Facial exercises show modest but real effects on facial appearance, particularly in the cheeks. The best clinical evidence to date found that a 20-week program made participants look about 2.7 years younger as rated by blinded evaluators. That’s a meaningful change, but the picture is more complicated than social media face yoga influencers suggest, because the same repetitive muscle contractions that build volume in some areas can deepen wrinkles in others.
What the Best Study Found
The most rigorous trial on facial exercises was published in JAMA Dermatology by researchers at Northwestern University. Middle-aged women performed 30 minutes of facial exercises daily for the first 8 weeks, then every other day for the remaining 12 weeks. Dermatologists who didn’t know which photos were “before” and “after” rated participants’ estimated age at 50.8 years at the start and 48.1 years at the end, a drop of nearly 3 years.
The improvements were most noticeable in the cheeks. Both upper and lower cheek fullness scores improved significantly. The results appeared gradually: participants looked about 1.2 years younger at the 8-week mark, with continued improvement through week 20. This suggests the effects build over time rather than appearing quickly.
The study had real limitations, though. It was small, involved only middle-aged women, and had no control group doing nothing for comparison. Dropout rates were high, which means the people who stuck with it may have been more motivated or seen better results than average.
How Facial Exercises Change Your Face
The logic behind facial exercises is essentially the same as weightlifting for your biceps. Facial muscles are unique in that they attach directly to the skin rather than bone-to-bone like most skeletal muscles. When these muscles get thicker through exercise, they can push the overlying skin outward, creating a fuller, more lifted appearance. This is particularly relevant in the cheeks, where age-related fat pad shrinkage and muscle thinning contribute to a hollowed, sagging look.
Aging changes every layer of the face: the bone structure remodels, fat pads shrink and shift downward, muscle tone decreases, and skin loses elasticity. Facial exercises primarily target just one of those layers. They can add volume by building muscle, but they can’t reverse bone loss, restore fat pads to their original position, or repair collagen breakdown in the skin. This is why the results are modest rather than dramatic.
The Wrinkle Paradox
Here’s the catch that most face yoga promoters don’t mention: repetitive facial muscle contractions are one of the primary causes of dynamic wrinkles. Crow’s feet form from repeatedly contracting the muscles around the eyes. Forehead lines come from habitual raising of the brow muscles. The “11” lines between your eyebrows develop from the same muscles used in frowning. This is exactly why Botox works: it temporarily paralyzes these muscles so they stop creasing the skin.
So facial exercises put you in a bind. Building muscle volume in the cheeks may create a more youthful fullness, but repeatedly scrunching and contracting muscles around the eyes, forehead, and mouth could accelerate fine lines in those areas. One recent clinical trial on face yoga found that it reduced excessive tension in the forehead and brow muscles, which could theoretically help with wrinkles in that area. But the overall relationship between exercise and wrinkle formation remains poorly studied.
The risk likely depends on which exercises you do and how you do them. Exercises targeting the cheeks and lower face, where volume loss is the main aging concern, probably carry less wrinkle risk than exercises involving repeated squinting or brow-raising, where skin creasing is the issue.
How They Compare to Clinical Treatments
When researchers compared facial exercise results to injectable fillers using the same wrinkle severity scale, the difference was stark. Dermal fillers improved nasolabial fold scores by roughly 1.5 points on a standardized scale, while a facial exercise device produced a statistically significant but much smaller change of about 0.2 points. Both “worked,” but fillers delivered roughly seven times the visible improvement in that specific area.
One study using a mouth-held rocking device did find measurable reductions in lower facial surface area and volume, suggesting some tightening effect around the jawline. But again, the changes were small compared to what procedures like radiofrequency treatments or laser resurfacing can achieve. Facial exercises are better understood as a low-cost, low-risk supplement to a skincare routine rather than a replacement for clinical treatments.
The Time Commitment Is Significant
The Northwestern study required 30 minutes of exercises per day for the first two months, then 30 minutes every other day for the next three months. That’s a substantial commitment, roughly equivalent to a regular gym habit, for a result that made people look less than 3 years younger. Many participants dropped out before the study ended, which suggests the routine is hard to maintain.
If you’re considering trying facial exercises, the evidence says you should expect to invest at least 20 weeks of consistent practice before seeing meaningful results. Doing them for a few minutes a day or a few weeks total is unlikely to produce visible changes. The exercises also need to involve resistance, not just moving your face through expressions. Techniques that involve pressing your fingers against your cheeks while trying to smile, or puffing your cheeks against resistance, are closer to what was studied than simply making exaggerated faces in the mirror.
Who Benefits Most
The existing research has focused almost entirely on middle-aged women, typically in their 40s to 60s. This makes sense biologically: this is the age range where volume loss in the cheeks becomes a primary driver of an aged appearance, and where adding muscle volume could plausibly make the biggest visual difference. For younger people whose skin still has strong elasticity and full fat pads, there’s less volume to restore. For older individuals with significant skin laxity, adding muscle volume under very thin, inelastic skin may produce less visible improvement.
People whose main concern is hollowed or flat cheeks are the best candidates based on current evidence. If your primary concern is forehead lines, crow’s feet, or loose neck skin, facial exercises have much less evidence supporting them and could theoretically make wrinkles worse through repeated contractions.