Exercise keeps your butt perky, so why not your face? Unlike your body muscles, your 57 facial muscles are directly attached to your skin. When facial muscles lose their tone, the skin starts to sag and lose its lustre. Toning the muscles of your neck and face will increase oxygen circulation, speed up lymphatic drainage and release tension, restoring a radiant glow.
Before you start
To avoid pulling or stretching your skin during the exercises, make sure you lubricate it generously with a natural oil or moisturiser. Do as many repetitions of each exercise as you feel comfortable with. A word of warning: Do not perform these exercises in front of your partner!
Eyes
This exercise tones the eye muscle — the orbicularis oculi. Gently place your index fingertips flat on the bone of your outer eye socket (right over your smile lines). This creates resistance. Firmly contract the eye muscles until they almost close. Don’t use your cheek muscles. Squint for a second, then release.
Place your three middle fingertips on your temples and pull the skin back slightly as you tightly close your eyes. Hold the contraction for two seconds, then release. Open the eyes as wide as possible, hold for two seconds, and release. With time, this exercise will get rid of any bagginess around the eyelids.
Cheeks
The delicate cheek muscles give a youthful look to the face when they are firm and defined. Place your index fingertips on the muscles on either side of the nose. Press down and resist as you scrunch up the nose. Toning this muscle will soften the lines from the nose to the corners of the mouth.
Place your three middle fingertips over the apples of your cheeks and press into your cheekbones. Smile upwards so that the tiny, delicate muscles underneath contract. Keep your eye muscles relaxed. Hold for a few second and release.
Mouth
This small movement will strengthen the muscles around the mouth and make the lips look fuller. Place your clean index fingers in the corners of your mouth. Pull them out slightly — about a centimetre. Keep pulling as you make a kiss shape with your lips, and attempt to pull the fingers together. Contract the mouth as hard as you can while resisting with your fingers. Hold for two seconds and release.
Chin
With lips together, push your jaw slightly out and then slowly move it from side to side, holding in place for a few seconds each side.
This exercise works the muscle at the front of the neck (platysma) and the chin muscle (the mentalis) to ward off the dreaded turkey-neck syndrome. Press the lips firmly together in a thin line and wrinkle the chin. Now slowly lower the jaw, keeping the lips together. Keep the head in place as well. Hold this contraction for a second or two and release.
Neck
These exercises firm up the jawline and the front of the neck. Sitting up straight, tilt your head back and look at the ceiling. Make exaggerated chewing motions, so that you really feel your neck and jaw working up and down.
While tilting your head back (against a wall is best), press your tongue hard against your back teeth. Hold it for a few seconds and release.
Keeping your head tilted back, open your jaw wide and stick out your tongue as far as you can. Hold it for a few seconds and release (I warned you to do this in private!).
Forehead
This exercise helps with forehead lines and is great for a healthy head of hair. If you’ve never been able to wiggle your ears, the movement may be almost imperceptible at first, but keep practising.
Raise your eyebrows (contract the frontalis muscles), hold for one second, and lower. Now, try to pull back your ears (contracting the occipitalis muscles towards the back of the head), hold for one second and release. Keep going, alternating between the eyebrows and the ears.
Keep it up
Like with all work-outs, these exercises require persistence, but after a few months you can expect your face shape to be more defined and your skin to be tighter and brighter. Every time I do these exercises consistently for a month, people begin to ask if I’ve had “something done”. From time to time I inevitably let the exercises slip and regret it. Don’t do this — keep it up! All you need is 15 minutes a day.
This article first appeared on aww.com.au