BLOG 55: 6 NATURAL TIPS TO TONE THE NECK AND JAW WITH FACIAL MASSAGE

When we think of facial massage, it is easy to forget how important it is to include the neck, chest, and jaw area. As a result, this area of our body can sometimes feel a little bit neglected. 

There are some wonderful natural techniques you can use as part of your regular skincare routine that will help to give you a non surgical and natural lift for the neck area. Below are 6 tips to help you tone your neck and jaw. 

1. MASSAGE FOR LYMPHATIC DRAINAGE 

As with any facial massage, it is important to start on the chest area. You can then work your way up your face before coming back down. This helps to get the lymphatic system warmed up.

Before you begin, be sure to apply some oil or serum onto your neck and décolletage area. The skin on the neck is incredibly thin and therefore we don’t want to pull on it any more than necessary.  

Going against all our laws of face massage, you’ll firstly want to start by moving your hands in a downwards motion on your neck. 

This helps to encourage lymphatic drainage from the neck down to the lymph node under your armpit. 

Make sure you remember to work the area behind your ear as well as drainage can build up here, too. If you sometimes notice this area feeling a little sore, a build-up here might be the cause. 

It can help to use a circular motion with your hands to massage the area.  Continue to massage and flush all the drainage down. 

2. THE SCULPTING MOVEMENT UNDER YOUR CHIN 

Use the open palm of your hands to sculpt under your neck and move backwards along the jawline. Pull down, bringing your hands back down your neck towards your chest. 

Not only does it feel really nice, you’re getting a lift on your jaw which also encouraging further lymphatic drainage. Double whammy! 

There are so many lymphatic points around the ear. To drain these, you should smooth your skin outwards with the palm of your hands towards the ear and then pull down. For this part of this routine, smooth the underneath of your chin with the backs of your hands. 

Finally, smooth up from the bottom of your neck to the top, moving everything upwards. Tip your head back slightly and smooth along the central part of your neck – you’ll feel almost like a cat grooming itself! 

WORKING THE CHIN AREA 

The chin area can start to feel really loose from a lot of phone and laptop use. You may have heard it called the dreaded “tech neck”. We spend so much of our time looking down that we are not using these muscles enough. 

In order to encourage toning in this area, we need to get more blood pumping to the muscles. By using a massage motion, you can wake these muscles up and work them so that they can become stronger. 

We also hold a lot of excess fluid in our chin and jaw area. Making sure we are getting the blood circulating and coming to the surface of the skin will help to drain the fluid and keep skin looking and feeling healthy. 

3. TONING THE CHIN AREA WITH YOUR THUMBS 

To tone the skin under your chin, you can use your thumbs to gently push the skin up. 

Stick your chin out slightly and work on manipulating the muscle there. This will help you to feel less tension in your neck and improve both posture and energy. 

You might like to continue the massage around your shoulders, especially when you’re working from home. 

4. TONING THE JAW AREA WITH TONGUE MOVEMENT 

Try turning your head to one side, tilting your neck, and lifting your chin into the air. This helps to open up the chest area while lifting both the side of the neck and the side of the face. When you’re in this position, try and focus on your breathing. 

Breathe in and out through your nose, keeping the exhalation slightly longer than the inhalation. 

We tend to get loose skin on our neck under our chin as mentioned above. A good movement to use in toning this skin is to put your lips together and move your tongue up and down from the roof of your mouth about one time per second. You’ll know if the action you’re doing is right when you place your hand under your chin, and you can feel the area working. 

Once you’ve done about 30 of these on one side, turn your head to the other side and repeat the movement. This will help to tone all of the area under your chin. 

Remember to be gentle with yourself and don’t over-extend your neck, especially if you normally experience any pain in this area. 

Our jaw, neck and shoulder areas hold a lot of emotion and stress. This movement can help release some of that energy which can also help improve our mental health. 

5. USE GENTLE PULSING 

Use a bit of gentle pulsing with your fingertips on your collarbone area for lymphatic drainage. 

Bring your fingers up to your collarbone while sticking your bottom lip out slightly. As you do this, you’ll feel the big muscle at the front of your neck start to engage. 

Use a gentle yoga breath, in and out through the nose, and hold for about 4 breaths. This will help to release tension as well as encouraging lifting and firming. 

Use a slight bit of pulsing with your fingertips while you smooth down from your ears to your neck. This helps to drain everything down. 

6. LIFTING MASSAGE 

You can use a light, lifting massage to smooth up from your neck to your face. Massage your cheeks, eyebrows, and forehead, (really anywhere that feels nice!) all while using the smoothing and pulsing massage. 

You can spend a minute or two doing this while you’re applying your skincare, making sure to continue working it down into the chest area. 

A FEW FINAL TIPS 

I hope these tips are helpful for you in showing some love to your neck and jaw area when you next apply your skincare. 

As touched on above, we hold a lot of tension in our necks which can cause some lines and creping of the skin. Collagen, elastin levels, hydration levels hyaluronic levels start to decline once we reach our 30s. 

A good skincare routine can help preserve the elasticity of your skin and keep skin looking healthy. When applying your skincare, be sure to start at the top of your face and work all the way down to your neck and chest area. 

As we all know, SPF is so important to protecting our skin. When applying your SPF, remember to apply it to your neck area and also behind your ears – especially if you wear your hair up a lot! SPF is also great on the back of your hands to keep them looking young and prevent skin ageing. 

If you are interested in Face Yoga and what it takes to become a Face Yoga Teacher head to our website here.