While smiling conveys a youthful attitude, the lines that are created by the expression can age you. A variety of factors, including sun exposure and the loss of collagen and elastin in the skin due to aging, combine with repetitive action of the muscles of the face to create furrows and lines in the skin around the mouth. A non-surgical alternative to minimizing these lines is facial exercise. Working the muscles around the mouth may strengthen them and lift the overlying skin, giving you a real reason to smile.
Smile Resistance
Attempting to smile while other muscles in your face work in resistance to the movement will strengthen the muscles around your mouth and in your cheeks. A basic exercise utilizing this type of resistance is to curl the lips over the teeth and stretch the corners of the mouth temple to temple in a wide smile. Another version calls for lifting the bottom lip up over the top lip and smiling in that position.
Air Pressure
Applying pressure against your cheeks from within provides a form of resistance that strengthens the cheek muscles that contribute to smile lines. Air is puffed up beneath the upper lip and then moved from cheek to cheek and beneath the bottom lip. The fish expression is another air pressure exercise where the lips are puckered and the cheeks fully inflated.
Finger Resistance
Pressing a finger against one end of a facial muscle anchors it and provides resistance while you work the muscle normally. Finger resistance is often used in exercises that attempt to combat deep nasal labial folds, or laugh lines: the fingers anchor the cheek muscle by pinching it from inside and outside the mouth while the lips form a smile. Laying forefingers along the nasal labial fold and pressing firmly while smiling also helps.
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