As I sit here writing this blog and eating my porridge with blueberries I can feel that my jaw has done a major work out the night before... and that's not because I munched my way through a family sized box of hard centres in front of the telly... but because of the amazing facial yoga session that I did at the Broadbridge Bombshells WI meeting last night!
I have always been intrigued by facial yoga and was really excited to be given an introduction to this fantastic 'natural face lifting' exercise by our 'visiting' speaker Polina from Elemental Pilates. As well as being a Pilates and Yoga teacher, she is also a certified Face Yoga instructor, trained personally by Danielle Collins, the World's leading Face Yoga expert. Polina teaches her wide range of classes in Somerset, but she came into the comfort of our own homes last night via Zoom and gave us a fun evening of pulling funny faces with names like The Owl, The Giraffe, Puffer Fish and Flirty Eyes all in the name of looking younger and feeling refreshed at the end.
Polina explained that 'facial fitness' is a relatively new and increasingly popular health trend and went on to inform us how it works. She explained that by manipulating your face and neck with your hands and fingers using specific facial exercises, face massage, acupressure and wellbeing techniques you can give your face muscles and skin a full workout to promote a healthy younger looking appearance. Just like going to the gym, but for your face.
In the images below you can see some of the exercises we tried, I was quite surprised how simple they were but also how effective they were, in that I could tell that my jaw, cheeks and tongue were getting put through their paces, that wrinkles were being ironed out, sagginess tightened and puffiness reduced. Some of the exercises were a little trickier than others to do but Polina assured us that as with all exercise the more you practice the easier it gets, and not only that she said that if you practice for about 10 minutes a day you will be able to see improvements in as little as 6 weeks.
My fellow Bombshells and I, along with several visiting guest members from other local WI's twisted, pressed, puffed, craned, fluttered and tweaked our faces doing the exercises along with Polina. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we all enjoyed the experience, but I think it is safe to say we all especially enjoyed the massage and acupressure techniques Polina taught us, which involved stroking and lightly tapping our faces and necks, it was beautifully relaxing. All in all it seems like a great natural way to reduce wrinkles and puffiness and we all looked relaxed and glowing afterwards with the added benefit of having had a giggle at ourselves at the same time.
Polina offers lots of online classes via Zoom which you can check out on her website: www.elementalpilates.co.uk , but in particular her Facial Yoga class is available in two week blocks of 6 x 15 minute lessons all for the very reasonable price of £10. Guess who signed up this morning!
Our next meeting on Tuesday 23rd February at 8pm will also be via Zoom. Check out our website and Facebook page for more information.
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