Is Yoga Real for the Face?
Facial yoga has been around for several decades, although there has been a bit more buzz since a study published last month showed that people who receive face yoga lessons end up looking a little younger . But there are many reasons for skepticism.
There are no large studies that ask difficult questions about whether face yoga really works in the long run. A recent study had a number of serious flaws: there was no control group, we don’t know what else the women did with their faces (for example, were they inspired to use a moisturizer after spending so much time looking at their faces in the mirror? ), and many of them dropped out. It was originally thought there would be 33 people, but 6 chose not to participate in the study, and 11 more dropped it halfway. The facial yoga regimen consisted of two 90-minute workouts, and then the subjects were asked to exercise for 30 minutes every day for the first eight weeks, and then every other day.
It is a huge investment of time for something that may not work. The study showed a slight improvement in the age of women; they actually had an average age of 53, but observers guessed that their photographs made them look 51 at the start of the study and 48 at the end. Did the exercise take their face off for three years? Maybe, but I would not start a 30 minute regimen a day on this flimsy basis.
There are many places to learn face yoga, often for profit. The study used Happy Face Yoga software and will need to shell out over $ 25 per DVD if you want to see how it’s done. There are free videos on YouTubelike this from other instructors, but we have no data on whether they work.
Could they work? May be. Cosmetic chemists Randy Sheller and Perry Romanovski have been unable to find a dermatologist who believes in the theory that facial exercise increases collagen production, one of the claims of facial yoga instructors. They did find a researcher who electrically stimulated the facial muscles of people and discovered a skin tightening effect, but they are not really the same thing.
Self’s Corinne Miller received many responses from dermatologists about face yoga, but none of them supported them. One suggested working on the muscles that lift and expand your face (for example, the ones you use when you look surprised) so they don’t get too weak. Another told her that the least wrinkles appear on your skin when you just don’t move it. Is always. So … you could try not to move your face, I guess? Which sounds like the opposite of face yoga.
Some dermatologists say that facial yoga can actually cause wrinkles, which it tries to prevent, but the truth is we don’t know anything about the long-term effects of facial yoga. Maybe it can reverse wrinkles or maybe speed up their formation. Until more accurate data emerges, use your intuition to decide whether to spend 30 minutes making faces in front of the mirror.