FACIAL FITNESS

The rising trend of face yoga helps soften and relax your face muscles to alleviate tension and stress

- SMITA TRIPATHI

Blow out your cheeks and gently tap them. Repeat three times. Now tap your knuckles lightly from the top of your forehead to the top of your ears. Gently pull your eyebrows up," advised my instructor during an online face yoga class. While these may sound tortuous, the gentle pulling, stretching, and pinching of the face are meant to naturally lift and tone facial muscles.

Over the past few years, thanks to social media, face yoga has become one of the most discussed above-the-neck fitness techniques. While #faceyoga has clocked over 500 million views on the internet video-sharing site YouTube, on the short video app TikTok, these videos have been viewed over 3 billion times; on social media platform Instagram, the hashtag has 376,000 followers.

Celebs from Meghan Markle to Gwyneth Paltrow swear by it, and the Kardashians have their own celebrity trainer. Closer home, Malaika Arora also touts the powers of facial fitness.

So, what exactly is face yoga? "It is a set of exercises performed to tone and stretch facial muscles. We have over 57 muscles on our face and neck. Face yoga involves massages and exercises that stimulate the muscles, skin, and lymphatic system," says Delhi-based certified face yoga coach Mamta Sansanwal, who has been teaching face yoga for the past three years and has shared her knowledge with more than 4,000 people.