Month Test of Lip Improvement
I was having issues with "smiling nicely" for pictures and decided to give all of these exercises and ideas a test run. I made sure to drink lots of water every day and to take my vitamins. I used chap stick regularly. I stayed out of the sun. I don't smoke so that wasn't an issue. I gently exfoliated my lips each day.Perhaps most importantly, I did daily face exercises. When I was driving in my car I'd alternate between super wide smiles and super long puckers. I'd especially do the exercises where I tried to make my top lip touch my nose, with the theory that it was my top lip in need of assistance. I can actually touch my top lip to my nose now! I can also hold a pencil in the curl of my top lip.
When I was first doing the wide-smile exercises my face actually hurt on the sides. But over the days, I can now stretch my smile from one end of my teeth to the other without it hurting. What's more, when I then release the smile, my lips look fuller. All that stretching causes the skin to become more supple, so that when it's "folded in again" it is more full looking. It's sort of like having a sock that you stretch out, then bunch up. There's more fabric to bunch up once you've stretched it out a lot.
I'm also finding that when I do smile or laugh, my smile is much wider than normal. My face almost automatically goes out into that wider smile that I've been exercising. I'm actually now noticing my teeth and their whiteness (or lack thereof) now and am thinking about teeth whiteners - which is not something I ever noticed before.
In yoga there's a pose where you stretch your mouth as wide open as you can, like a lion's growl. Again, it's to exercise your face muscles. I have gotten really good at that. We went to a Japanese restaurant recently where they were tossing food into peoples' mouths. The person I went with kept missing - but I caught the food!
When I concentrate, I ususally frown. Studies show (and this is pretty amazing) that if you frown, it actually makes you feel more sad. If you force yourself to smile, it actually makes you feel more happy! Your brain is tied into your face muscles. So after doing all these exercises for a while, now if I start to frown in concentration I actually feel it in my face and smile instead! I found that really interesting. I'm much more aware of what my face is doing. And because I'm smiling more, I'm happy more, which makes me smile more!
I definitely recommend face exercises as being REALLY helpful - both for interacting with others and for being happy yourself!
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