The muscles of our face are not different from any other part of the body. However, we never exercise them. To have nicer legs, fitter arms or defined abs we know what we have to do but why we don’t do the same with our face? Can we also tone it by exercising? The answer is yes, face yoga bases on this.
Although in traditional yoga there are no specific postures for the face, what face yoga does is apply many of its principles to train the musculature of the face and thus, maintain a more elastic skin, eliminate wrinkles and release stress.
Diana Bordón making some face yoga postures
An effective method
This discipline contradicts everything that most of us have been thinking until now. The most normal thing is to believe that making faces or pronounced gestures produces wrinkles and lines of expression. This is one of the reasons why the most skeptics have questioned its effectiveness. However, a recent study of the University of Northwestern has demonstrated the effectiveness of face yoga if it is practiced with perseverance.
In the study, published in the magazine JAMA Dermatology and in The New York Times, they showed images of the participants to independent dermatologists before the process started, in an intermediate moment and after it. They estimated that, after 20 weeks of daily practice, the women seemed, on average, three years younger than in the photos of the beginning of the study.
Gwyneth Paltrow practices face yoga
A test of effectiveness that celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez or Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t need. They are unconditional fans of face yoga. Is this the secret of their eternal youth? The last to praise its benefits has been Meghan Markle, who claims that this practice helps her define her chin and cheekbones.
Benefits of face yoga
1. Prevents facial sagging skin.
2. Smoothes wrinkles.
3. Activates the lymphatic system improving the tone and appearance of the skin.
4. Improves bags and dark circles.
5. Improves the double chin.
6. Activates blood supply and helps restore the metabolic functions of the skin to regenerate and create new collagen.
7. Helps identify patterns or gestures that age us and to reeducate our gestures.
8. Serene and positive attitude.
9. Contributes to energy balance of the whole organism. We have more than facial reflexology points in the face.
Two Spanish pioneers: Ara Rosón and Diana Bordón
Ara Rosón and Diana Bordón are two of the most important pioneers in face yoga in Spain. Rosón, who has just given two workshops at the Arsenal Femenino, Madrid, is about to publish her first book “Face Yoga with Ara Rosón. Beauty beyond your skin”. In her book, she collects years of experience study on skin aging and the important role of the facial muscles and their toning to counteract it.
Ara Rosón during one of her workshops in Arsenal Femenino
She defines her work as “a practical manual whose purpose is to obtain a natural lifting of the entire face and smooth wrinkles. The objective of the program is to develop a routine of 10 face exercises suitable for everybody, easy and simple to execute and that do not require more than 10 minutes a day”.
For her part, Diana Bordón has created the Facial Yoga Plan, a method based on daily routines of facial exercises available through her website.
We use a multitude of cosmetics to improve the appearance of our skin. The market is full of increasingly innovative products and articles but, what if the secret to improve the appearance of our skin does not reside in any product?
