A recent study has shown that 30 minutes of daily facial exercises can make your face look more youthful.
How to Tighten Sagging Skin
A new Northwestern Medicine study observed that doing 30 minutes of daily or alternate-day facial exercises over the course of 20 weeks improved the facial appearance of middle-aged women. This 20-week program resulted in women developing a more youthful appearance with fuller upper and lower cheeks.
“Now there is some evidence that facial exercises may improve facial appearance and reduce some visible signs of aging,” said lead study author Dr. Murad Alam, vice chair and professor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine dermatologist. “The exercises enlarge and strengthen the facial muscles, so the face becomes firmer and more toned and shaped like a younger face.”
Why Does Skin Sag as You Age?
As the face ages, skin loses elasticity, and fat pads between the muscle and skin become thinner. The fat pads, which fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, give the face much of its shape. As skin becomes saggy, the thinning fat pads atrophy and slide, causing the face to “fall down.”
“But if muscle underneath becomes bigger, the skin has more stuffing underneath it, and the firmer muscle appears to make the shape of the face more full,” said senior study author Emily Poon, an assistant research professor in dermatology at Feinberg. “Muscle growth is increasing the facial volume and counteracting the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening.”
Exercises to Reduce Skin Sagging
Study participants, middle-aged women 40 to 65 years old, underwent two sets of face-to-face 90-minute training sessions from a facial exercise instructor. At home, they continued to do these exercises for a total of 20 weeks. For the first eight weeks, they did the exercises daily for 30 minutes. From 9 to 20 weeks, they did the same exercises every other day for 30 minutes a session.
“Facial exercises that may be beneficial include those that entail puckering and squeezing the cheeks,” Alam said. “There are many muscles that collectively allow movement of the cheeks, and our study showed that building these up makes the upper and lower cheeks look fuller.”
Participants learned and performed 32 distinct facial exercises, each one for about a minute. One is The Cheek Lifter: Open mouth and form O, position upper lip over teeth, smile to lift cheek muscles up, put fingers lightly on top part of cheek, release cheek muscles to lower them, and lift back up. Repeat by lowering and lifting the cheeks. Another exercise is The Happy Cheeks Sculpting: Smile without showing teeth, purse lips together, smile forcing cheek muscles up, place fingers on corners of the mouth and slide them up to the top of the cheeks and hold for 20 seconds.
The researchers found that upper cheek and lower cheek fullness, in particular, was significantly enhanced as a result of the exercises. Participants reported being highly satisfied with the results and noticed improvement in nearly all the facial areas. In addition, researchers estimated average patient’s visible age decreased over the course of the study. It started at 50.8 years, dropped to 49.6 years at eight weeks, and then to 48.1 years at 20 weeks.
“That’s almost a three-year decrease in age appearance over a 20-week period,” Alam said.
This was the first study of its kind, and next steps involve a larger participant study to confirm its findings. Alam states that if “the findings are confirmed in a larger study, individuals now have a low-cost, non-toxic way for looking more youthful or to augment other cosmetic or anti-aging treatments they may be seeking.”
One Comment on “Exercises to Tighten Facial Skin”