Study Finds Facial Yoga Can Reverse Aging By Three Years

Looking and feeling our best is important at any age but often expensive lotions and potions and even some cosmetic procedures and surgeries don’t offer the anticipated results.  But a new study, published in JAMA Dermatology, has found facial exercise can help counteract some of the sagging, hollowing and wrinkling commonly associated with older faces. 

Facial yoga has been around for decades as a budget-friendly alternative to help maintain a youthful face in the privacy of your own home, but this is the first clinical study to put an exercise program to the test.

According to a report in the New York Times, researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago employed the Happy Face Yoga program to determine if resistance training could round facial contours, reduce wrinkles and fill out hollows.  Over a period of 12 weeks, study participants completed a full 30 minutes exercise session every other day. 

Those who completed the trial reported an improvement in all their facial features, most significantly in the fullness of cheeks.  Dermatologists were surprised to find that after 20 weeks of facial exercises, they estimated the participants’ age as three years younger than when they were photographed at the beginning of the study.  Although the exercises may indeed work, to achieve the benefits reported in the study, participants need to find 30 minutes every other day to exercise their face.  With only one in three adults getting the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity each week, it seems unlikely that many will find time to devote solely to strengthening their facial muscles. 

To read more about the study and learn some of the facial exercises in the program, follow this link to Northwestern Now.