Lifestyle Choices

One of the most useful things you can do yourself to prevent your face from aging and to correct sags and bags even after they have occurred is to practice face exercises every day.

The bones you were born with give yaw face its individual shape and structure. Short of plastic surgery or adjustments to your skull through cranial osteopathy, there is nothing you can do to change them. But your muscles are constantly changing either for better or for worse. They are made up of bundles of fibers, each of which works independently to shorten muscle and draw a part of the face into a particular expression. Just like the muscles in the rest of your body, each of these groups of fibers has an antagonistic group. This means that for each muscle that pulls an area of your face into one expression, there is an opposite muscle to pull it the other way.

For instance, one muscle lifts the eyebrow and another lowers it. So as one muscle lengthens, the other shortens, and vice versa, in a team-like effort. At least that is how it is supposed to work. What often happens, however, is that because of habitual expressions (the polite mask a woman shows to the world, the continual worry that draws the eyebrows together, and so forth) and because of the constant pull of gravity on the face, particular muscles tend to be usually contracted, or shortened, while their partners are just as usually flaccid, or stretched, so that neither get the workout and movement they need to remain firm, full, strong, and in good tone. Then you get muscle tightness and muscle shrinkage, which interferes with proper circulation in that area of the skin and gradually results in distortions of facial contours, such as hollows around the eyes, the valleys that run between the edges of the nose and the outer corners of the mouth, and the sag of the typical double chin.

The only way to maintain the health and firmness of muscles that will preserve youthful contours in a face is exercise. The more you are able to make use of all your muscles in all movements, the stronger they will become. And with it the firmer and more contoured your skin will look. Also your circulation will improve with exercise and you will have a better color. No matter what condition your face is in, whether it is young and smooth, just beginning to lose its firmness, or sagging heavily, exercise will help it. And the worse its condition the greater the improvement you will see. And it is never too late to start. Before long, beginning to work each muscle restores even an aging face to more- youthful contours.

If you are young and have no particular sags or hollows, one of the best ways to stay that way is simply to spend two or three minutes a day in front of a mirror, making the most outrageous faces at yourself. Pull your muscles into all sorts of distortions that in the normal course of your expressions you would never do. Make your lips into an “o” shape hard and open your eyes wide while you raise your forehead. Wrinkle your nose and at the same time open your mouth as wide as possible.

Twist your mouth from one side to the other, then draw down its corners while you tighten the muscles in the side of your neck. Make the face of a fool, or of a monster. The possibilities are endless and the more weird and ugly the faces you can make while going through them, the better a workout you will be giving your muscles.

Face Exercises

After thirty, if lines have begun to form, you have to be more specific about the kind of exercises you do. In effect you have to locate a problem area, say a developing hollow under the cheek, or loose flesh under the jaw and chin, and then work on the specific muscles that will counterbalance it.

This can be done through some simple but specific isotonic-type exercises in front of your mirror, or you can use faradic exercise equipment such as Slendertone to do contractions for you. There are facial electrode attachments, which you can get to go with most passive exercise machines of this type, which when placed at specific points on the face will automatically contract the muscles in that area. There is also a battery-operated face exerciser, which works on the same principles but is small enough to put into a handbag for travel. Faradic exercises are also recommended by many plastic surgeons for use before and after surgery to restore muscle strength and tone.)

Either isotonic movement or passive exercise will work, provided you are conscientious about exercising every day. It is the regular workout you give your face muscles that brings results, and although results can be slow to show themselves—in some cases demanding several weeks’ work before you detect significant changes for the better—they can also be astoundingly good. For regular face exercising can transform your face completely, not only making it look ten years younger by eliminating excess and softening expression lines and filling in hollows, but also by enlivening the whole look of the skin.

All exercises have to be done slowly and steadily. The muscles of your face, unlike those of the rest of your body, are attached to the skin itself. When you move them, you naturally move your skin, too. You need never be afraid of the movements, but you should never overtire muscles either—slow and steady is the pace to adopt.

The exercises below are designed to treat the four problem areas of the face: the eyes, the chin and throat, the cheeks (where little smile lines form), and the forehead. The exercises should be done with a well- creamed skin. Moving the face about without this lubrication may deepen any lines already there. The cream you use should be rich—one of the old-fashioned, rather greasy night creams will do nicely, or you can use olive or coconut oil.

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