Facial Exercises – A Natural Alternative to Cosmetic Surgery Part II
by Carolyn Cleaves
(See photo-illustrated photos below against hanging jowls)
Fast Results
Last time I talked about facial exercises and how it’s one of the fastest growing fitness programs happening today. How everybody knows that through exercising in a gym you can firm up the body and skin… well! The same thing is true about the face. Only, it’s a bit faster in the face than in the body. The muscles are attached to the skeleton, that is, bone to bone in the body. In the face many of the muscles are not only attached with one end into the skeleton, but the other end is attached directly into the skin or another muscle. This is great news for us face exercisers! It means firming up the face, neck and skin show results faster than they show in the body!
Muscles Have Memory
Plus! Muscles have memory! If you exercise your face and neck for a couple of years and then stop for a while and gravity does its thing. Sigh…. Not to worry…. Once you start exercising again, the muscles will remember where you left off and soon, you’ll be back to where you were. This means you go back to where you were when you stopped working-out in a few short weeks, regaining that youthful look you once had when exercising. NOW! This also means that face exercises are completely natural. You stop… gravity and time takes over… you go back to exercising and you reap the benefits! You have control.
Discovering Facial Exercises
I was first attracted to facial exercises only after I tried lots of other things to get rid of the sagging and bagging and wrinkling that was very apparent on my 52 year old face!! I tried all the electronic gadgets… holding one such “zapper” to my face for 45 minutes a day. I lasted about three days and gave up. My arms were exhausted! And, I didn’t really see much improvement… I still had that double chin and all those rings around my neck. Not to mention the jowls. Hanging jowls was my inheritance. Super sigh!
Next, I discovered face exercises. I tried lots of programs on the market at the time and found them all lacking. They were either too long or too short and ineffective, as well. I wanted something that wasn’t too aggressive and yet I wanted something that showed results—that lifted up my face and smoothed out my wrinkles. I also wanted to do it in less than 20 minutes. So many programs required 40 minutes worth of work-out time. This is why I finally designed my own program.
A Competent Program Gives the Best Results
I think it’s very important to get a face exercise program that’s competent, complete and of high quality. It should be one that covers all 57 muscles of the face and neck and can be completed in 15 minutes or so. Also, you want a program that’s easy to use and easy to learn. I think having a DVD or video is paramount in learning the face exercises. This way you will know for sure exactly how to do the face exercises properly. You have a live demonstration to which you can compare.
I found that face exercising is most effective when you’re building muscle and shortening muscles to create lift and a younger, more youthful look. Skin naturally tightens up around a contracting muscle. Ten times more oxygen also goes to a contracting muscle. This is great for the condition of the skin, as well. Look at what happens to your body when you work out?! The skin eventually tightens up around the exercising muscle. I had recently lost 50 pounds when I started exercising the face and neck. I can tell you that my neck is completely smooth and firm, and my jowls, double chin, hanging eyelids are all a thing of the past. In fact, people usually guess me to be about 42 years old. I love to look more than 15 years younger than I am!!! Vanity at work… Sigh….
Youth Jumps
I’ve been doing the face exercises for almost nine years, now and to my astonishment I still have youth jumps. That is, in the first two years of face exercising, every three months or so, all of a sudden you look a bit younger than you did before. Then, the jumps get further apart. Then they happen every six months or so. I recently had a youth jump. Somehow my face and jowls are just a little bit younger looking than before. So, I’m looking younger as I grow older. Amazing!
Firming Up Those Jowls
Last time I gave the sample exercise for firming up a double chin. This time I’d like to give you the face exercise for firming up the jowls. It’s called “The Pout” and it helps to lift out lines from the corners of the mouth, down to the chin—especially those pesky furrow lines!
| The Pout | |||
Place the Index finger from each hand in both corners of the mouth. While pulling the corners of your mouth down with your fingers, draw your lower lip into a pout and hold for a count of 5. You may also feel a strong pull in the neck.* Repeat 10 times Next, lay down on the floor or the bed. Lift your head about half an inch off the floor with each pout and hold for a count of 5. Lying down will help to make this exercise extra effective. You have gravity giving a helping hand! |
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Try this exercise twice a day, especially if you have strong “pouches” or deep lines in the corners of your mouth.
I’m so grateful to have discovered face exercises. I love that I can fight the ravages of time in a natural way that’s even fun to do!
This article can be seen in, “Voice of Choices,” a free publication distributed in the Pacific North West, Oregon, Sedona and Hawaii. Visit their website at: http://voiceofchoices.com/