Here’s 6 essential steps towards a face yoga practice that works for you.
1. Begin to ask yourself: how is my face doing?
Many of us are used to plucking, painting, and poking our faces- trying to make them look one way or another. Let’s put these activities aside (just for a moment) and tune in to how your face feels in its current state. By figuring out its current state, we begin to identify our facial needs and goals.
Your needs and goals may be related to aesthetics, anti-aging, recovery from past traumas (emotional and physical), headaches, TMD, sleeping issues and more.
How is your face doing today? How is it feeling? Where is it feeling tight and tense and where is it numb? What do you want to maintain about how your face looks and feels and what would you like to change?
Our facial needs change yearly, monthly, and daily. Establishing a mindful awareness of the face helps us move with it as these changes occur. I regularly practice listening internally to the neurological signals (or lack of signals) that my face sends to my brain and I recommend the practice of internally listening (or checking-in) to you too!
2. Find your mentor
Finding a face yoga mentor - someone you trust and feel safe with - is important when establishing your personal practice. Try to find someone who’s methods align with your long-term goals.
If you are learning through a course or videos, make sure the instructor is someone who makes sense to you and resonates with you. If you are learning face yoga through live sessions, try to find an instructor who’s a good listener and modifies things for your particular needs.
3. Learn the moves
Once you find a mentor, it is time to learn the moves! If you like to learn with others, workshops and classes are becoming increasingly more available (especially online). Private sessions are great too, particularly if you want the more privacy and one-on-one attention. Even learning through YouTube videos or other social media platforms is becoming increasingly helpful.
Find what works for you.
4. Personalise your daily practice
What works for me or someone else might not work for you. It is crucial to make it work for you in order to keep it consistent and sustainable. Find your rhythm and your modifications. Remember to stay self-attuned.
Don’t worry if you fall out of the habit sometimes, this is totally normal and happens to most of us. It could be that your practice is boring you or it’s too complicated. Try to listen to that and adjust your practice accordingly.
For the fastest and most effective results, I recommend incorporating face yoga massages and exercises into your whole day. Since these moves can help us reset the face from poor posture and habits, by doing the moves randomly throughout the day, we will notice more dramatic results quicker.
The muscles in our face differ from the larger body muscles in that frequent and consistent exercises have the biggest effect on the muscles. Personally, I like to do face yoga moves in the shower, on the London underground, under my mask, on the toilet, while washing dishes, while I’m walking outside and so on! Every hour or few hours–I do something. If that doesn’t work for you, that’s okay.
I recommend to try it at least one day :)
5. Keep on learning and refining
To keep things fresh I’d recommend learning new moves at least every 1-3 months. A highly motivated face yogi may want to learn new things daily or monthly and that works too. Continuous learning and refining keeps our faces challenged and in balance - just like other things in life!
6. Don’t forget to track your progress - often!
And celebrate your wins! I recommend taking progress photos every 1-2 months. The changes will be hard to track without photos since we become so used to seeing our faces day by day. This is so important because it positively reinforces your hard work.
Tracking your progress through photos is the way to fuel your motivation to keep going.
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