Why?
We labor over our bodies in the gym, flexing and lifting and tensing to muscles to keep them firm and strong.
Should our faces be any different? Believers in facial exercise—sometimes referred to as face yoga—believe that stimulating and building the muscles in the face can help maintain contours and elasticity, and even make us look years younger.
Does it work?
A 2018 study conducted at Northwestern University showed that 20 weeks of daily facial exercise did indeed yield measurably firmer skin, and fuller upper and lower cheeks. The protocol involved 30 minutes a day for the first 8 weeks of the study, then every other day thereafter. Participants—sixteen women aged between 40 and 65—deemed themselves to look up to three years younger at the study’s completion, while impartial dermatologists gauged a slight but significant increase in cheek fullness. Since this was the first, and so far only, credible academic study to measure the effects of facial exercise, consider it a cautiously optimistic indication that there probably is a benefit to facial exercise—provided you dedicate a significant amount of time to it, and stick with a regimen.
How?
Essentially, it’s exactly what it sounds like: making repetitive motions and exaggerated expressions in order to activate and build muscles. Consider it resistance training for the face—by strengthening the matrix that holds everything up, sagging around the jaw and eyes might be less likely over time. Facial ageing is caused by a loss of elasticity, as well as by the gradual displacement of fat pads between muscle and skin, which tend to slide downward over time. The idea behind doing exercises is that by building up the muscle, the fat pads will be more prone to stay in place, making the face appear fuller and more youthful.
Check out Dion doing his facial yoga!!!