How to reduce forehead wrinkles with face yoga

If Botox is not for you, then face yoga might be a good alternative to help reduce wrinkles. Face yoga a system of stretching and working face muscles to create a more youthful appearance:

• Using the same basic principles of movement and exercise, when a muscle is contracted and released, it will get stronger.

• It has been shown that when a muscle is repetitively worked, the production of collagen is prolonged.

• Collagen and elastin are those connective fibers that help the skin stay resilient.

• Facial movement does not cause wrinkles, but rather scowling, puckering and unconscious habits.

The Lion Face

• The lion face is derived from Yoga and helps tone all the muscles of the face and release stress.

• To practice the lion face, simply take a deep breath in and scowl. Pucker up everything on your face and then exhale and release, sticking out your tongue like a lion yawning.

Forehead

• The forehead muscle is a rather large muscle called the Frontalis.

• A simple exercise of raising and lowering your eyebrows can be used to help reduce wrinkles in your forehead.

• To do this exercise just place your fingertips on the outer edges of your forehead and apply pressure while raising and lowering your eyebrows.

Eyebrow Crease

• To help reduce wrinkling between the eyebrows you simply need to make a scowl so that the wrinkle is present, then place your index fingers in the middle of each eyebrow and pull out, away from the face. Hold it for about 5 seconds.

• All of these exercises are aimed at increasing circulation.

• With continuous practice you can see results in 3-4 weeks.

JENNIFER:  I’m Jennifer Morris for howdini.com If you’ve considered Botox, but its just not for you, you might want to know about face yoga. It’s a system of stretching and working face muscles, which is supposed to reduce face wrinkles. To demonstrate is Annelise Hagen; she’s a yoga instructor and author of The Yoga Face. All right, Annelise, are there really exercises so that I won’t have to get Botox?

ANNELISE:  There certainly are and I would be happy to share them with you.

JENNIFER:  And what are they? How does that work?

ANNELISE:  Well you’re using the basic principals of movement and exercise so if a muscle is contracted and then released, and works with resistance it will get stronger and toned. So the muscle under the skin its going to be plumper, its going to be fuller, its going to lift rather then fall. And that will bring the skin up with it. Its also been shown when a muscle is repetitively worked the production of collagen and elastin is prolonged. Collagen and elastin are those connective fibers that help the skin to stay resilient and springy.

JENNIFER:  Okay, so what are some exercises for –?

ANNELISE:  The forehead.

JENNIFER:  Yeah.

ANNELISE:  Well I’m going to give you an all over facial toner first of all, which is thousands of years old, it comes from yoga. Its called the lion face. And what this does it tones all the muscles in the face and releases stress. So I’ll just demonstrate. Your going to take an inhale, and your going to scowl and pucker everything, then exhale and release it.

JENNIFER:  Right. Should I give it a try?

ANNELISE:  Give it a good shot. And you’ll scrunch, squeeze, and pucker. And exhale, stick out the tongue open it real wide, and yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect.

JENNIFER:  Like that?

ANNELISE:  That was awesome.

JENNIFER:  How many times a week would you recommend doing, and just that one exercise will get rid of the wrinkles on my forehead?

ANNELISE:  Um it will help, not alone, add other ones but that’s a good all around facial toner.

JENNIFER:  Can you give me one more that I might-?

ANNELISE:  Yeah, this is one of my favorites only because this is easier. It’s a big muscle that we’re working with here, it’s called the frontalis, and it’s underneath your forehead and connects to the scalp. So most people have an easy time learning this, right because we’re very expressive when we move this muscle. Yeah, and people think this is going to make me more wrinkly. If you did just this, maybe. But with the fingertip pressure at the outer end of the temple you’re using this so the muscle has something to resist. And you’re going to do the same repetition, twenty of these. So you’re going to go like this and you’re going to hold down for resistance. Don’t be afraid to give yourself quite a bit of fingertip pressure, I work the fronttalis hard. Yeah, and then let it go.

JENNIFER:  Okay, what about these little lines here? What can you do for those?

ANNELISE:  Pucker line right, from frowning or sinking. What you want to do paradoxically is make the line then resist by placing the index finger at the center of each brow and pulling back. So you’re going to make that muscular action then resist it. Yeah just like you are erasing. Yeah, try to stay very calm. So you just nip the brow together then just resist that by pulling away. The more the index finger is at the middle of the brow, then the center so you can go wider. There you go.

JENNIFER:  And how, you hold that for about five seconds?

ANNELISE:  Yeah, and then repeat it again. So after you do one of these facial isolations, you just did the forehead so it’s all rosy and pink. This is a good thing to observe because it really does show that circulation is being connected to the cells in the skin. And that’s a huge thing for anti-ageing.

JENNIFER:  And how long again does it take to see results?

ANNELISE:  Three to four weeks of continuous practice, you can’t just go into your bathroom one day do it once, and then in like two weeks say it didn’t work for me.

JENNIFER:  Thank you so much, I’ll give it a try.

ANNELISE:  Okay.

JENNIFER:  I’m Jennifer Morris for howdini.com