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Does Face Yoga Actually Work? Here’s What the Research Says

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If you’ve wondered whether facial exercises actually do anything, you’re asking the right question — and the honest answer is: probably something, though the science is still catching up to the practice.

The most-cited study is a small 2018 trial out of Northwestern University, where 16 women aged 40 to 65 performed a set of facial exercises daily for 20 weeks. By the end, trained evaluators rated their faces as looking meaningfully younger, and the women themselves reported firmer, more toned-looking cheeks. A separate 2018 study of older adults in Japan found that a 12-week facial exercise program improved participants’ mental wellbeing and facial expressiveness — a reminder that the benefits aren’t only about how a face looks.

That said, researchers are careful to note the limits. A 2014 review of the existing studies on facial exercise found the results inconclusive — mostly because the trials were small, lacked control groups, and relied on subjective ratings. That’s not the same as saying it doesn’t work; it means science hasn’t yet caught up with a practice people have been doing for decades.

What’s likely happening

One proposed explanation is that repeated exercise may increase the fullness of some facial muscles, much as training does elsewhere in the body — though this is a suggested mechanism rather than a settled one. Alongside that, the massage and movement involved in face yoga can temporarily increase circulation and encourage lymphatic drainage, which is part of why skin often looks brighter right after a session.

Your Skin After Menopause: What’s Actually Happening

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If your skin has felt like it changed almost overnight, you’re not imagining it — and it’s not because you did anything wrong. It’s biology, and understanding it can take away a surprising amount of the sting.

Estrogen isn’t just a reproductive hormone — it’s directly involved in signaling your skin to produce collagen and elastin, the proteins that keep skin firm, plump, and elastic. When estrogen drops sharply at menopause, that signal drops with it, and collagen breakdown starts outpacing collagen production. Research suggests the loss continues at a slower, steady rate of around 2% a year afterward.

Why it can feel sudden

Because the biggest drop happens in a concentrated window — the first several years after menopause — rather than spreading gradually across a decade, many women describe it as their face looking "different overnight." Structurally, it kind of is: you’re losing a meaningful share of the scaffolding that held everything in place, in a relatively short window.

What actually helps

This is genuinely a conversation worth having with your doctor, since options like hormone therapy are personal medical decisions that depend on your full health picture — not something any article should tell you to start or avoid. Outside of that conversation, the things with the most consistent support are the unglamorous basics: daily sun protection (UV exposure accelerates collagen breakdown independent of hormones), regular movement, adequate protein, and gentle, consistent facial care rather than harsh or aggressive products on skin that’s already more fragile.

The Psychology of Confidence: What Self-Compassion Research Reveals

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Confidence, it turns out, has less to do with how you look in the mirror than with how you talk to yourself in front of it.

A study of 517 women between 40 and 60 found that self-compassion — the practice of treating yourself with the same kindness you’d offer a friend — was one of the strongest predictors of how well women adjusted emotionally to aging. Combined, self-compassion and attitude toward aging explained between 36% and 67% of the variance in overall wellbeing in the study.

That’s a strikingly large effect for something as simple as self-talk. Researchers describe self-compassion as a "modifiable internal resource" — meaning, unlike your genes or your birth year, it’s something you can actually practice and build, at any age.

Why it matters more at midlife

Other research on older adults has found that self-compassion is associated with fewer daily physical symptoms and slower increases in chronic illness over time — though interestingly, this protective effect showed up more strongly in later old age than earlier. It’s also been linked to better emotional regulation and healthier coping when facing difficult health information.

Can Smiling Really Change Your Mood?

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Darwin was the first to suggest it, back in the 1800s: that the muscles in your face don’t just express your emotions, they might actually help create them. It’s called the facial feedback hypothesis, and for over a century, psychologists have argued about whether it’s actually true.

In 2022, a Stanford-led team called the Many Smiles Collaboration tried to settle the debate for good. They ran a coordinated study across 19 countries with nearly 3,900 participants — one of the largest tests of the idea ever conducted. Their conclusion: posing a smile, even a fake one, produced a small but real increase in feelings of happiness.

To be fair to the skeptics: the effect is modest. One earlier analysis estimated that out of 100 people who smiled, only around seven would feel a genuine mood boost compared to if they hadn’t. It’s not strong enough to treat something like depression. But it’s real, and it’s free.

Gua Sha: Ancient Ritual Meets Modern Skin Science

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Long before it showed up in your social feed, gua sha was already nearly 2,000 years old. The name comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine and literally translates to "scrape sand" — originally a firm scraping technique used on the back, neck, and limbs to treat fever, pain, and stagnation.

The gentle, sweeping facial version popularized today is a much softer descendant of that original practice — closer to a guided facial massage with a smooth tool than the traditional deep-tissue technique. That distinction matters, because most of the rigorous research on gua sha studied the traditional, firmer method, not the light facial version.

What that research does support: gua sha reliably increases circulation in the skin it touches, at least temporarily. That’s very likely part of why skin often looks brighter and slightly less puffy right after a session — more blood flow, more oxygen and nutrients moving through the tissue. Whether that translates into lasting change in fine lines or firmness is still an open question; the facial-specific research on that is thin.

What it’s genuinely good for

Even without dramatic before-and-afters, there’s real value in the ritual itself. It’s a few unhurried minutes of intentional touch — most people practicing it report it as calming, and it gives the day a built-in cue to slow down. That’s not a small thing — a daily few minutes of deliberate self-care is a habit worth having regardless of what it does to your skin.