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New to face yoga? Start with face massage.

Writer's picture: KariKari

No matter how zen your lifestyle may be, face massage is always the first step of every new face yogi. Here's three reasons why.

1. You’ll learn your own facial ‘landscape.’


By giving yourself a face massage, you begin the process of learning important information held in the muscles and tissue of your face. The tense and sleepy ‘numb’ areas reveal themselves and become the foundation your face yoga journey - wherever it is you want to take that journey. Face massage leads to useful insights into your tensions, sensitivities, and habits. That awareness is like striking gold - you can begin to decide what to do with your new insights.


Face massage can iron out expression lines even during the first session! There's nothing better than feeling and seeing that.

The key is that it is self-modulated; we do face massage with our hands on our own faces (at least initially). If we have another person do it for us, a whole host of benefits get missed. The highly personalised and internal experience of using your own hands to explore your own facial landscape is irreplaceable. More on that in reason #3.


2. It’s rapidly transformative!


Changing the face


Just like most good things in life, results from face yoga take timeeeee. Exactly how long varies, but generally, it can take weeks, months or longer. So I recommend starting with face massage because it can deliver easy wins to first timers. Nearly everyone experiences noticeable changes in the circulation and condition of their skin. Most feel more refreshed and have a more relaxed look afterwards. Some people even notice visible improvement in expression lines at the end of one session!


What is it about facial massage that is so rapidly transformative? Most of us repeat the same facial expressions day after day. In turn we develop tension and little ‘muscle knots’ in the face. These ‘overworking muscles’ tend to come with corresponding ‘sleepy muscles’ that atrophy over time. The combo of overworking and sleeping muscles forms folds in the skin, sagging, and expression lines. This can happen to anyone regardless of age - even youngsters! Face massage can start to iron out the expression line even after the first face massage. There’s nothing better than seeing and feeling that. Gimme some of that sweet sweet relief (and positive reinforcement)!


Healing the nervous system


The benefits don’t stop there. Doing self-face massage relaxes the prosocial nervous system. The prosocial nervous system is the part of us that is involved in socialising: talking, kissing, negotiating, arguing, and overall relating with other human beings (and other mammals!). The human prosocial nervous system is essential to our survival and well-being.


When we are feeling threatened and unsafe, our prosocial nervous system turns off. We switch to the fight/flight/freeze response. If this becomes chronic, we experience anxiety, depression, PTSD, and chronic illnesses. Face massage relaxes the prosocial nervous system and helps heal our nervous system from past trauma.


3. Empowering you from the get-go.


By using our own hands, you feel the face with your hands while simultaneously feeling your own hands with your face. This is a great example of an activity that is both exteroceptive, meaning sensing the ‘outside’ (i.e. how your face feels to your hands) and interoceptive meaning sensing the ‘inside’ (i.e. how your hands feel to your face, muscles, tissue, etc). Don’t underestimate the healing potential of this process! We are literally awakening and rewiring our neuro - circuitry as we sculpt and contour our faces. And the beauty of it is that you don’t need anyone else to do it - you don’t even need me! Only YOU will know what feels good, what doesn’t, and what pace is right. All I am here to do is show you what you can do.


Through face massage your personal facial landscape and needs will reveal themselves. It’s a surefire way to transform how you feel internally and externally and will undoubtedly change how you look. You have the power to influence how your face feels and looks. Face massage is the perfect way to get introduced to that power.



Want to experience transformational face yoga for yourself? Join Kari every week for her live online face yoga classes and get real-time, face-to-face instruction, wherever you are in the world!

*Class recordings available upon request.

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