The following is an excerpt from Health Hour with Mansi Gulati, certified yoga teacher and author, and Shammi Gupta, certified yoga therapist and naturopath. Watch the YouTube video for the full practice as well as the question and answer session.

 

For most people, face yoga is an effective technique to improve the muscle tone of the face. But, have you ever thought, how does it actually do that? What are the other advantages? Unless, you are already someone who does face yoga daily, the magic of how face yoga helps comes down to its massage, relaxation and acupressure techniques. But, what makes face yoga effective, exactly?

Specifically, face yoga targets the muscles of cheeks, face, neck, and shoulders to boost circulation, relieve stress, improve lymphatic drainage, and relax overactive muscles. The acupressure techniques in the face yoga gives a natural facelift, firms-up the muscles under the skin—helping control fine lines, wrinkles, expression and other sagging lines.

Doing face yoga improves mental wellbeing and confidence too. Imagine holding poses for extended periods to bring awareness to facial muscles. It helps bring fresh blood and oxygen to the skin, release the tension built in the forehead, brows, jaw and tightness in other areas. Depending on the kind of face exercise you do, you train and specifically activate some of the 42 individual facial muscles.

 

Other Benefits Of Face Yoga
“Yoga does much more than help your face look youthful. The contraction and relaxation of facial muscles encourages you to concentrate, stay in the present moment and relax,” adds Gupta.

 

Controls the appearance of ageing: Facial ageing not only includes skin laxity, superficial photodamage but also includes deeper substructural volume loss of fat and muscle. According to a study published in JAMA Dermatology, facial “yoga” can rejuvenate the ageing face. Face yoga stimulates muscle growth and helps add fullness to the face.

 

Improves mental health: A study performed on 53 participants found that doing facial exercises help improve mental health, facial expression, tongue muscle power, says J-Stage journal. Face yoga softens the face muscles to help reduce stress, control anxiety and promote better sleep.

 

Controls headache and migraine: Face yoga conditions, trains and strengthens the facial muscles to control the frequency and intensity of migraine. Yoga, as an adjuvant therapy in migraine patients finds positive results, says International Journal of Yoga.

 

8 Face Yoga Exercises To Do Everyday
 

1.Kapauldhauti Kriya

This facial yoga move helps clear toxins from the face and shows improvement in upper and lower cheek fullness.

1. Join the fingertips excluding the thumb.
2. Fill your mouth with air.
3. Use your thumb to press your nose.
4. Bring your head down and hold the pose for 10 seconds.
5. Exhale the air out from the nose.
6. Relax and repeat this thrice.

 

2.Balloon Pose

This exercise helps to reduce swollen cheeks, puffy and bloated face.

1. Fill your cheeks with air (cheeks look like a balloon now).
2. Put your middle and index finger on your lips.
3. Stretch your eyes wide.
4. Hold the pose for 10 seconds.
5. Release the pose and repeat thrice.

 

3. Pout pose

This face yoga move helps to get a chiseled jawline and well-defined cheekbones.

1. Make a pout.
2. Stretch your cheek muscles as much as possible.
3. Hold the pose for 10 seconds and release.
4. Repeat this thrice.

 

4. V Pose

This exercise helps to get rid of dark circles and eye wrinkles. Also, it helps to strengthen your eye muscles.

1. Use your middle and index finger to create a V around your eyes.
2. Stretch your eyes gently down using the fingers and shift your eyeballs to look up.
3. Hold the pose for 10 seconds.
4. Release, relax and do it thrice.

 

5. Eyebrow raise

This face yoga move brings comfort to your strained and sunken eyes.

1. Raise your eyebrows up.
2. Blink your eyes for 10 seconds.
3. Release, relax and repeat thrice.

 

6. Mindfulness pose

Doing this helps ease migraine and aids good sleep.

1. Hold the center of your forehead using your four fingers excluding your thumb. Apply medium pressure to the center of the forehead.
2. Swipe it gently until your fingers reach the tip of your eyebrows.
3. Close your eyes.
4. Now, rotate your eyeballs gently using your index finger in both clockwise and anticlockwise direction for 10 seconds.
5. Release and relax. Repeat this move thrice.

 

7. Lion’s pose

This is a great facial yoga exercise for a double chin and helps you lose that excess facial chub.

1. Look up.
2. Pull your tongue out and hold for 10 seconds.
3. Release, relax and repeat this thrice.

 

8. Squeeze tap pose

This face yoga exercise helps control stress and anger. It relaxes your mind too.

1. Squeeze your facial muscles in.
2. Inhale using your nose.
3. Begin to gently tap your face. Do it for 10 seconds.
4. Stop tapping, exhale and release.
5. Do this thrice.