If you want to firm up your face and get rid of wrinkles without having to break the bank with expensive skin products or invasive procedures, you can try doing facial exercises. Of course, the question you might ask is, “Do facial exercises work?” Well, it’s very likely that they do.

The muscles on our arms and legs are directly attached, not to our skin, but to the bones of our body, which allows us to move our arms and legs. The muscles on our face, on the other hand, are attached directly to our skin, and as we get older, these muscles, as well as the skin covering them, lose elasticity and tone. These factors all contribute to the sagging and wrinkles that many believe to be inevitable.

Of course, we can’t really stop the march of days or turn back the clock, but we can hold off the effects of aging that may show up on our faces simply by taking care of ourselves and exercising the muscles of our faces so that they’ll stay firm and keep our skin from sagging. Like any anti-aging method that claims not to require any pills, shots, or surgery though, facial exercising has both fans and detractors.

While a lot of people will swear by the benefits of facial exercise for the reasons stated above, when people ask, “do facial exercises work?” those who criticize it will point out that the deepest and most prominent kinds of wrinkles are the ones that come from the facial expressions that a person makes.

Laugh-lines follow the way the skin folds when a person laughs; frown-lines are created when a person frowns. Given that argument, wouldn’t exercising the muscles that create these kinds of facial expressions simply aggravate the problem?

Also, the drooping and sagging that happens as we age isn’t just caused by our facial muscles losing their tone; as we grow older, the stuff that keeps our skin youthful-looking; collagen and elastin, as well as the fatty layer of our skin, get depleted. These factors are certainly not to be ignored in the battle against time and gravity that we all have to wage, the older we get.

On the other hand, fans of facial exercise say that it stimulates blood flow to the face and the skin on the face, as well as relieve tension. Have you ever had a “stress spot” on your face –between your eyebrows, for example- where all of the anger or stress you feel seems to just pool in?

Usually, these areas have the deepest wrinkles. With facial exercises, you can help take some of the tension away from those spots, as well as refresh your whole face in general.
Just like any other exercise program though, facial exercises require dedication, patience, and repetition.

One example of a facial exercise which firms up the muscles around the eyes will have you winking one eye partway, holding it for a second, and repeating it at least fifty times before switching over to the other eye.

Exercises like these can take a lot of time. In fact, it can take months before the effects start to show, but when they do, you can pretty sure that the answer to the question, “do facial exercises work?” is “Yes.”

Tags: Anti-Aging, Miscellaneous, Natural Beauty, Skin // Add Comment »