The benefits of practicing yoga are varied and many. But did you know that yoga can actually make your face look younger? Turns out, that while we’re all using expensive eye creams and face serums, yoga just might be the fountain of youth we all need.
Certified facial-exercise instructor, Gary Sikorski, is the founder of Happy Face Yoga, where he teaches people how to stimulate 57 muscles within the face, neck and scalp with different exercises.
Yes, you’re going to look silly doing them, but here’s why making a funny face pays off. By working the muscles of your face, neck and scalp, you’re actually doing facial resistance training.
Now, facial resistance training might sound like a bit of a stretch (no pun intended), but it actually works.
Northwestern University conducted a 20-week study, in which middle-aged women practiced facial exercises every day for 30 minutes for eight weeks. For the remainder of the study, they did 30 minutes every other day.
The results? Both the upper and lower cheeks were fuller. Plus, participants looked about three years younger at the end of just 20 weeks.
Why? Because facial exercises strengthen the muscles below the skin, bulk them up and provide a fuller look to your face.
This helps to lift the face, which is exactly what we need when gravity pulls the face downward and makes it look droopy and heavy.
Here’s how to do “Happy Cheek Sculpting”
- Smile without showing your teeth
- Roll your lips outward to show as much lip as possible
- Force your cheek muscles up and try to smile with the corners of your mouth
- Take your index fingers and place them at the corners of your lip, pressing firmly
- Slowly slide your index fingers up to your cheekbones and continue drawing the muscles up and over the cheekbones, all the way up to the corner of your eyes
- Pause. Gently and firmly hold the muscles in place for 20 seconds
- Keep smiling and breathing!
