Does face yoga work?
The Nodi team5 min read
Updated
Face yoga may work a little, and one pilot study is the only real evidence for it. In that study, 16 women finished 20 weeks of daily facial exercises, and two blinded raters estimated they looked 2.7 years younger. There was no control group, so nobody can say the exercises caused the change.
Fuller cheeks were the clearest result, which is added volume and not a sharper jaw. Nobody has tested whether face yoga changes wrinkles, jowls or a double chin.
What is face yoga?
Face yoga is resistance exercise for the muscles of your face. You contract a muscle, often against pressure from your own fingers, hold it, and then move on to the next one. A full routine can run through dozens of separate movements.
The logic behind it is reasonable. Many facial muscles attach to the skin, and muscle responds to being worked, so a slightly larger muscle could make the tissue over it look slightly fuller. Face yoga vs lymphatic drainage explains how this differs from massage, which moves fluid and not muscle.
What did the one study find?
The study is Alam and colleagues at Northwestern, published in JAMA Dermatology in January 2018, and its authors call it a pilot. It enrolled 27 women aged 40 to 65 and taught them 32 facial exercises in two live 90 minute sessions.
They exercised for 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks, then every other day until week 20. Two blinded dermatologists rated standard photos taken at the start, at week 8 and at week 20.
The raters' estimate of the women's age fell from 50.8 years to 49.6 at week 8 and 48.1 at week 20. Upper and lower cheek fullness improved significantly, and the women said they were happy with the result.
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Get the appHow strong is that evidence?
One small pilot with no control group is a hint and not a result. The table below sets out what exists, using the paper itself and Cleveland Clinic's review of it.
| Claim | What the evidence is | Our read |
|---|---|---|
| Face yoga makes you look younger | One pilot study (Alam, JAMA Dermatology, 2018), 16 finishers, 20 weeks, no control group | Promising, unconfirmed |
| Face yoga fills out the cheeks | Same study, upper and lower cheek fullness improved, both at p=.003 | Plausible, needs a control group |
| Face yoga sharpens the jaw or lifts jowls | Nobody has tested it | Unknown |
| Face yoga deepens wrinkles | Nobody has tested it | Unknown |
Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Shilpi Khetarpal, quoted in the clinic's review, says the study was the first of its kind and that bigger studies are needed before dermatologists can recommend facial exercise.
Three limits matter. The authors list the small sample, the dropouts and the missing control group themselves. The women also knew the study was about looking younger, so their own satisfaction proves little. And the two raters were blinded to the order of the photos but were also authors of the paper.
Can face yoga make wrinkles worse?
Nobody has tested whether face yoga deepens wrinkles, so the question has no answer yet. The worry is mechanical. Expression lines form where skin folds in the same place many times a day, and hard squinting or scrunching repeats exactly that.
If you try face yoga, choose moves that don't need hard squinting. Never drag or stretch the skin to hold a position. Both are cautions and not findings.
Does lymphatic drainage have better evidence?
Lymphatic drainage has less trial evidence for the cosmetic version, but it makes a smaller claim. Healthline's review calls the cosmetic benefits mostly anecdotal. The claim is that a puffy face looks less swollen for a few hours, and you can check that in one session.
Face yoga asks you to wait 5 months before you can judge it. A session of facial lymphatic drainage takes 3 to 5 minutes, and puffiness is the part of your face that responds in minutes. A team of researchers backing Nodi is running trials on lymphatic drainage now. Research papers will be shared soon.
Should you try face yoga?
Try face yoga if you like the idea of a long experiment on cheek volume. Do the same routine most days, and take a photo at the start in the same light and from the same distance. Judge it at 3 months, not at 3 days.
If you want a visible change this morning, drainage is the better test. We film every Nodi session in a professional studio with experts, on a real face, so you can see how light the pressure is. Doing both is fine, because they work on different layers.
Nodi teaches facial lymphatic drainage, the part of this category that shows in one session, in sessions of 2 to 10 minutes. Get the app.
Common questions
- Does face yoga work?
- Face yoga may work a little, but one study is all there is. In a 2018 pilot in JAMA Dermatology, 16 women finished 20 weeks of daily exercises, and two blinded raters estimated they looked 2.7 years younger, mostly from fuller cheeks. The study had no control group, so treat the result as promising and unconfirmed.
- How long does face yoga take to show results?
- Face yoga took months in the one study that measured it. The raters saw a 1.2 year drop in estimated age at 8 weeks and a 2.7 year drop at 20 weeks, after daily 30 minute sessions. Nothing in the research supports a visible change in a week. Give it at least 3 months before you decide.
- Can face yoga cause wrinkles?
- Nobody has tested it, so nobody knows. Expression lines form where skin folds in the same place many times a day, so the worry is that hard squinting or scrunching in an exercise could deepen them. That's a theory, not a finding. If you try face yoga, pick moves that don't need hard squinting, and never drag the skin.
- Is face yoga or face massage better for puffiness?
- Face massage is better for puffiness. Puffiness is fluid sitting in your tissue, and light massage toward the lymph nodes in your neck moves fluid within minutes. Face yoga contracts muscle, which takes months and doesn't move fluid out of the face. Choose face yoga if cheek volume is your goal, and massage if puffiness is.
- Are face yoga before and after photos real?
- Some are real, and most are also flattered by things that have nothing to do with exercise. Chin position, camera height, lighting, makeup and time of day all change how a lower face looks. A photo at 8am on a puffy morning beside one at 6pm in soft light will show a difference with no exercise at all.
Where this comes from
- Alam et al., Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging (JAMA Dermatology, 2018)
- Northwestern University: Facial exercises help middle-aged women appear more youthful
- Cleveland Clinic: Can facial exercises help you look younger?
- Healthline: Lymphatic drainage for the face, benefits and evidence
Nodi is a wellness app, not medical care. Nothing here diagnoses or treats anything. If something on your face feels wrong, see a doctor.
See what your routine could look like
Download Nodi, answer a few questions, and it builds a short daily face routine around your goals.
Get the appKeep reading
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