Via elephantjournal.com

on Aug 31, 2012

Face Yoga (Bet You Didn’t Know There Was An Asana for That). ~ Fumiko Takatsu

             

 

 

Face yoga is a blend of yoga-like body postures and facial exercises that improves your appearance and sense of well-being.

It is a unique technique to turn back the clock; face yoga focuses on your facial movements and expressions—and teaches you to exercise your face muscles to create a firmer, more sculpted face line.
The end result is younger, radiant, glowing skin!

How Face Yoga Works

The muscles are the foundation of the skin. In order to have radiant, tight, beautiful looking skin, you need a good foundation supporting it from below; face yoga exercises work by strengthening the muscles under the skin. As the muscles get toned and grow, they fill in and give you a youthful face.
Face yoga exercises also promote better blood and oxygen flow throughout the face and body making it easier for nutrients to reach the top layer of the skin; when the skin is given proper nutrients, its turn over speeds up resulting in glowing skin. By doing simple facial exercises daily, you also add more symmetry to your face and slow down the aging process.

The Shocking Truth about Gravity and the Face

We learned about Newton’s law of gravity at school. Gravity helps us to stand; we live on earth thanks to gravity.
However, gravity is one of the greatest enemies of aging. As you know, gravity pulls down all objects on earth—and that includes our body parts.
As we age we get shorter, breasts sag, buttocks soften and flatten out and the stomach begins to protrude.
Unfortunately, just like the body, our facial parts are also attacked by gravity. The corners of the mouth go down, the nose gets longer, cheeks get lower and eyelids droop.
We cannot stop the aging process but we can delay age related results by taking care of ourselves.
Many people exercise to maintain the body and keep it young; why not exercise your face for the same reason?
Face yoga exercises your face muscles in ways you never knew existed!

Warning: Your Future Face

photo courtesy of the author

Take a look at yourself in a mirror; see for yourself how you will look in the future and how you looked in the past.
We see our faces everyday and there is no obvious device to measure changes, like a belt for the waistline or a scale for body weight. Without a measuring instrument, it is harder to track the changes in our faces.
One of my favorite tricks for taking a peek at my future face is to hold a mirror parallel to the floor and breathe in through the nose.
While breathing out through your nose, move your face down until it is parallel to the mirror…how do you like it?
Which area on your face bothers you? Double chin? Saggy cheeks? Droopy eyelids?
Now, let’s take a look at what your face used to look like.
Hold a mirror parallel to the ceiling and breathe in through your nose. While breathing out through your nose, lift your face up until it becomes parallel to the mirror.

photo courtesy of the author

This is your face in the past.
Don’t you miss the way you looked?
You may not be able to go back to this face but with proper face exercises, you can definitely delay the aging process; in the same way that exercise keeps your body younger it can keep your face younger.
If you are not happy with the way you look when you look down in the mirror, especially if you notice that the nasolabial fold lines or “laugh lines” look more noticeable or deeper, here is a pose for you:

Face Yoga: Nasolabial fold lines Exercise

Benefit: This simple and easy pose softens and even eliminates lines around your mouth, especially nasolabial fold lines.
1) Breathe through your nose while keeping your mouth closed.
2) Move your tongue to the side of your mouth and push against the inside of your cheek with your tongue. Hold it for ten seconds.
3) Slowly move your tongue across to the center and then to the left and push against the inside of your cheek with your tongue. Hold it for ten seconds.
4) Repeat one more time.
5) Come out from the pose and then relax.
You can do it any time and anywhere…and, most likely, nobody would notice what you are doing!
Don’t you love it?

Fumiko’s five books on face yoga have been translated in to Chinese, Korean and Thai and sold in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. She also has appeared on Korean TV shows. But, it is the one-on-one interactions of a facial yoga class that are the most rewarding to Fumiko, helping students discover their most beautiful face and inner self. For a free face yoga ebook by Fumiko please visit her website.