If you have already heard of the latest trend to stay younger, this ultimate guide for face yoga covers the foundations, benefits and a range of exercises to enhance your natural beauty!
Could an ancient technique make you look younger, improve your mood and change how you relate to others? What is facial yoga? Is it the beauty breakthrough with more than you have been seeking?
Facial yoga may feel and, well, look a little strange at first. But so do many traditional yoga poses. Let’s take a closer look at what facial yoga is and what it does, including suggested exercises and the surprising benefits of this practice.
What Is Facial Yoga?
Facial yoga is what it sounds like. It involves moving the muscles of your face into sometimes interesting positions. You stretch and strengthen the muscles of your face, just like you would on the mat.
Your face has about 30 muscles on each side, called your craniofacial muscles. These puppies get a lot of use — but when was the last time you rewarded them with a good stretch? Like your other muscles, they hold up what’s underneath, but your goal in facial yoga isn’t to build bulging versions that replace your cheekbones with bicep-like bulges. Rather, it’s to encourage blood flow to the entire area, relieve tension and possibly ease headaches.
Facial yoga isn’t likely a class they’ll offer at your local gym — although your aesthetician may go over some moves with you. Many people turn to facial yoga primarily for the beauty benefits, which makes sense. Like any other part of your body, your face has muscle, bone and connective tissue. Gentle movement encourages blood flow and decreases pain.
The difference literally shows on your face. After all, it’s the first feature most people notice about you, and increasing blood flow and toning the area does for your visage what regular workouts do for your body — improve its appearance. However, that’s far from the only benefit you may reap.
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Potential Benefits of Facial Yoga
Facial yoga may seem to be all about appearances. However, the benefits may go much further than skin deep.
For example, you might even want to teach facial yoga to your kids. It can serve a role in teaching them to recognize and eventually regulate their emotions. It could even do similar things for you. Consider these impressive perks.
1. Understanding and Expressing Emotions
Jokes about “RBF” aside, your facial expressions tell other people a lot about you — but you might not always appreciate the unconscious message you send. In many cases, you may not even be aware of the emotions you’re experiencing in the present moment, but they are nevertheless influencing how you think, act, decide — and look.
This numbness is a form of dissociation that may occur unconsciously as a defense mechanism. Even if you haven’t recently endured a traumatic event, the mere sensory overwhelm of living in a society full of demands and sensations that humans would never encounter in nature is enough to send your nervous system into overload, where it shuts down. However, your reactions can still affect you, even if you don’t consciously recognize them.
One mindful facial yoga exercise you can do to get more in touch with your emotions if you feel numb is to stand in front of a mirror, facing away from it. Bring to mind something that makes you angry. Now, freeze — don’t move a muscle, especially in your face. Turn around and observe what you see. What do you look like when you look angry?
You can repeat this exercise, drawing events or hypothetical situations in mind when you experience different emotions. Your job here isn’t to change or criticize anything — simply observe with self-compassionate curiosity. The goal is to start to make the connection between your feelings and your facial expressions.
For example, you may notice that your teeth clench when you think about situations that make you angry, especially if you can’t do anything about them. Your brain’s limbic system controls this response — it’s your primitive defense system. Once upon an evolutionary time, clenching your teeth protected them from attack, as losing the devices you needed to eat would prove fatal.
However, you are now a more evolved human with a frontal cortex capable of reasoning. Grinding your teeth about situations that make you angry yet you cannot solve — like a paycheck that no longer covers rent — no longer serves a useful purpose. If anything, it gives you more frequent headaches and can result in tooth loss or pricey dental work, something that only increases the pressure and gives you another reason to feel angry!
Once you make this connection with your facial expressions and your emotions, you have another tool for checking in with yourself. When you notice your teeth clenched in the future, you can, of course, relax them — then dig a little deeper. What’s happening that’s causing this emotional reaction?
Understanding your emotions — including knowing what you’re feeling when — plays an invaluable role in emotional regulation. Once you recognize how your feelings are affecting you, you can make better choices about how to manage them. For example, if work has you down, venting to your boss or even a colleague could be career-damaging. However, making plans to meet an outside friend for tea and a good, old-fashioned gripe session after work can get you through the day.
