Does the Yoga Facelift work?
A lot of doctors say that facial exercises will give you more sagging and wrinkles, instead of making your skin tighter and smoother. So, how is a yoga facelift different than other facial exercises? Did you have one and can you describe it?
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8 posts
10 Dec 2007
Doctors are absolutely right to talk about the risk of more wrinkling with facial exercise. This is why I go on and on, until people beg me to stop, about dynamic wrinkling. I've talked about this in other answers, but it can't be said too often-there is a right way and a wrong way to exercise your face. Any expression that you make repeatedly creates grooves in the surface of your skin--make the expression over and over and the lines stay in your face even when you have stopped making the spression. This is dynamic wrinkling. It follows that exercises where you repeatedly scrunch your face, scowl, purse your lips or somehow make lines in your face are going to result in more wrinkling, not less. Yoga facelift exercises are different because they stress isolating various muscle groups and using isometrics, which works against resistance, to tone and exercise muscles. Look in the mirror frequently to make sure you are not wrinkling other parts of your face when you exercise, for example, a very common tendency is to scowl in concentration while you are exercising your lips in the carp curl. Done correctly, facial exercise can help smooth out expression lines because, for one thing, you become aware of how you are using your face. The sagging question is interesting. Muscles lengthen over time due to gravity, and when you exercise a muscle it becomes toned and actually shortens. Toned musculature gives you a firm appearance--your face, neck, even the skin over your chest--can feel like it's been pulled ever-so-slightly upwards. Particularly for the neck area, where we usually see the first signs of sagging, exercise can do wonders to firm and tone. I can't imagine anyone suggesting you don't want to exercise because you will create more sagging. By the same principle you wouldn't want to pull in your protruding paunch because you are creating more sagging by forcing your tummy muscles to work. Even if someone convinced me that were true I can't imagine permitting myself to let it all hang out. Ugh!
unregistered guest
1 Mar 2009
I just saw a video clip on Yahoo that showed a teacher of this practice, and her face was a wrinkled mess!