Do you know what Jane Fonda said when asked about her favorite beauty product? “Gymnastics!”
And she was right. When you’re over thirty (or forty, or fifty) and life’s stresses and health issues start to show on your face, you can’t rely only on powder and lipstick. Even the most skillfully applied makeup won’t hide deeper lines, and how long will your skin hold up? It’s far more effective to do what’s now called corrective gymnastics. Women across America are starting and ending their days with it. Start before dark circles and bags under your eyes become a nightly occurrence. There’s still a chance to regain your shape and keep your skin looking younger.
Your face, its expressions, and your gestures give others an impression of who you are. A motionless face looks like a mask: excess fat can collect in the cheeks, around the cheekbones, and near the eyes, stretching the skin — and that can lead to wrinkles when a woman loses weight.
Corrective gymnastics helps maintain muscle tone, improves blood circulation, and boosts metabolism, which keeps your skin more elastic for longer. All of this helps prevent the appearance of wrinkles.
So, how do you properly perform facial exercises?
First and foremost, do them regularly at a relaxed pace (preferably while sitting in a chair with a straight back), and keep your chin up. Just 5–7 minutes of practice is enough.
Let’s start with the cheeks. Expand your nostrils, take a deep breath through your nose, and “inflate” your cheeks. Exhale forcefully through pursed lips. Repeat 3–4 times. This will be more effective if you hold the corners of your lips up with your index fingers. Take another deep breath and exhale forcefully through the left corner of your lips while inflating your left cheek. Repeat on the right cheek. Do this a total of 3–4 times.
Next exercise: Inflate your cheeks and roll the air from left to right and back again. This exercise engages your cheek muscles and helps smooth vertical lines around your lips.
The next two exercises are for people who have wrinkles on their upper lip.
Open and close your lips without clenching your jaw. Repeat 5–6 times. Repeat the exercise 5–6 times while pronouncing the sounds “a,” “i,” “o,” and “e.”
We’re all familiar with that tired feeling when our eyelids swell and dark circles appear under our eyes. The following exercises improve blood circulation in the eye muscles.
Let’s begin. Press your palms against your cheeks, place your index and ring fingers at the corners of your eyes, and gently press down on your upper eyelids with your middle fingers while keeping your eyes open. Try to squint hard while resisting with your middle fingers. Repeat 5–6 times.
Tightly close your eyes for five seconds, then open them wide for five seconds, trying not to wrinkle your forehead. Repeat 3–4 times.
Without turning your head, follow an imaginary pendulum with your eyes. Every ten seconds, close your eyes and count to three. Repeat this exercise 3–4 times.
Make circular movements with your eyes, imagining you’re following a large wheel that spins twice in one direction and twice in the other. Repeat 2–4 times.
Keeping your head straight and still, look up (without wrinkling your forehead), then look down. Hold each position for three seconds, then close your eyes for three seconds. Repeat 3–4 times.
Blink quickly as you count to ten, then close your eyes and pause for three seconds. Repeat 3–6 times.
Finish with an exercise that promotes blood flow to your face. Turn your head as far to the right as you can, then as far to the left. Drop your chin to your chest, exhale, and relax your muscles. Repeat 3–4 times.
