Face yoga: can facial exercises really soften wrinkles

ROUTINE

Does face yoga work for wrinkles?

To this day, it has not been shown either way whether face yoga softens wrinkles. That is not because nobody has looked, but because of the quality of the studies. In 2014, a systematic review in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal gathered every study it could find on facial exercises, face building and face yoga and analysed nine reports. All nine reported positive results, yet not a single one had a control group or random allocation. In most cases, the authors or the participants themselves judged the outcome, without blinding. The review’s conclusion is correspondingly sober: the evidence is not sufficient to say whether facial exercises rejuvenate the face.

A small controlled study in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica came to the same conclusion. Nine of 18 participants trained daily for seven weeks, after which lay assessors compared photos of five areas of the face. Only one significant difference emerged between the groups, at the upper lip, and the authors state that no effectiveness can be inferred from it. “Facial exercises for wrinkles” is therefore more of a hope than an established result.

What does the JAMA Dermatology study really show?

The JAMA Dermatology study shows fuller cheeks and a younger estimated age, but no effect on wrinkles. It is the paper that almost every report on face yoga refers to, so it is worth taking a close look. It enrolled 27 healthy women aged between 40 and 65. In two live sessions of 90 minutes each, a certified facial exercise instructor taught them 32 resistance exercises. They then trained at home for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks, and every other day from week 9 to week 20. Only 16 women saw it through to the end.

Two physicians assessed standardised photos blind, using validated scales. Fullness in the upper and lower cheeks improved to a statistically significant degree, and the average estimated age fell from 50.8 years at the start to 49.6 years after eight weeks and 48.1 years after 20 weeks. Forehead lines at rest and crow’s feet, on the other hand, showed no significant change. The researchers name the limitations themselves: a small group, only middle-aged women, many dropouts and no control group. The result is an interesting pointer, but no more than that yet.

How is training your facial muscles supposed to change your skin?

The training is not meant to change the skin directly, but what lies beneath it. The authors of the JAMA study suspect that the exercises make the cheek muscles and other facial muscles grow slightly, much like strength training does for arms or legs. A stronger muscle takes up more space and can therefore partly make up for the loss of volume in the mid-face that comes with age. The skin on top then looks better supported. That explains why it was cheek fullness that changed in the study, and not the fine lines on the skin’s surface.

What matters just as much is what this model does not explain. The skin’s elasticity, its moisture and the texture of its surface depend on collagen, the skin barrier and UV exposure, not on the muscle mass underneath. If it is mainly loss of firmness that bothers you, the article on what skincare can and can’t do for sagging skin explains why cheeks hollow out and what role fat and bone play. Face yoga works on a different layer from any cream.

Can face yoga make expression lines worse?

No study has looked directly at whether face yoga deepens expression lines, but the risk is plausible. Expression lines such as frown lines, horizontal forehead lines and crow’s feet form where muscles contract in the same direction over and over for years and fold the skin above them. This is exactly where botulinum toxin comes in, by temporarily relaxing these muscles. Exercises in which you raise your forehead hard, pull your brows together or squeeze your eyes tightly shut do the opposite: they train precisely the movement that creates these lines.

That is why many routines work with resistance, for example with your fingers holding the skin on your forehead gently flat while the muscle works. Whether that is enough to prevent extra folding has not been studied. If you already have pronounced expression lines, you are better off skipping forehead and eye exercises and focusing, if at all, on the cheeks and mouth area.

Which areas of the face are exercises worth doing for – and which are not?

Exercises are most likely to be worthwhile for the cheeks, but probably not for the forehead, eye area or upper lip. The cheeks are the only area in which a study with blinded assessment by doctors found a difference. There are exercises for the jawline and neck, but no robust data. On the forehead and around the eyes, the lack of results and the risk of extra folding argue against them. With upper lip wrinkles, the single finding from the small controlled study does little to change the fact that exercises make hardly any sense there, because these fine lines are caused precisely by the work of the muscle that rings the mouth.

Two distinctions belong here. Passive tools such as gua sha or facial rollers are something other than muscle training and are not the subject of this article. And lines that are still there in the morning from your pillow have little to do with your muscles – more on that in the article on sleep wrinkles on the face and chest. If you have facial paralysis or jaw problems, exercises belong in the hands of a specialist, not an online programme.

How long does face yoga take to show results?

According to the only meaningful study, face yoga takes months rather than weeks before you see anything. In the JAMA study, estimated age was slightly lower after eight weeks of 30 minutes a day, but only the comparison between the start and week 20 was tested statistically. That is a considerable effort: around 28 hours in the first eight weeks, then every other day after that. The controlled study with seven weeks of daily training, by contrast, found no robust effect. If you only practise now and then, you should not expect much.

The fact that 11 of the 27 participants dropped out of the study also tells you something. A programme that asks for half an hour every day often falls down in everyday life not because it does not work, but because of the time it takes. The realistic question is therefore what you would most like to spend your time on.

• Allow four to five months before you judge the results.
• Take photos in the same light and with the same head position rather than relying on the mirror.
• Leave out exercises that make your forehead or eye area crease heavily.
• Stop if your jaw or chewing muscles hurt, and get it checked.

Where does face yoga fit alongside sun protection and skincare?

Face yoga sits alongside sun protection and skincare as an optional extra, not as a replacement. Unlike facial exercises, daily sun protection is backed by a randomised trial: in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the group of adults under 55 who used a broad-spectrum sunscreen every day showed no detectable increase in skin ageing after 4.5 years. Compared with the group that used sunscreen at their own discretion, skin ageing was 24 per cent lower. How to put this into practice day to day is covered in the article on sunscreen for your face, and you will find a separate overview of what the evidence shows on slowing skin ageing.

Skincare, in turn, works on the skin’s surface, where face yoga cannot reach at all. The Duo, made up of The Essential and The Shield, combines niacinamide and hyaluronic acid in three molecular sizes in the serum with bakuchiol, ceramide NP and squalane in the cream. This can soften the appearance of fine lines and support the skin barrier, but it does not train muscles. Which active ingredients are best researched is explained in the article on which anti-wrinkle ingredients are actually proven. In his review on Judge.me, Silas writes: “The skincare routine is really simple and therefore ideal for me, as I have no desire to spend a lot of time in the bathroom” (review translated from German). That is the honest calculation: exercises cost time, two skincare steps cost hardly any.

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