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Facial Fitness: Daily Exercises



CHICAGO - A 30-minute daily or alternate-day facial exercise program sustained over 20 weeks improved the facial appearance of middle-aged women, resulting in a younger appearance with fuller upper and lower cheeks, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. This is the first scientific study to test the premise of facial exercise improving appearance.


Participants learned and performed 32 distinct facial exercises, each one for about a minute. One is The Cheek Lifter: Open mouth and form O, position upper lip over teeth, smile to lift cheek muscles up, put fingers lightly on top part of cheek, release check muscles to lower them, and lift back up. Repeat by lowering and lifting the cheeks.




Facial Fitness: Daily Exercises



The study tasked a small group of women aged 40 and older to devote time every day to a series of facial workouts. The exercises were intended to reduce wrinkles, help fill in hollow cheeks and minimize other signs of aging. These exercises focused on strengthening and building up underlying muscle in the cheeks, jawline, neck, eyelids and eyebrows.


She adds that more and bigger studies are needed before dermatologists can recommend facial exercises as a viable anti-aging remedy. Future studies need to include a much larger pool of participants and a control group, as well as longer-term studies to address whether the benefits remained after participants give up the routine.


The concept of facial exercise is not a new one. A simple Internet search will produce a litany of blog posts and books on the subject, touting a variety of programs that promise to be the next fountain of youth. What the JAMA Dermatology researchers did in their study, which was the first of its kind, was to examine this question from a more rigorous scientific perspective. They enrolled 27 women between the ages of 40 and 65 to perform daily, 30-minute exercises for eight weeks, and then continue every other day for a total of 20 weeks.


While these results seem exciting, the study has some obvious limitations. Of the 27 patients enrolled, 11 dropped out before completing the study. One reason may be that the program was too time-consuming, clocking in at 30 minutes a day. The overall small size of the study also limits its generalizability to the larger population. In addition, there was also no control group, meaning a group of participants who did no facial exercises, which would have helped minimize the possibility that this improvement occurred by chance.


Facial exercises have long been debated about...but, do they really work? If yes, how? While not all of them work, for instance, pulling on your cheeks won't give you a facelift, some do. Here are nine simple facial exercises you can do right now for tighter skin and sculpted features!


You can blame a muscle called platysma for giving you that not-so-cute double chin in pictures. This muscle connects your jawline to your shoulders, and its loosening leads sagging skin on the neck. These quick facial exercises will make sure they are back to being tight. These will help tone your neck, chin, and jaw area:


There are various types of exercises meant to strengthen the tongue, facial muscles, and throat through specific training techniques. Each of these exercises can be grouped together in various ways and performed two to three times per day.


2. TIGHTEN A SAGGING NECKYour neck is often one of the first places to show signs of ageing. Use these facial exercises for your jowl and neck area. Simply press the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Then look upwards with your chin to the ceiling, smile and swallow. Continue doing this for 30-60 seconds.


1. Improved confidenceThe appearance of wrinkles and the signs of ageing can have a negative effect on a person's confidence, even though this is a beautiful and natural process. By tightening the skin, facial yoga and face workouts can help to combat when the signs of ageing start to show. Face exercises for women, especially, can help to boost confidence, because often when you like how you look, you also feel good.


4. Overall wellbeingJust like traditional yoga, facial yoga can be very soothing, therapeutic, and calming. By reducing stress and improving self-esteem, face yoga exercises can have wonderful results on both your overall physical and mental wellbeing.


Several dermatologists pointed to one particular study that showed the benefit of facial exercise with a few catches. "The most promising and most-often-cited support comes from research published in JAMA Dermatology," shares Dr. Geeta Patel of River Oaks Dermatology. "In the study, a group of participants ages 40 to 65 performed facial exercises for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks. Then for 12 more weeks, they practiced the exercises three to four times per week. At the end of the 20 weeks, the study participants saw improved upper and lower cheek fullness." Additionally, the participants were perceived by professionals as looking more youthful.


