My Five Favorite Face Exercises

The market is bursting with new products to help reduce wrinkles, tighten and tone skin, and make you look years younger. Some of them can improve your skin and some of them are just costly. But no matter what you put on your face and neck to fight the aging process and create the pretty picture, you can't forget that the underlying canvas requires care.

Exercising your face and neck can be an integral part of keeping your skin healthy and forestalling wrinkles and sagging. The following are my five favorite face exercises. I do them just before I go to sleep each night and they only take a few minutes. They have the side benefit of reducing tension and setting me up for sleep.

Kiss The Ceiling - Gently tilt your head back and look at the ceiling then create a tight pucker with your lips, as if you were trying to reach up and kiss it. Hold the pucker for a count of ten, then relax your face and bring your head back to neutral position. Repeat five times.

Tongue Touch - Gently tilt your head back and look at the ceiling, then stick your tongue out as far as you can, trying to touch your chin. Hold the tongue out for a count of ten, then pull back your tongue, relax your face, and bring your head back to neutral position. Repeat five times. (If you have issues with sticking out your tongue, here is an alternative: Roll the tip of your tongue back over the roof of your mouth as far as you can. Hold it there for a count of ten and then relax. Repeat five times.

Stinky Face - Pull down your eyebrows and bring them together in a big frown type expression, while scrunching up your nose and flaring your nostrils. Hold for a count of five and then relax your face. Repeat ten times.

Eyes Wide Shut - Raise your eyebrows high and hold, then close your eyelids, pulling them down tight without releasing the up pull on the eyebrows. Hold for a count of five. Relax then repeat five times.

If ten seconds is too long for some of these exercises, reduce the time to five seconds and gradually build up. When you first start these exercises, your muscles may quiver as they are not used to being stressed in this way. We stopped making faces when we were very young and we have to re-teach the muscles how to "play."

Don't look for overnight results. Face exercises in combination with a good skin care regimen can keep the look of age at bay and in some cases, turn it around.