Hi Guys, my name is Danielle Collins and
I'm the world leading face yoga expert
and best-selling author of the book
Danielle Collins Face Yoga and, seeing as
April is Stress Awareness Month, I
thought it'd be really nice to share
with you some energising face yoga that
really helps with your skin, so it's
going to help your skin to look glowing and
firmer and more lifted but also it's
going to help to calm the mind. And it's
really good if you find that you're
suffering from stress at the moment,
maybe your anxiety levels are higher.
It's really going to help to just calm
everything down. So, as you do it, make
sure you have really clean hands, clean
face and apply a little bit of
plant-based oil or serum first. Then, when
you're ready, we'll start with a really
nice deep breath. So, a long deep breath
in through the nose. Just allow the
abdomen to rise and then a deep breath
out through the nose and just allow the
abdomen to lower. So, breathing in abdomen
rises, breathing out
abdomen lowers. So this breath in itself
really helps to calm the mind and it's a
good thing to practise anytime you feel
your stress levels building up. So
continue this breathing and we'll start
with our face yoga. So we're going to
take our index fingers and just come
between the eyebrows. Now this is
excellent for helping to release and
reduce stress and tension. We're
stimulating an acupressure point which
is renowned for helping reduce stress.
This point is also beautiful for just
helping you to sleep a little better and
from aesthetic point of view it really
does help to relax the procerus muscle.
So that's a big muscle that just fans up
here between the eyebrows and when we
hold a lot of tension in that muscle we
tend to pull this area in, which creates
those number 11 lines. So, by regularly
massaging this area, we help to reduce
and prevent build-up of those lines and
it's also very very good
just for helping to boost the
circulation. So we're helping all the
fresh blood and nutrients and oxygen
just come to the skin surface. We're
going to take all our fingers now and
just sweep across the forehead and lift
off, so sweeping across and lifting off.
Again, It's very gentle, great for the
circulation, great for helping to promote
the collagen and elastin in the skin and,
once again, it helps to really release
any tension and when we’re releasing
tension here we really help to soften
and prevent expression lines. So, with
this one in particular, helping to
prevent those horizontal expression
lines. The more we can try and train our
face to express more with our eyes and
less with our forehead, the less lines
you'll find that you get in this area
and.. the more open your eye area will be.
So, talking of the eye area, let's move on
to this area all the way around the eyes
that can tend to get a little bit puffy,
maybe can be prone to dark circles,
particularly if you are going through a
lot of stress at the moment. So let's use
our ring finger and just circle under
the eyebrow and then under the eye. So
it's really important you use very
gentle feather-light touch here. It almost
feels like you're hardly moving the skin
at all.
The skin around the eyes is about 10
times thinner than the skin in the rest
of the face so you need to be super,
super gentle as you do this. Now this
really helps with lymphatic drainage
and the lymphatic system helps to get
rid of any excess toxins in our system
but it really does need a helping hand.
A massage is such a good way just to help
with that lymphatic drainage to reduce
puffiness and dark circles and eyebags
and whilst you come here, just press in
that little indentation there. Again it's
a lovely acupressure point which is
renowned for helping to reduce stress
and helping to calm the mind and you can
do a little circle one way
and a little circle the other way. Okay,
let's do a nice massage for the cheeks
now so helping to brighten the
cheeks but also release stress and
tension in that area. So two fingers and
thumb, we're just going to pinch all the
way up the cheekbones and lifting off so
pinching up and really think about going
down into the muscle. So, rather than pulling
the skin upwards, think about pinching
downwards into the muscle. So you should
start to feel that lovely warmth now
and if you're feeling that warmth, it's
such a good indication that you're
helping to boost the blood flow to the
top layer of skin so your skin is going
to look healthier and brighter. So bring
the hands down and we'll do another one
for the cheeks but this time we're
working on a lot of the muscles
underneath the skin so we're working on
strengthening and toning the muscles and
this is going to help the skin attach to
it, become tightened and tautened and
firmed. So you puff both cheeks out full
of air and you're going to transfer the
air from cheek to cheek. Nice and slowly
and making sure you're still breathing
in and out through the nose, nice and
slowly and if you find, as you do this,
you see any lines around this area, just
use your hand to place over your mouth
and this just tightens and tautens any
lines here. So let's do this together now.
So just a little bit longer, just keep
doing that whilst I'm talking and you
should start to feel the muscles really
engaging now, really working hard and
that's a great sign that they're
building in strength and tone. So bring
your hands down when you're ready.
