3 Facial Exercises for the Perfect Smile

You already know that exercise is good for your body, but did you know that it’s also great for your face? According to WorldWideHealth.com, facial exercises can be as effective as a surgical facelift for improving skin tone and elasticity, reducing visible lines, and helping to perfect your smile.

Just like any other part of your body, there are muscles in your face. These muscles can be firmed and strengthened through exercise, which helps to increase blood flow and improve muscle tone. Face exercises not only will improve your smile, but can also help you look younger and healthier.

Try these three facial exercises to help you attain the perfect smile. 

1. The smile exercise

Simple and straightforward, this incremental exercise in smiling practice improves the facial muscles that control your smile, which will give you greater control over your happy expressions. Start by sitting or standing in front of a mirror, whichever is more comfortable, with your face and lips in a relaxed state.

1. Stretch the corners of your mouth laterally (to the sides) while keeping your lips together; hold for 10 seconds.
2. Expand the lateral stretch and part your lips to expose the edge of your teeth; hold for 10 seconds.
3. Stretch further laterally and expose about half of your teeth; hold for ten seconds.
4. Smile as wide and hard as you can, with all your teeth showing; hold for ten seconds.
5. Repeat steps 3, 2, and 1 to reverse the smile gradually.

For additional exercise, you can go through all of the above steps, using your index fingers to stretch the corners of your mouth and create the different smiles.

2. The smile line eraser

With this exercise, you can work at reducing the appearance of fine lines around your mouth, helping you look younger and giving you a more natural, brilliant smile. In yoga, this exercise is referred to as the fish pose. Here’s how to do it:

1. Pucker up: purse your lips as dramatically as possible by sucking in your cheeks and rolling your lips out.
2. Attempt to smile while you’re puckering.
3. Hold this pose until there’s a mild aching sensation in the muscles around your mouth, then release.

This exercise should be done only once a day, in order to avoid straining the muscles of your face.

3. The silly rabbit

In this exercise, you’ll tone your cheek muscles while increasing the flexibility and control of your smile. You may or may not look in a mirror while performing this exercise. (If you have a tendency to laugh at silly faces, you should probably skip the mirror.) Here are the steps for this face exercise:

1. Smile as wide as you can, without opening your lips. Try for an ear-to-ear grin.
2. Wiggle your nose like a rabbit until you feel your cheek muscles engage with the smile.
3. Hold the pose for 5 seconds.
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3, 10 times

The face lift exercise

One particular facial muscle, the quadratus labli superioris, is essential for maintaining a youthful appearance. Developing this muscle helps to prevent facial sagging and ensure resiliency. Below are two exercises to help utilize this muscle to your advantage.

1. With your mouth slightly open and the upper lip relaxed, flare out your nostrils and wrinkle the nose with an exaggerated motion.
2. Pull up the upper lip and hold for a count of 10. Slowly release.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, 10 times.