I keep coming across stories promoting exercises for your face. They claim you can tone your face, firm your double chin, sculpt your cheeks and reduce wrinkles on your neck with a few simple exercises.
I’m here to say I quit. I know, I know. I haven’t even started, but I quit.
I come from people who wrinkle. Both sides of my family crease like cotton sheets left in the dryer too long.
Both my grandmothers wrinkled, my mother wrinkled and I’m in the process of wrinkling. It’s in the genes. “Genes” that are perma-wrinkle.
I’ve watched a few tutorials on cheek sculpting exercises and, frankly, some of them border on dangerous.
An exercise known as The Owl says to place an index finger above and parallel to each eyebrow and your thumbs below your eyes on your cheeks. Then make big eyes while the fingers create resistance to the stretching muscles. It looks like you’re pretending to wear imaginary glasses. Personally, I doubt the exercise reduce wrinkles, but it may make you look like you’re losing your mind.
The most practical facial exercise I’ve come across is the one where you turn your neck from side to side. Theoretically, this will lift your sagging double chin and tighten the folds in your neck. I’ve been jerking my neck from side to side for years, changing lanes and merge onto the interstate, but it hasn’t done a thing.
Another exercise advises placing your index fingers at the outer most edges of your eyebrows and trying to lift your brows against the pressure of your fingers. It looks like I’m having the onset of a migraine.
Then there’s the exercise where you tilt your head way back and place your fingers near your collarbones while pulling your chin up. It might tighten some muscles, but you can also look like you’re choking. Do that one only if you’re willing to risk someone charging your way and performing the Heimlich maneuver.
The fact is, I’ve always looked a lot like my mother. As she aged, she used to try and scare me by cupping her wrinkled face in her hands and saying, “Behold, your future.”
I would scare her back by cupping my face in my hands and saying, “Behold your future caretaker.”
She often screamed.
She claimed her doctor told her to never sleep on her stomach, as the pull of gravity encouraged wrinkles. She was glad for the warning, but said it came about 20 years too late.
Save yourself!
I’m a side sleeper, but I don’t think my right side is any more wrinkled than my left side. At least my wrinkles are symmetrical. There’s always something to be grateful for.
Lori Borgman is a columnist, author and speaker. Her new book, “What Happens at Grandma’s Stays at Grandma’s” is now available. Email her at [email protected]. Send comments to [email protected].
