Enthusiasts of the India-inspired facial yoga say it can reduce wrinkles and even help Americans skip Botox
NEW YORK: Hollywood stars tired of copious cosmetic surgery to look younger and even New Yorkers wanting to avoid going the obsessive way with Botox are turning to a refreshingly India-inspired solution: facial yoga.
Enthusiasts of face yoga workouts say that the skin tone improves and the results can be seen within the first few weeks.
Annelise Hagen, a yoga instructor and author of The Yoga Face, developed her facial exercises when she realised her students, mostly successful Manhattan professionals, were practicing yoga but getting Botox jabs.
“I was really shocked because I had this thriving yoga class and all these people were coming to me to learn yoga but they would go on to get Botox or plastic surgery. It didn’t seem to be in the spirit of yoga. I just wanted to help people not to be violent to them selves,” Hagen, a former actress who is at the forefront of the yoga movement, told DNA.
Her yoga book published by Penguin in August this year has already sold over 10,000 copies and gone into a second print run. Hagen’s facial exercises include the Lion Face (open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue for 60 seconds); Smiling Fish (fill your cheeks with air and blow it out like puffer fish), the Marilyn Monroe (purse your lips coquettishly and blow kisses while keeping your forehead smooth) and the Satchmo (puff out your face and transfer air from cheek to cheek) increase blood flow.
The exercises also encourage the growth of collagen, the magic substance that many Hollywood stars artificially plump their lips with to make themselves look more Angelina Joliesque.
Hagen’s hugely popular one-hour-long yoga classes include deep breathing exercises, inversion positions, meditation, and facial exercises including eye movements borrowed from Kathakali.
“The eye movements mean a lot in Kathakali. I use some of the traditional movements from the Indian dance to help exercise the ring muscle around the eyes,” said Hagen.
“Everyone in India probably already knows that yoga has more holistic benefits and anti-ageing is the just the side benefit of pursuing yoga. But I was finding a way to simply tweak everything for a Western audience and dial it up a notch for anti-aging,”
said Hagen, who started learning yoga as a 10-year-old when she started visiting an ashram in California with her mother.
“Yes, I have had Botox. Then again, every guy I know who works in the City has had it now,” said investment banker Brian Parker, 45. “But I don’t like needles so I have signed up at a yoga studio that teaches great facial exercises.”
Leta Koontz holds Fresh Face Yoga workshops at her studio for clients who range from 30 to 70.
“When you have something as wonderful as yoga to keep your mind and body alive I don’t see why anyone needs to go down the Botox road,” said yoga instructor Dvora Frust. “You can get rid of double chins by just looking up at the ceiling and stretching your neck.”
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