BLOG 216: YOUR BEST 5 DOUBLE-CHIN BUSTING FACIAL EXERCISES

If you’re looking for natural ways to tackle a double chin, this is the post for you! We’re going to run through five quick and easy face yoga techniques that focus on this area.

Before I start, it’s important to note that we can’t reduce fat in just one area. Sometimes a double chin can be caused by fat accumulation but doing exercises just on one area won’t burn off that fat – we need to take a more holistic approach to diet and exercise to achieve fat loss.

However, face yoga can still help to reduce a double chin in two different ways. Firstly, it helps tone and strengthen the muscles, which in turn lifts, tightens, and tautens the attached skin. And secondly, face yoga helps release excess fluid, lessening puffiness and bloating in your face, jaw, and chin.

There’s another way face yoga can help too, which I want to explore before we get into the exercises themselves. Face yoga helps to make you more aware of your posture, which is far more crucial than many people realise.

Bad posture can cause all sorts of issues for the face, including making a double chin more pronounced. 

Try it with me quickly now. In front of a mirror (or your phone camera if you don’t have one to hand) watch what happens when you round your shoulders forward and drop your head down. This is a posture many of us spend a lot of time in during the day, especially when we’re looking down at our phones or sat at a desk.

You’ll notice that the skin under the chin gets all bunched up and pushed out, which can cause fluid accumulation and contribute to lines and wrinkles.

Long term, being in this position often also weakens the muscles under the chin, causing the skin to sag and making a double chin worse.

So, we want to try to adopt a good posture as much as possible to reduce a double chin. Place your feet flat on the floor, bring your shoulders down and a little back, and keep your chin parallel with the floor. Imagine you have a long cord running from the base of your spine all the way out the top of your head, tugging you up towards the ceiling.

This upright posture helps to strengthen the muscles, reduce lines, and prevent a double chin, so it is one of the most important things you can do. Although it sounds simple, it isn’t easy to maintain all the time, so just do your best and come back into it whenever you notice you’ve started to slump forward again.

Now let’s look at some other face yoga techniques we can use to reduce a double chin.

1. TAPPING

Using the back of one hand, tap rapidly over the skin beneath your chin, flicking your fingers up and making sure to cover the whole area. Keep your chin parallel to the floor while you do this.

This technique aims to release fluid build-up and get things moving more easily again. Under the chin is an area where we tend to notice the effects of stagnant energy (known as prana in yoga or qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine).

As we tap, we’re encouraging the flow of energy, releasing built-up fluid, and also giving the blood circulation a boost, which helps to bring lots of fresh oxygen and nutrients to the skin.

2. MASSAGING

Continuing with releasing fluid and encouraging a good flow of energy, let’s move now to some massage techniques. 

Apply a few drops of serum to your chin, jaw, and neck to help your fingers move more easily here. I use the Danielle Collins Pro Lift Moisturising Serum.

Then, use both thumbs to smooth out along the underside of your jaw, starting beneath your chin and working outwards.

When you reach the end, lift your thumbs off and replace them at your chin to repeat the move.

Next, use your fingertips to very lightly stroke down the sides of your neck. We’re stimulating the lymphatic drainage here, which helps to carry waste and excess fluid away from the face. You want to keep your touch featherlight, as the lymphatic system is only just beneath the skin.

Place your fingers on your collarbones and gently pulse to continue to boost lymphatic drainage.

Then, form a ‘V’ shape with your index and middle fingers and stroke across your jaw, smoothing out from your chin.   

3. TONING

Now that we’ve woken up the circulation, stimulated lymphatic drainage, and encouraged a good flow of energy through this area, let’s move onto some strengthening and toning exercises for the muscles around the chin.

Start by turning your head to one side and tilting your chin up and slightly back. 

Close your lips and breathe through your nose. As you hold this position, bring your tongue up and down from the roof of your mouth at a rate of about one per second.

Repeat this twenty times and then release. Relax for a couple of breaths and then repeat on the other side.

You should feel a lovely gentle stretch in the side of your neck, as well as some activation in the muscles beneath your chin.

4. STRENGTHENING

We’re continuing to work on strengthening the muscles with our next move. Turn your head back to the side again and stick out your tongue, extending it up towards your nose.

Hold for a count of twenty, then repeat on the other side.

Again, you should feel this pose working the muscles under the chin.

5. STRETCHING

For our last technique, we’re bringing our focus back to the posture with some wonderful stretches that help to open up the upper body and release tension from our neck and shoulders.

Bring your arms out diagonally behind you like two big wings. 

Holding this position, gently turn your head from side to side. Take long, deep breaths at the same time, in and out through your nose. 

Then, interlink your fingers and stretch your arms down behind you. Tilt your head back. With your lips together, bring your tongue up and down from the roof of your mouth twenty times.

Release and take a couple of shoulder rolls to finish.

FINISHED!

We’re all done! I recommend doing each of the moves here for 30 – 60 seconds, so the whole routine should only take around ten minutes.

Hopefully that means it is easy to fit into your daily routine, because consistency really is key when it comes to face yoga – just like any other form of exercise.

If you need some help making face yoga a daily habit, I highly recommend the Face Yoga Journal. It’s an undated journal with 52 chapters – one for every week of the year. Each chapter introduces a new face yoga technique, gives you a weekly wellness hack, and keeps you motivated with an inspirational quote.

Each chapter also has space for you to set some goals and record your progress, so it is an ideal way to hold yourself accountable and encourage you to set aside daily time for self-care.

The Face Yoga Journal is available as a paperback, e-book, or audiobook – more information here.