Give yourself a facial workout
Your body loves a good workout. But did you know your face can also benefit from the same treatment?
Your face is very elastic and needs to move to retain this flexibility. If you’re worried about a double chin or sagging jowls follow my facial workout here.
I started doing this eight months ago and have definitely felt and seen the benefits. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are you will be amazed by the benefits of a good facial workout.
After feeling the wonderful lifting effects of facial massage, I wanted to understand more about the importance of working out your facial muscles as you would your body so I visited the Wellness Spa at Harrods and spoke to therapist Julia Chelmsdown.
Her military-style instructions to me were, ”Your face needs exercise!” “Like any other muscle those of the face learn what we teach it, if they are often kept in a pattern of tension that is how they will learn to be. Tissue needs to be move in in the right way to order to free and retain suppleness and elasticity and strength.”
I’m too young to have to worry about sagging jowles (just yet anyway), but for those (like me) who are worried about expression lines, don’t be – and don’t even think about using Botox. “For the face it is important to allow for all types of facial expression, but also make sure you massage the whole face in the morning and evening if possible by doing circular motions with the fingertips in opposite directions on each hand.
That way one breaks up tension habits. It’s important not to forget the rim of the face (along hairline and jaw line) in the process as it allows a gentle and overall lift of the skin.” Sounds simple.
As well as lifting sagging skin, getting rid of tension is a major benefit for your wellbeing and beauty. If you have a tight jaw like many of us do it can contribute to tension headaches, tiredness, anxiety, irritability and even poor sleep.
Not only that but if you relax the mouth muscles it can “prevent a freezing of the cheek and neck tissue, thus helping prevent a degeneration of the tissues”. How? Relax the tongue (moving the tip to the roof of your mouth) and don’t clench your jaw and this constricts the blood flow to the brain and pinches the nerves going up towards the scalp.
This constriction plus the pattern of tension in the muscles leads to poor blood supply to the tissue which in turn means loss of bounce and elasticity of the tissue and skin.
Worried about a double chin or ‘chicken neck’? You should set to work on relaxing the muscles at the front of the neck. To help, Julia recommends massaging with light strokes from the midline out towards the sides. “This helps prevent the loosening and sagging of the skin of the front of the neck, but also the double chin effect.”
She also recommends that you lightly pinch the skin for stimulating blood flow especially the cheeks. Concentrate special attention along the eyebrows and around them, between the top of your cheekbones and lower part of your eyelashes, along the cheekbones, and just above the jaw line. This, combined with lymph drainage-stimulating light movements will help flush excess fluids and improve blood flow for an all-round instant glow and long-term face lift.
Best of all – it’s FREE!
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