People who dread painful and costly surgeries but aspire for younger looking skin can try facial exercises, a latest antageing fad.

Regular practise of moving all 57 face muscles through some interesting and easy
exercises, called facial expressions, can help erase wrinkles and fine lines, fix the double chin and crow’s feet.

Targeting specific areas, these expressions can give an easy face-lift, slimmer and toned face without any side-effects. Some of the basic facial exercises are exaggerated vowels, facial toner, chucking the chin and forehead smoother.

Stretching the mouth to pronounce each vowel loudly, using as many facial muscles as possible helps remove fine lines around lips. This exercise is called exaggerated vowel. Each vowel has to be spoken for five seconds.

For getting away with a double chin, move lower jaw and lower lip over the upper ones and then try and cover the upper lip as much as you can with your lower lip. This would lead to a strain in double chin.

For strengthening eye muscles and vision, you can try this. Look as far to the left, right, upwards and downwards for five seconds each without moving the head. Then rub palms together and place them over closed eyes.

For getting rid of horizontal fine lines on forehead, try forehead smoother. Place the tips of the first four fingers together vertically above the eyebrow centre in a straight line. Close the eyes and feel an outward movement as you slide the tips of the fingers across the forehead towards the sides of the hair line. Slowly release and relax. This has to be done twice.

These exercises are relevant as face needs to be exercised and toned as much the body. But people these days prefer cosmetic treatments over exercises for the face even though yoga or fitness training may be is exercise are part of their daily routine.

Some other interesting facial exercises are smiling fish (purse your lips and smile slightly), blowing kisses keeping the forehead smooth and puffing out face and transfering air from cheek to cheek.

Seema Sondhi, a yoga instructor of Delhi, says the basic concept of facial exercise is to move all face muscles. “Its nothing but putting all face muscles to use. Face muscles, like all muscles need exercise, to stay toned,” she says.

Not only do these benefit the supportive muscles, facial exercises also improve the skin and skin tone by increasing the blood circulation.