Face yoga - the overlooked skincare practice
Have you ever heard of face yoga? Probably not. Most people think of full body movements when they think of yoga. But what if I told you there was a whole other practice dedicated to strengthening and stretching the muscles in your face - a practice that promotes healthy facial features and enhances your natural beauty.
Face yoga can be done anywhere, anytime by anyone - and it’s completely free!
Here are some poses to try out!
Lemon’s Face
Lemon’s face is when you scrunch all of your facial features in towards your nose as if you have bitten into a sour lemon. This tensing of the facial muscles helps to promote healthy blood flow and makes you aware of any tension you was previously holding in your face. Working our facial muscles helps to improve our emotional expressions and aid our digestion (salavating/chewing). When you practice lemon’s face - practice doing it on your inhale through your nose, and as you exhale release the facial features.
Lion’s Face
Contrary to Lemon’s face, Lion’s face works the muscles in the opposite way. We are stretching the muscles of the face fully to lengthen and strengthen them. To practice Lion’s face, stick your tongue out towards your chin and look up. A good way to practice this is to do it alongside lemon’s face. So inhale lemon and exhale lion (you may feel a bit silly doing this but the affects are too great to care about what you look like!) Practicing this can instantaneously make you look energised, this is a great pose to do before you start the day.
Camel Mouth
A lot of us hold tension in our jaw, as you’re reading this right now, I encourage you to bring your awareness to your jaw - was it clenched? Probably. Some of us, (meaning me), grind our teeth in our sleep, which is constantly stressing the jaw muscles. So practicing what I like to call, “camel mouth”, helps to relax the jaw. To practice, gently draw circles with your jaw, the way camels do when chewing. You can go clockwise and anti-clockwise, you may even hear a few clicks when you practice this. After doing circles, gently move your jaw side to side, notice any newfound space there. And to complete this little jaw sequence, let it hang, jaw open and relaxed. You will notice your jaw feels lighter straight away!
Temple massage
If you have ever been lucky enough to have a temple massage, you will know how GOOD it feels. And there is explanation as to why it feels so good to massage this specific area of the face, massaging the face is connected to reducing stress in the body. The temples are pressure points and therefore are a sweet spot for releasing tension from the face. To do this massage, you take two fingers gently to your temple points and massage gently. Make circles clockwise and anti clockwise for a few breath counts. Massaging the face is a great form of stress relief, and when the body is physically holding onto our stress, it manipulates our appearance. So by doing this simple technique, you might notice your face become less puffy and swollen overtime.
Third Eye Connection
Our third eye is at the point between our two eyebrows, we want to build a strong connection to our third eye for many reasons, it enhances our intuition & creativity and strengthens our consciousness. When we connect with ourselves spiritually, our physical body shows it. So if we are looking to better our physical appearance, let’s start by healing our spiritual body first. To do so, bring two fingers to the point in between the eyebrows and just like with the temple massage, draw circles here. Close your eyes when connecting with your third eye, bringing the hands to this point is a powerful tool to unlock the Ajna Chakra (third eye chakra) and will not only relieve any physical stress that you are holding in the face, but it will help you feel your sense of wisdom and spirituality.
Does face Yoga really work?
Face yoga can help you change your facial appearance overtime and achieve a healthier look. But it is not the answer to all of your problems, it’s important to practice face yoga alongside other practices like lymphatic drainage, hydration and optimal nutrition in order to fully resolve issues like a puffy or swollen face. But hopefully this has opened your eyes to realising you don’t need to spend tons of money on expensive skincare and treatments to enhance your appearance - a lot of the best remedies are natural and taking a holistic approach will be more benefical in the long run!