For a few examples of exercises to try, consider Theron's daily routine, which she amps up with the use of tools like an mini exercise ball and sculpting device, like a gua sha. "I start each day with three to five platysma stretches to tone and lengthen this muscle which stretches from the corners of your mouth all the way down your pectorals," says Theron. "You push your lower jaw forward by bringing your lower teeth in front of your upper teeth and slowly raising your chin toward the ceiling in five counts. Hold for five counts and return to your starting position. I then use the FaceGym Ball to work on the orbicularis oculi, which wrap around our eyes and are responsible for maintaining our upper and lower eyelids. You press the [ball] to the outer corner of the eye and scoop upwards to get a nice lift. Fiercely blink your eye 10 times. You work against the tension of your ball to feel the muscle around your eye get stronger. Repeat on the other side. I finish my practice with our Multi-Sculpt to release the muscles I just worked and aid in lymphatic drainage. I do a series of draining movements starting on the neck with the long edge, holding it horizontally at a 15 degree angle and lightly sliding it from the jawline down to the collarbone five to eight times on each side. Then holding it vertically, I work from the nasolabial folds to the ear and down the neck. Finally I take the hug at the bridge of the nose and hold for three seconds to release tension and up the forehead." Many other techniques can be found in San Pedro's book.


While changes to the face due to genetics or aging are perfectly natural, there are some exercises you can do to help define your jawline. Exercising the neck, chin, jaw, and other facial muscles can lead to subtle changes in your face, including sharper cheekbones and a more prominent jawline. One study found that performing regular facial exercises over the course of 20 weeks led to fuller cheeks and a more youthful appearance.


Think of facial exercises as a targeted, small-scale lymphatic drainage massage. "Massaging your facial muscles will immediately start working your lymphatic system, which keeps your body clear of toxins and fluids, and improves contours by removing tension and stress in the muscle," explains Joss. "Also, it pushes blood with essential nutrients and oxygen into the skin and muscle tissue to nourish and improve cell renewal." Not only does this help the tone and texture of your skin, massage can also refine pores, clear out congestion, and wrangle breakouts.


There's so much facial movement that goes on I was worried it would actually cause more wrinkles, a concern the authors had already considered. "Frown lines and smile lines are caused by repetitive facial motions that we make for many hours a day over many years. On the other hand, we asked participants to do each individual exercises for just one minute per day," explains Murad Alam, M.D., the lead author of the study and professor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "So it is likely that the exercises we recommended were enough to grow some muscles to fill out the face, but not enough to cause wrinkles."


Since I've returned, I've been slacking on my facial workouts, but I'll probably reincorporate them into my routine, because the authors guess that face exercises may have a preventative effect. "Facial muscles, like any other muscles on the body, can be exercised and do grow in size with exercise," explains Dr. Alam. "If you work to grow your facial muscle volume when you're young, your face may not thin out as much with age." And why not? It's free and I can do it without leaving the couch. If that's not a good way to take care of my skin, I don't know what is.


In the study, 22 adult women with forehead wrinkles were treated with botulinum toxin. Half were then asked to exercise their facial muscles over four hours after the injections; the other half were not. The exercises included raised motions of the forehead and scowls (i.e., knitting the brows) in three sets of 40 repetitions separated by 10 minutes. Six months later, after the treatments' effects had worn off, participants were retreated. This time, the experiment was reversed, with those who had exercised last time now avoiding facial exercise, and the others performing exercises.


Both dermatologists and participants rated forehead wrinkles to be better in two to three days after treatment when injections were followed by facial exercise, compared to three to four days without exercise. By two weeks, there was no difference in effect between exercise and non-exercise participants. There also was no difference in how long the treatments kept working before wearing off. Sixty-eight percent of participants believed exercising made muscle relaxation and wrinkle reduction occur faster. Fifty-nine percent found the facial exercises very easy to do. 2ff7e9595c


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