Yoga & Hollow Cheeks

Hollow cheeks may occur for a variety of reasons. Facial yoga exercises, which help tone muscles in your cheeks, prevent or reduce the sagging of facial skin, wrinkles and hollow cheeks. A proper diet is also useful for preventing sagging skin on your cheeks.

Hollow cheeks can be a result of aging. As you grow older, your face muscles lose their normal tone and elasticity. The result is sagging skin on your face, wrinkles and hollow cheeks. Failure to eat a healthy diet, dehydration or exposure to excessive sun may also contribute to hollow cheeks. Engaging in regular exercises that work out your face muscles can help prevent or lessen the prominence of hollow cheeks.

The Time magazine website notes that exercising facial muscles strengthens and keeps them in good condition. Annelise Hagen, a New York-based yogi and author of "The Yoga Face: Eliminate Wrinkles with the Ultimate Natural Facelift," lists a few facial yoga exercises that have worked for most of her students. To do the "Satchmo," transfer air from one cheek to the other as you project your head out. For "Smiling Fish," purse your lips and smile slightly. Blow kisses while keeping your face smooth to do the "Marilyn."

Linda Saether of CNN.com/health says you can exercise your facial muscles by assuming a sitting posture, sticking your tongue out as far as it is possible and exaggerating a short word, for example, ‘Blah,’ for a total of three to five seconds. While performing this facial exercise, place your hand on your forehead and open your eyes as wide as you can.

The ‘cheek lifting’ exercise entails lifting your cheeks by smiling as you press down on the lower part of your eye socket using your index fingers. You can also tone the facial muscle beneath your eyes by performing eye exercises. With your mouth open, pull your upper lip inwards. Then, while looking upwards, narrow your eyes and place your fingers just below the lower eyelids. Gently press downwards as you try to close your eyes. Hold this position for 4 to 5 seconds, release and do five to 10 repetitions. The facial yoga exercises work out all muscles of the face and help eliminate sagging facial skin and wrinkles.