That’s why facial yoga is a handy practice to do with children. Teach your kids this exercise — make it into a game you play in front of the mirror together, perhaps while brushing your teeth. Little ones aren’t born knowing how to process big feelings, so they look to you for guidance. Here’s a fun way to help them recognize what they are feeling, opening the door to conversations about the best way to handle anger or sadness.
2. Altering Mindset Through Facial Movement
Can smiling — even when you don’t feel like it — adjust your mood? Some evidence suggests it might. The controversy has raged in scientific circles since Darwin’s era.
One 2022 study involved 3,800 participants from 19 countries. Researchers asked them to smile in three separate ways, either by mimicking a smiling person’s facial expression, following a series of instructions on how to smile or doing so with a pen in their mouth. Those in the first two groups reported an increase in positive mood.
Other, earlier studies suggested that only a smile that wrinkles the corners of your eyes — a Duchenne smile — had the same mood-altering effects. However, smiling in such a manner did increase positive emotions in study participants.
Fortunately, this form of facial yoga is easy to do anywhere. Try it in your car, perhaps while listening to a funny podcast. Smile as big as you can as often as you can while observing your mood for several minutes. It might make enduring that traffic jam less rage-inducing.
3. Easing Anxiety, Depression and Other Mood Disorders
Facial yoga is not a cure-all for mood disorders. However, it may ease some symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially when used in conjunction with other therapeutic modalities, medications or holistic interventions such as dietary modifications. Additionally, it’s an accessible form of yoga for those with physical disabilities that make different types of movement difficult.
One study found that yoga works better than stress management for easing anxiety, paling only besides cognitive-behavioral therapy in bringing relief. Another found that engaging in hot yoga classes decreased depression scores by half in study participants.
You can conduct your own experiment — keep track of your symptoms and how adding facial yoga affects them. If you’re familiar with cognitive-behavioral therapy, consider combining facial yoga with reframing to see if the one-two punch has an even bigger impact on your mood.
For example, imagine you feel nervous about giving an upcoming presentation at work. You might begin by identifying a thought such as, “Everyone will make fun of me.” Then, explore alternative interpretations, such as, “Everyone makes similar presentations. My colleagues support me and want me to succeed.” Do this while looking in the mirror and donning a confident smile — how does it affect how you feel?
4. Reducing Visible Aging Signs
Of course, the primary reason many people do facial yoga is to improve their appearance. While dermatologists once devoted much of their practice time to teenage acne, 42% of today’s patients are older adults seeking treatments like Botox and fillers. While these serve a useful purpose, those seeking a more natural — and less expensive — approach can benefit from learning a few facial yoga exercises.
Recent research suggests that facial yoga slows visible aging signs and improves overall skin tone and appearance. Best of all, it’s free. Anyone can master the exercises below to encourage fresh blood flow to their facial area and give themselves a youthful glow.
5. Managing Upper Neck Pain and Headaches
Facial yoga may also bring you relief if you suffer from neck pain and headaches, especially the tension variety. Many of the exercises include a mild massage. Furthermore, stretching tense muscles encourages them to relax.
For example, your masseter — the muscle that clenches your jaw and enables you to chew — is the strongest muscle in your body and can create some serious tension. Clenching your teeth can spur nasty headaches, and performing facial yoga exercises that encourage them to relax may bring relief.
Suggested Facial Yoga Exercises and Poses
If you’re interested in trying facial yoga, here are ten exercises to practice in front of the mirror. Once you master them, you can do them anywhere.
1. Lion’s Breath
Here’s a great one to stretch your masseter. Open your mouth as wide as you can, as if you are heaving a giant yawn. Then, stick out your tongue. You can even say, “aah.” Hold for two to three seconds, rest, and repeat.
