Hey There,……Welcome back!!
Today what I am sharing with you in this blog will probably be the most vulnerable content I have shared with you so far as it is not just about Face yoga or it’s benefits or pro-aging life style tips.
It’s about me, my personal struggles and my journey to making face yoga a part of my life.
It is also about learning how our simple, innocent daily habits along with lack of awareness can cause irreversible damage to our face in the long run in the form of ASYMMETRIES.
You might have seen me in videos and pictures on social media and wondered,
“Oh yeah……it’s easy to say face yoga works when you already have a good-looking face”
Or “How come we never get to see your transformation pictures? Maybe you never had a transformation.”
You’ll find answers to these questions as you read along this blog.
Beauty in Imperfection
Although, beauty is often associated with symmetry, it’s very hard to find a face that is 100% symmetrical. I strongly believe that it’s the minor asymmetries or the flaws that makes us all so unique and adds character to our faces which makes us attractive.
Most people have minor asymmetries on the face and that’s normal and absolutely fine.
Types of Asymmetries
1. Facial Asymmetries present at birth:
These kinds of asymmetries that have been present since birth are most likely irreversible but there are cases where it has been improved to some extent with face yoga.
2. Facial Asymmetries caused due to accidents/illness:
Some serious injuries, accidents can throw your spine and body off balance causing asymmetries to the face. Also, some neurological conditions like Stroke and Bell’s Palsy can leave the face asymmetrical. Face yoga has been proved highly effective in reversing these asymmetries to a large extent. However, I will be going more deeper on this in one of my upcoming blogs.
Today my focus is on bringing attention and awareness on the 3rd type of Asymmetry which is the most common amongst women and that is the asymmetries caused due to habits and lack of awareness.
3. Facial Asymmetries caused due to habits:
While the above 2 asymmetries are not in our control, this last one is something which we bring upon ourselves as we age due to lack of awareness in our habits and lifestyle. The changes are so gradual that you won’t even notice until one fine day when it becomes too obvious and hard to reverse. In this case, awareness and prevention would be the best approach.
Facial Asymmetries caused due to habits
Refer to these pictures below: The pink one was taken in 2007 and Black in 2019.
Although, my weight has been pretty much the same always, look at the difference in my face. Apart from the loss of fat from my face due to aging, I also notice a difference in the symmetry.
When, I look at my pictures 10 years back and compare it with my present pictures, I can tell you that my face was far more symmetrical back then, than it is now. Particularly, I see the difference in the cheek area and the mouth area.
Now, have a look at these pictures taken at the beginning of my face yoga journey and then 8 months later.
Remember, at the beginning I told you that this is my most vulnerable blog. Here’s the reason why…….
These pictures were never meant to be shared with anyone. These are my most unflattering pictures that I took for ‘my eyes only’ just in my pjs with an unruly bun. Moreover, it was a phase when I went through terrible skin breakouts. Back then, I didn’t know that I was going to be a face yoga teacher sharing my journey with others. If I did, I would probably have better pictures.
So no filters, no make up……….just me……….!
Notice how asymmetrical my face had become over the years. Uneven cheeks, asymmetrical lips, misaligned chin….
So… what causes these asymmetries on the face?
Just like many of you, I had no clue.
Not a bit of a clue………until one fine day I stumbled upon face yoga and discovered a world of awareness that I bet most women have no clue about.
I learned how our daily innocent habits can have an impact on the way our face shapes up as we age. How millions of women are inadvertently causing damage to their own faces just because they lack the awareness.
Many of the asymmetries on your face can also be related to body posture.
When the spine is not aligned, the face is asymmetrical.
As I went deeper into it, the reasons for my own asymmetries became obvious to me.
I slept on my left side most of the time (as I nursed my babies on bed) and chewed mostly on right for several years. So, my left side kept getting squished and was mostly inactive while the muscles on the right side of my face was getting more work out as I was chewing mostly on my right. Added to this were several other bad habits like carrying heavy bags like handbags and diaper bags on the same side all the time, crossing my legs the same way every time I sat, carrying my babies on the same side always.
This didn’t happen in few days or weeks or even months. These are habits which ran for years. So, you see how small things we do in our daily lives can have serious impacts in our future.
This is also an opportunity to understand that small habitual changes we make can change the way we age and change our future both in terms of appearance and health.
As you can see my transition through the pictures, with face yoga I have improved the symmetry of my face to large extent.
The table below has a list of habits that cause Asymmetry and what you can do to fix them.
Apart from the above, you might want to keep in mind the following points:
Try your best to use both sides of your body equally.
Try to occasionally experiment with the non-dominant hand for certain tasks like brushing teeth, brushing hair, using knife or fork, coloring etc.
Make sure that the placement of your furniture / electronics is in such a way that your body doesn’t have to awkwardly turn to one side. For example, place your couch facing your TV and not on the side and place your computers right in front of you.
I share my story and my unflattering pictures with you today with the hope that you don’t have to make the same mistakes that I did and instead learn from my mistakes. It is my deepest passion to bring this awareness to you so that you can work on your habits before it’s too late. It’s also my heartfelt wish that every woman makes face yoga a part of their life.
My story of personal transformation is also a testimony to the power of face yoga and its ability to transform not just your face but your life as well. I have come a long way since both these pictures.
Today, it’s because of Face yoga, I am here showing up with confidence and sharing this awareness and knowledge with many women across the world. I cannot even imagine how my face would look now without the timely awareness and my encounter with Face Yoga.
If you have read up till here, I would like to thank you for your time and I hope this was helpful in bringing awareness to you and nudges you to make those small changes in your lifestyle and habits that could go a long way.
I would love to hear back from you. You can DM me on Instagram/Facebook or leave a comment below.
Stay tuned for my next blog where I share with you about another form of Facial Asymmetry through the story of an amazing woman (who happens to be my client) who took a leap of faith with Face Yoga to find a way out of her long struggle with Bell’s Palsy, a form of facial paralysis that leaves the face with severe asymmetries both in appearance and functionality.
.png)
.png)