Two fingers now, we're just going to tap
from the jaw line up to the nostrils.
Very good massage for helping to soften
marionette lines, nasal labial folds, so
just gently working all the way up.
Keep breathing deeply in and out through
the nose then take two fingers and thumb
and just pinch all the way up your jaw
line. This is very good for releasing
tension in the jaw. When we're stressed
It tends to manifest in our jaw
massively so doing this massage really
helps. Okay let's do that one more time
and bring the hands down and now let's
do one which is very good for
strengthening the big platysma muscle at
the front of the neck. It's also very
good for tightening and tautening under the
chin. So again, we're working with
strengthening and toning those muscles
and then the skin attached to them is
tightened and firmed. So you're going to
bring your lips together, tilt your head
back but only as far as is comfortable
for your neck. Remember with all face
yoga you need to be working to your own
level. If anything ever feels
uncomfortable, please stop and rest. And
then, with your lips closed, you're going
to bring the tip of the tongue
repeatedly up towards the roof of the
mouth. So let's do this together.
Tilting back, lips together. Tip of the
tongue’s going like this, now.
Keep that going for a little bit longer
whilst I'm talking to you. Keep it going
up and down, really feel it working in
this area, underneath the chin. Very good
to help to tighten this area. You're
probably feeling that now, too. So when
you're ready, slowly come back down and
let's just turn our head to one side.
Tilt the head back slightly, lift the
chin up into the air. Get that lovely
stretch but also strengthening through
the side of the neck and up the side of
the face. Really lifting for the side of
the face. Come to the other side, tilting
slightly, bring the chin up. Try and relax
all the rest of your face muscles here
and then slowly come back round. And just
rub the hands together, really build
up the warmth and the energy in the hands
and then just cup the hands over the
face. Feel all the face muscles just
bathe in the warmth of your hands. Feel
any tension you may be holding in your
face just melting away now and bring the
hands gently down. So that little routine
just gives you a taster of face yoga and
I recommend that you do face yoga
every day for best results. So there's
lots of ways you can do this. You can use
my apps by searching Danielle Collins on
your app store, you can head to faceyogaexpert.com
for my online courses and
DVDs, you can head to Amazon for my book,
Danielle Collins Face Yoga and, in order to
see results, as well as doing it daily,
you really do need to be looking after
your overall lifestyle and looking
after your overall health. So things like
drinking lots of water, using lots of
fresh fruits and vegetables, including
enough protein in your diet because
we're looking to strengthen and tone the
muscle and the collagen and the elastin
in the skin too and just trying to
reduce things like excess sugar and
caffeine and alcohol and remembering to
wear an SPF on the skin every single day.
All of these things will help you to get
better results from face yoga.
And, just to give you a little brief
overview before we finish, about the
Danielle Collins Face Yoga method and the
five aspects to it … so we've covered most
of these already today but I'll just
quickly tell you about them now. So the
first area is the face exercise. So this
is about strengthening and toning the
muscles underneath the skin. So just like
we exercise the body, the 57 muscles in
this area need to be exercised too. The
second aspect of the Danielle Collins
Face Yoga method is the face massage so
this is about boosting the circulation,
helping to improve the collagen and elastin.
It's also about relaxation as well. The
third aspect is acupressure. This is very
much rooted in traditional Eastern
medicine, so in Ayurveda, in traditional
Chinese medicine, in Shiatsu. And it's
about applying pressure to certain
points in the face and this has so many
benefits from an aesthetic point of view
in terms of boosting circulation,
releasing tension, softening lines but
also has loads of wellness benefits too.
So there's lots of nice acupressure
points on the face you can use to reduce
stress, to help headaches, help sinuses
and so on. The fourth aspect is
relaxation. A big reason why we get lines and
wrinkles in the face is we tend to over
express with the face. So we tend to
raise the eyebrows a lot, pull this area
in, tense the jaw, all of these things so,
by learning to consciously relax the
face, it makes a huge difference.
And our fifth area is the well-being.
So the well-being aspect is very much about
feeling good on the inside so when we
feel good on the inside this really
radiates out through our skin. So they’re
the five aspects of face yoga. I hope
you've enjoyed this video. If you'd like
more information, you can follow me at
@faceyogaexpert on Instagram, on
Facebook, The Face Yoga Expert or you can
go to my website, faceyogaexpert.com.
Take care of yourself. Remember to
breathe deeply.
Lots of love, bye-bye.