With over 2 million botox procedures being performed in the UK each year, the ongoing quest for eternal youth is seeing more and more men and women turning to surgical proceedures to retain that healthy glow. But what if we told you there was a more natural and affordable option that will help you to look and feel better, inside and out?

We chat to Holistic Skin Therapist, Sarah-Jane Brown about why you should cancel that botox appointment and consider facial yoga.

What is Facial Yoga?

Facial Yoga is a natural way to feel and look younger. The Danielle Collins method is unique as it is a holistic approach to the face. It works from the inside out, toning the muscles, relaxing tension and boosting blood flow.  Facial yoga is a lifelong tool focusing on wellbeing as a whole including focused and controlled facial exercises, massage, acupressure, relaxation and I personally like to also focus on skin nutrition too. 

 

What are the benefits of facial yoga? 

Firstly let’s look at why our faces change shape as we age as understanding this can help you put effective solutions in place. In your thirties, you start to see early signs of volume loss, mostly in the mid-face and chin due to less collagen production which continues into your forties. At this time, you lose deep fat around the mouth, chin and jawline and your skin loses elasticity which causes sagging. Bones don’t stay the same as we age; they migrate and lose mass. This loss of bone mass can contribute to sagging, loss of jawline definition amplified jowls and an unshapely neck. Because bones change, widening eye sockets give a more sunken appearance. The angle of the bones beneath the eyebrows also decrease, which contributes to frown lines, droopy lids and crows feet. Luckily we can help restore fullness, encourage cellular turnover while plumping and tightening through simple facial exercises, massage and good nutrition for internal support. 

 

How Does It Work?

There are 42 individual facial muscles in the face which need exercise. Face exercises help improve muscle tone in the face and could theoretically help with gravity-related fat loss or redistribution on the face. Building muscle in the face could potentially help keep fat, which might otherwise slide down with the pull of gravity. 

Face Yoga has been proven to make you look three years younger in twenty weeks in a study by dermatologists at Northwestern University, Illinois. Also, a study conducted by doctors using my facial yoga method on the BBC1 show 'Twinstitute' I appeared on,  showed that facial yoga can make the skin look one year younger in just one month.

---