2. Owl Eyes
Here’s a facial yoga exercise to do when you spend long hours on the computer. Cup your hands over your eyes. Then, remove one hand as you open that eye as wide as possible — it helps to create a gentle stretch with your other hand. Look up, down and to each side. Switch sides and repeat several times.
3. Chipmunk Cheeks
This move increases blood flow to your cheeks and delicate under-eye area. Begin by keeping your lips together and inflating your cheeks as if you were going to blow up a balloon. Then, place your hands gently along your chin line just underneath, pressing gently upward. Hold for two to three seconds and perform several repetitions.
4. The Joker
Remember the scene in “Joker” where Joaquin Phoenix pulls his cheeks up into a giant grin before letting them fall? You perform a similar motion with this facial yoga exercise. It works best if you also try to simulate a smile — yes, even if you don’t feel like it. It’s a great way to practice if you struggle to display positive emotions.
5. The Pekingese
Do you have a bit of a double chin? This facial yoga move can help. All you need to do is stick your chin and lower teeth out, forcing them to protrude over your top lip — like a cute little Pekingese puppy showing off his underbite. Hold for three or four seconds, then repeat.
6. The Forehead Lifter
Performing this facial yoga exercise occasionally through the workday may help if tension headaches plague you. Place your thumbs just outside your eyebrows with your forefingers near your hairline. Raise your eyebrows and pull up slightly, perhaps adding a bit of a massage at the top.
7. The Mew Mew
Are you trying to get lush, Kylie Jenner lips without filler? This facial yoga exercise may help. Purse your lips and pout them outward as if blowing an imaginary kiss. Then, pretend you’re a little fishy swimming in the sea by moving your lips while holding this position. It helps if you make “mew mew” sounds until you get the knack.
8. The Temple Tamer
You might unconsciously perform this facial yoga move when you have a headache. It could help you ease tension and headache pain. Begin as you would in the forehead lifter, but don’t raise your brows. Instead, use your thumbs to gently massage your temples — the small indentation just outside of each eye.
9. The Skull Cuddler
Tension headaches rarely confine themselves to your temples. To tame all-over head pain, spread your fingers wide, placing your hands on either side of your head, exerting gentle pressure. Then, massage in a circular motion, perhaps while dipping your head forward, to give the back of your neck a gentle stretch.
10. The Daith Massage
Your daith refers to the cartilage that makes up your inner ear. Many people with migraines swear by getting piercings in this area to reduce symptoms. You can use this facial yoga exercise as a type of acupressure for a similar effect. Simply locate that tiny flap at the inside corner of your ear. Place your forefinger behind it while massaging the area immediately in front of it with your thumb.
Tips to Make Your Facial Yoga Experience More Effective and Serene
While you can practice facial yoga nearly anywhere you need a quick pick-me-up, a little ceremony makes your ritual more special. Try these tips to get the most from your experience:
- Use lotion: It helps your fingers glide over your skin when performing massaging motions. Additionally, you can combine your facial yoga practice with your evening skincare routine.
- Consult a mirror: A mirror is a must when using facial yoga to explore your expressions mindfully. However, it can also help you cultivate self-love. Try reciting positive affirmations as you go through your routine, talking to yourself in the mirror as if you would your BFF.
- Stick to a Gentle Touch: Your facial skin is more delicate than the rest of your body. There’s no need to go hard, and using broad, flat areas like your thumb or your full palm is generally best.
- Grab a Partner: Do you want a fun, romantic ritual to bring you and your partner closer? Try performing facial yoga together — which can spur laughter — and finish by massaging each other’s face and scalp.
- Cultivate Mindfulness: Yoga isn’t like other forms of exercise where you tune out and let your thoughts wander. Instead, stay in the moment, truly feeling each exercise as you perform it. Consciously breathe into movements such as masseter stretches to encourage deeper relaxation.
Last Words
Facial yoga is a free way to enhance your natural beauty. It may also help you get more in touch with your emotions and build awareness of how you project yourself to others.
Try the facial yoga techniques above, perhaps performing them with your evening skincare routine. You may find that facial yoga is a way to enhance your glow while possibly improving your life in other ways.
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