First, Skip the Injections
It may seem like a simple idea. You want to have a younger looking face and you believe
the easiest way to do that is to head to the doctor for a shot of Botox or whatever is the
latest beauty medicine. It does seem easy, but in the long run you are only adding to your
problem.
Next time you head to the market, check out the cover of the social magazines and tabloids
at the newsstand. You are bound to see dozens of people, men and women, who have
the unmistakable look of an artificially enhanced face. According to society, these are the
“beautiful people”, but what do you really see when you look at them?
Do you see people who are obviously insecure? Are you reading headlines blatantly
exposing their enhanced looks and essentially mocking them? Do you dismiss their looks
because they are clearly not earned and not naturally occurring?
If you answered yes to those questions, you are not alone. More and more, people are
turning away from unnatural beauty. People who are clearly using injections to improve
their looks are losing the respect of the public.
If the growing social unacceptability of artificial enhancements is not enough to stop you,
consider what you are doing to yourself physically. Injections leave you bruised for a day or
more, which is surely not how you want to present yourself. They also artificially plump up
your skin, leaving a hollow appearance once they wear off.
Finally, these injections are filled with harmful chemicals. Every day we learn about one
more chemical that causes deadly diseases like cancer or worse. Medicines that were once
thought to be safe are now known to cause vast damage. Do you really want to chance
your long term health and your most prominent feature, your face, just for a few weeks of
artificial skin rejuvenation?
Control What Your Face Says About You
Have you ever noticed someone who would otherwise be very attractive, but something
about their face gives them the exact opposite appearance? This is not a reference to a
scar or some other blemish that cannot be helped. It is someone who has a lean face with
defined muscle, yet something subconsciously detracts from their attractiveness.
No matter how fit their face is, they are projecting an image that is flawed. They might be
a strong individual, but their face does not send that signal. Assuming that no one would
purposely want to appear flawed, they probably not aware of the problem. Not being aware
of the problem means they have no control over it.Is your face betraying you in the same manner? Have you ever seen a picture of yourself
when you did not know you were being photographed? Did the image seem like a stranger?
Did you think you looked tired, depressed, mean, or was some other negative emotion
clouding the beauty of your face? If the answer is yes, then you are not in control of what
your face says about you to the world.
Training Involuntary Muscles
A smile or a frown is one of the simplest ways to communicate. There are over
43 muscles in your face, all controlled by the cranial nerve. They are responsible
for every facial expression or movement you have, but the most common and
understood is the smile or frown.
These two expressions are so simple and yet can change your appearance so much.
A rather plain person can look young and vibrant with a big smile on their face. An
otherwise stunning beauty can look horrid walking around with a frown.
What Do You Look Like When You Are Not Concentrating?
Of the 43 muscles in your face, over half are “involuntary” muscles. This means they act without you having to consciously think about moving. Unfortunately, for most people the natural state of these involuntary muscles is to form a frown. As busy schedules and hectic lifestyles take a toll on our psyche, those frowns become more intense until they form lines on our face.
How do you think that frown is perceived by the other people you meet? Here is a quick way to find out. Get a darker makeup pencil such as a blemish concealer or brow liner.
Get close to the mirror and let your face form its natural, resting expression. If you see any obvious lines, color them in with the pencil.
Next, try to exaggerate your frown as much as possible, changing your expression from sadness, to frustration, to anger. Each time you change your expression, make sure you color in any obvious lines. Once you are confident you have contorted your face for every negative emotion, resume your natural resting expression.
Chances are, you are not happy with what you are seeing. However, what you are
seeing is how your face projects itself to the world when you are affected by negative
emotions. Even your resting facial expression probably projects a negative image.
Granted, these colored in lines on your face are an extreme representation. This does
not mean that the facial lines which exist naturally are not giving others the same
impression. You should also know if you continue to age with negative emotions
clouding your life, your face will begin to resemble these lines more and more.
Change Your Involuntary Expression
The best way to correct this problem is to change the expression on your face
even when you are not concentrating on it. Put simply, you need to smile more.
However, it is more than simply smiling when you think about it. You have to
retrain your brain to smile even in a natural resting state.
You may try to convince yourself that you already smile a lot. This is a very
common mistake. To prove it, set a timer for 5 minutes and then make sure you
maintain a smile the entire time. At the end of the 5 minutes, your face will feel the
same relief your arm would feel if you had just released a very heavy load.
If you were regularly exercising your smiling muscle, you would not have felt any
relief when you stopped smiling. In fact, not smiling would have been more work. It
is time you started working out your smile muscles.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, but it is not impossible. Any bad habit
can be broken. You can break the habit of letting your negative emotions keep you
from a flawless face.
Although it can seem contradictory, smiling is the quickest and most effective way
to relieve your negative emotions. A smile actually exercises certain facial muscles.
When these muscles are flexed, it makes the skin more radiant, firm, and supple.
The more you exercise your smile muscles, the more your involuntary muscles will
be trained to naturally stay in a smile-like position. Furthermore, the use of your
muscles in this way will signal your brain to release endorphins, the hormones used
to reduce stress and increase joy. Of course, being stress free and happy is the best
way to achieve a more flawless face that others are envious of.
