Face Yoga: Anti-Aging Magic or Another Trend?
Crow’s feet, laugh lines, forehead wrinkles- can these common signs of aging be resolved by face yoga? Those who practice this beauty regimen claim that face yoga can help to improve your blood circulation while reducing both stress and tension in your face. This leads us to wonder how something so simple can be so effective. Is it just a fad or is face yoga a legitimate way to improve the appearance of your skin?
What is Face Yoga?
Face yoga exactly what it sounds like! It combines the use of exercise, stretching, and massage techniques but for your (you guessed it) face! Face yoga supposedly helps you achieve skin-lifting results without resorting to surgery, injections, or costly skincare items. These exercises also work to lift areas of sagging or drooping, ultimately reducing the visible signs of aging and making the face appear younger. Overall, they offer a natural approach to rejuvenating one's visage, potentially reducing the appearance of aging by several years.
Potential Benefits:
- Releases facial tension
- Tones facial muscles
- Improves circulation and blood flow. Face yoga promotes increased circulation and blood flow to the skin, leading to a healthy glow.
- Smooth fine lines and wrinkles
- Provides a natural face lift. These exercises can help counter the effects of gravity by lifting sagging areas and promoting a more lifted and defined facial contour.
- Reduces the appearance of scars. It may contribute to reducing the visibility of scars by stimulating circulation and promoting skin regeneration.
Potential Cons:
- If done too aggressively, facial yoga may accelerate signs of aging. Afterall, common wrinkles such as crow’s feet or laugh lines happen as a result of repetitive muscle activity. Routinely pulling the face and exercising those muscles could also create the potential for more wrinkles and fine lines.
- Loss of cheek volume with skin sagging is mainly related to deflation of fat tissue and resorption of underlying bone structure, rather than a loss of facial muscle so facial exercises might not help.
- The structure of facial muscles is considerably thin and distinct from the larger muscles found in areas like the thighs or buttocks. Consequently, no matter how much you exercise your muscles, it might be difficult to increase their size in the same way you can with body muscles.
- Sweaty hands could clog your pores and cause your skin to break out because they carry dirt, oil, and bacteria all day.
Final Thoughts
All in all, the cons seem to outweigh the “potential” benefits that face yoga claims to offer. Repetitive muscle contractions will only cause wrinkles to show up. Regularly giving your facial muscles a workout will only speed up the process. To learn more about face yoga, listen to my podcast here.
