How to minimize wrinkles around the eyes with face yoga

[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Jennifer Morris for howdini.com. Have you heard of face yoga? The idea is that you can do facial stretches to prevent, maybe even reduce, wrinkles. Annelise Hagen is as a yoga instructor and the author of The Yoga Face. OK Annelise, really? I think the proof is in the pudding. I think if you actually document yourself doing these exercises with a camera, you'll be able to see that yes, in fact, it actually does work. And can you, with face yoga, get rid of wrinkles you already have? So it will actually get rid of these crow's feet? You can minimize them. And you can certainly tone the muscles under the skin which is going to plump up those muscles and lift the skin along with it. So I would say you could reduce the appearance of wrinkles, and you can definitely minimize them. All right, make me a believer. Take me through some of the poses for your eyes that would work on crow's feet. OK. Crow's feet that's one of my favorites, actually. So what you're going to do is your going to isolate your lower eyelids. So we're used to thinking about winking, right? But your actually just going to wink with your lower eyelids. So I'm going to do it one eyelid at a time. It's kind of hard for me to do it without a mirror, but I'll try. So sort of like your winking-- I can see it. And then you're going to take the index finger, so there's a muscle part of the ring muscle, and you're going to depress that muscle so it has something to resist. All right, how many times do you do that? I like to do 20 in a row on each side, stop and then do another 20 in a row. When you get really good, I can do this in the mirror but not looking at you, you can do them both at the same time. I might be able to do it. I can see them going. It's like wiggling your ears. Yeah. Can I give it a try here? Yeah, you want a slight incline of your fingertips because you're training the muscle to lift. Gravity left alone it will droop, but you want to kind of prop it up a bit. Yeah, you're doing it. Now just hold down the muscle. That's it. You're doing an awesome job. Yes. I'm a face yoga natural. You are. Do you recommend doing this in the mirror all of these exercises? I do. I mean you're really brave to do it without a mirror for the very first time ever. So yeah, it's actually a little easier when you can do it in the mirror. Most people don't know how to control their facial muscles without some visual cue. What are some other exercises for the eye area? Well there's another one which helps to tone this muscle right here which lifts and releases the upper eyelid. So you know that can get kind of baggy. Instead of getting a brow lift, this is what you would recommend doing? Right. so what you're going to do is to simply, and again whenever you do any of these facial exercises you want to keep everything else really smooth and neutral. Sometimes people concentrate and they create new puckers, new frowns. You want to keep everything else really neutral. And you're just going to glue your upper eyelids down to your lower eyelids. So I just counted the five. You'll feel it when you do it. And you want to keep your eyelids as smooth as possible. So just think of gluing down your upper eyelids. Yeah. And smoothing everything at the same time. And again, you should feel some kind of lactic acid burn like a little bit of a muscular contraction. And how long do you hold this pose for again? Five seconds, maybe ten, a couple times. I would recommend for all of these about that amount of time. Do you do these in a series to make them work? Or can you do them-- You can do them randomly. What I recommend, people get a little overwhelmed at the beginning because you're learning how to control about 40 new muscles, 45 new muscles, so it's good to pick your problem area and just isolate that for a while. And then you'll see the changes and you'll get some confidence, and suddenly it will get easier. And how many times a week to see results? I'd say a minimum of two times a week in the morning or in the evening when you do your moisturizer and stuff. OK. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Jennifer Morris for howdini.com.