Catch up with the popular face yoga to relax your muscles

The latest workout trend that has caught the world’s attention is face yoga. Giving botox and other medical procedures a run for their money, face yoga is the simplest way to up your aasana game, say fitness experts. The practice, which originated in Japan, requires one to make a series of facial expressions to help relax and tone the muscles in his/her face. These simple exercises help in waking up the sleeping muscles and lift the face, giving it a new life. 

The exercises are also helpful in reducing the appearance of wrinkles and relaxing the overworked muscles, like those situated in the forehead, between the eyebrows and around the mouth. Japanese beauty expert Koko Hayashi, who also founded a face yoga initiative, says relaxing and toning the facial muscles helps in creating slimmer and younger complexion. 

Some of the simple facial movements that one can begin with include raising the eyebrows, puckering the lips, sticking one’s tongue out to stretch the cheek muscles and puffing up the cheeks. Remember trying to touch your nose with your tongue as a kid? That is also an attempt towards stretching those face muscles, the expert notes. 

Unlike a facial treatment, face yoga, however, does not have an instructor touching one’s face. Instead, it is just simple warming up and stretching and strengthening the facial muscles. To make the routine more fun, you can opt to do it in groups and also add sounds as you’re switching from one facial expression to another. Bear in your mind that it takes at least a couple of weeks to see the results of the stretching, if performed on a daily basis. 

Saving us from another gym membership, this form of yoga does not require a tutor, once you pick up the different kinds of stretches you can do. There are several YouTubers showing videos on various facial movements you can adopt. Just remember a few and practise them in three-minute sessions at least two times during the day. It could be while you’re cooking, walking with your dog or even at your work desk.