s elasticity and keep it hydrated. According to experts, you can perform 5-7 times weekly for the best results. By doing the following exercises, you can have various benefits
- Improved Blood Circulation
- Glowing Complexion
- Enhanced Collagen Production
- Firmer Facial Skin
- Defined Jaw Line
What Causes Wrinkles and Fine Lines on the Face?
With age and environmental factors like pollution and sunlight exposure, fine lines start appearing on your forehead, eye corners, between eyebrows, and around your lips. Our regular expressions, smiles, blinks, and frowns get imprinted on our faces with these lines.
- Excessive or prolonged exposure to sunlight (ultraviolet radiation) can cause premature aging. UV rays damage skin tissues. To cure this damage, your body produces metalloproteinase to create and repair collagen. Over time, the process becomes less effective and causes wrinkles.
- Atmospheric conditions and pollution damages your skin’s collagen and cause wrinkles.
- Smoking is another significant cause of wrinkles. According to researchers, smoking reduces the formation of new collagen, which leads to developing wrinkles.
- With aging, cell division slows down, and the dermis starts thinning. Gradually, collagen fibers and elastin fibers begin losing their elasticity. As your skin ages, it’s capacity to secret oils, retain moisture and heal slows down. All this results in wrinkles.
- Makeup can also clog your skin pores, inhibiting your skin’s collagen production. To avoid wrinkles and premature aging, you must remove your makeup before bed.
How Do Face Exercises Work?
There isn’t much medical evidence for eliminating wrinkles with exercises. Still, like other physical exercises that help improve muscle gain and help tone the body, facial exercises can also help improve your facial skin.
In some cases, these exercises may not work. If you are obese and you rely on exercises only; they won’t work. Spot reduction is not possible with face toning exercises. It would be best if you reduced weight and perform these facial exercises.
We need to look into the exercises that lift your saggy face skin. Following are some exercises to keep your skin fresh and radiant.
12 Effective Facial Exercises
Communication involves many facial expressions; to make it attractive and flow naturally. It would be best to work on your facial muscles and what exercises work for you. Here are some facial exercises to help you look younger and facial rejuvenation
1. Warm-Ups
Like other physical exercises, you need to warm up your facial muscles. If your facial muscles are saggy or floppy, your speech may not be spontaneous. Frozen facial muscles make it hard to move them in impulsive expressions.
- To warm up your facial muscles, move your muscles in different directions, smile, frown, sneer, and pout. If you find moving lips on one side easier, you can use your index finger to move them in the required directions. You can use your finger if you find it an issue in drooping your lips or raising your brows.
- Move your fingers all over your face as if you have piano fingers. It improves blood circulation in your facial muscles.
Again, use your fingers to stimulate your facial muscles like animal claws pulling your muscles outwards.
2. Raise Your Brows
Place your index and middle finger on your eyebrow curve and exert a slight pressure to move your brows down. At the same time, using your muscles try pushing upwards against finger pressure. This helps keep your muscles in the proper position. Do 6 sets comprising 10 up and down brows movements.
3. Forehead Fine-Tuning
Your fine lines first start appearing on your forehead. This is an interesting exercise where you have to give surprised facial expressions. This helps smooth your forehead’s wrinkles. Freeze your forehead, open your eyes wide and count to 10. Repeat it 10-12 times daily.
4. Straighten Your Brows
Place the fingers of both hands inwards on your forehead. Press your fingers firmly on your fine lines and move towards to outer corner of your forehead. This helps stretch your forehead skin and reduce sneering and frown lines.
5. Cheek Lifts
Place two fingers on each cheek, slightly push them upwards, and hold for 5-7 seconds. While doing this, open your mouth in a stretched ‘O’ shape, thus creating a slight resistance. Cheek lifts help transform chubby cheeks into defined ones. Repeat it for 10-15 sets.
6. Cheek Squeeze
These light exercises will relax your mood. Lift your head backward and lift your chin. Now squeeze your cheeks in as much as possible, and hold for 5-7 seconds. Repeat 12-15 times daily.
7. Push Those Cheeks
To reduce nasolabial lines, you must blow up or inflate your cheeks once on each side. Make 5 sets of 20 repetitions.
8. Plump Cheeks
Not everyone likes flattened cheeks. Smile if you are fond of having a healthier-looking round face and plump cheeks. Keep smiling with your mouth wide open. Now use your fingers on the skin folds between your lips and nose and press down slightly. This creates slight resistance, don’t over-exert your finger pressure. Stay in this position for two minutes, relax for a while, and then repeat.
9. Move Your Lips
Squeeze your lips together and smile. Move your lips towards your cheeks, count to 5 and relax. Keep your lips sealed. Now move your lips downwards, as if annoyed and frowning with your lips. This exercise promoted flexibility in your lips area. Complete 5-7 sets.
10. Tone Your Eyes
Form a bow shape with your fingers over your eyes and your thumb touching the outer edge of your eyes. Now close your eyes to feel a slight movement in muscles around your eyes, hold for 25-30 seconds and relax. This exercise helps strengthen and tone muscles to smooth your eyes’ lines. You can do this exercise daily.
You can help eyes muscles in the ‘wink of an eye.’ Yes, you can wink your eyes, holding a wink for a few seconds and then releasing gradually. Repeat for 10-20 seconds. Do it one set in a day only.
11. Chin Up
Neck muscles need to be toned along with facial muscles. To reduce flabby neck skin:
- Move your neck backward, raising your chin.
- Open and close your jaw, move back to your original position, relax and repeat.
- Make 5 sets of 10 repetitions for firm neck muscles.
12. Double Chin Exercise
platysma (the connecting muscles between your jawline and shoulder) muscles are the cause behind your double chin. It loosens your skin and gives you a chubby look. Sit in a relaxed position, tilt your head backward and look at the ceiling. Slide up your tongue to touch your mouth pallet, causing neck muscles to stretch. Hold your tongue for 20-30 seconds.
Release your tongue slowly and move your neck back to its normal position. Repeat it five times. Just remember, don’t overdo it to cause strain in your neck.
Face Slimming Exercises
Everyone wants a sleek and toned face. The problem arises when you put on weight; it becomes evident on your face. According to research, if you follow some effective facial exercises for 4-5 months for half an hour daily, you can burn calories, get your facial muscles toned and get a slender look.
Some effective exercises for reducing face fat are;
- Chin lifts
- Tongue rolling
- Lion face
- Puff your cheeks
- Rolling out tongue
Other factors that can help you reduce face fats besides exercise are a balanced diet, improved hydration, reduced salt intake, healthy sleeping patterns, and regular workouts.
FAQs
Q. When is the best time to do facial exercises?
You can perform these exercises whenever you can manage well.
Q. How long do facial exercises take to work?
Just like other physical exercises, you need to be regular. You can perform these exercises 5-7 days weekly for the best effects.
Q. Can I do facial exercises after Botox?
It is strongly recommended to keep your facial muscles mobile after Botox. Keep frowning, raising your brows, and smiling.
Q. How do facial exercises actually work?
Face exercises improve the blood circulation of your skin layers, which enhances nourishment, absorbance, and strength of facial muscles.
The Final Verdict
Despite the effectiveness of various facial exercises, you should be realistic about your expectations. These exercises can improve your skin’s elasticity, hydration, and nutrition to make you look younger.
Still, aging, environmental factors, and the use of makeup products have to impact your facial skin. You should follow these exercises regularly to manage your looks as much as possible. You have to have these wrinkles with time; the best solution is to accept them gracefully.
Resources
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/aging/art-20046070