Face Yoga and 6 Exercises to Try at Home

Estimated read time 4 min read

Yoga is a great way to work on your flexibility and strength. Just about everyone can do it, too — it’s not just for people who can touch their toes or want to meditate. Some types of yoga are about relaxation. In others, you move more. Most types focus on learning poses, called asanas. They also usually include attention to breathing. In the post, we share Face Yoga and 6 Exercises to Try at Home.

Face Yoga and 6 Exercises to Try at Home

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Portrait of young attractive yogi woman doing yoga, practicing Kriya technique for eyes and stress relief, working out, cool urban style, closeup, grey studio background

What Is Face Yoga?

First things first: Face yoga doesn’t involve the usual Shavasana or Downward-Facing Dog poses you’re familiar with from your yoga practice. “Yoga” is just a catchy way to say facial exercises that move the muscles on your face into certain positions — kind of like yoga for your body. The idea is that performing these exercises will keep your face looking toned and young, lifting areas that are sagging and drooping, and trimming years from your visage.

“The aim is to create a moment of self-care where you improve blood circulation for a healthy glow and reduce stress and tension in your face,” says Elsa Jungman, Ph.D., a scientist, microbiome expert, and proponent of facial yoga based in San Francisco.

Most people hold tension in their faces, whether through facial expressions or too much time in front of a screen. “All these daily activities cause patterns in how we use our face and the specific muscles we recruit,” Dr. Jungman says. “This is why we want to focus more on releasing and softening our faces to let go of these patterns and any held facial tension.”

6 Exercises to Try at Home

  • Happy Cheeks Sculpting: Smile without showing your teeth and roll your lips out as if trying to show as much lip as possible. Try to smile with the corners of your mouth so you feel a slight burn in the corners of your mouth. Press your index fingers into the corners of your mouth and slide the fingers up to your cheekbones as you press into the muscle. Lift the muscle up to the cheekbones, toward the corners of your eyes. When you get to the top of your cheekbones, hold for 20 seconds and feel the muscles tightening in your cheeks. Keep smiling with the corners of your mouth as you do this. Repeat three times.
  • Fight Eye Wrinkles and Crow’s Feet: Keeping shoulders back and relaxed, point your chin down to your chest, and make an oval with your mouth. At the same time, look upward with just the eyes: “don’t move your head or shoulders, you should feel stretching underneath the eye,” says Hayashi. Hold for three seconds, and then tuck the upper lip inside the mouth to make an “ahh” face. This circuit should give you “a deep stretch in the face … so that wrinkles don’t stay.”
  • Anti-aging Facial Yoga For Cheeks- The Smile Smoother: Make an ‘O’ shape with the mouth, hiding your teeth with your lips, Smile widely while keeping the teeth hidden, and repeat six times. Next, hold the smile shape while placing one index finger on the chin. Then start to move the jaw up and down as the head tilts gently back. Relax and repeat twice more

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  • Yoga For Brows: The Flirty Eyes: Place an index finger under each eye, pointing towards the nose. Hide the teeth and form an ‘o’ with your mouth. Flutter the upper eyelids while gazing at the ceiling for 30 seconds.
  • Jaw and Neck Firmer: Open your mouth and make an “aah” sound. Fold your lower lip and the corners of your lips into your mouth and hold tightly as you extend your lower jaw forward. Using your lower jaw, scoop up slowly as you close your mouth, pulling your chin up about 1 inch each time you scoop and tilting your head backward. Open and close your lower jaw 10 times. On the 10th scoop, your chin should be pointing to the ceiling. Hold this position for 20 seconds and think about the sides of your face lifting. Repeat three times.
  • Temple Developer: Press your fingertips into your temples as you close your jaw, clenching your teeth together and tilting your chin up. Clench your teeth and concentrate on the temple region, thinking about trying to move your ears backward. Hold for 10 seconds, then clench your back teeth down and hold for 10 seconds. Your temple muscles should flex with each clench. Relax and then repeat three times.

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