Why You Should Be Pinching, Pulling, and Stretching The Skin
There is an ongoing discussion in the beauty industry and skin circles about 'to pinch or not to pinch' the skin. It is a fascinating topic as it goes more than skin deep - and here I will explain to you why it is so important to pinch, pull and manipulate the skin.
Manipulating the face, skin and face muscles is one of the basic foundations of the face yoga principles. Why is that?
The nature of the skin and how we work with it in terms of; stretching, pinching and massaging has been for a long time discouraged by the beauty industry. The general knowledge has been you shouldn't touch your skin much, an approach that focuses simply on applying skincare from the outside and then dabbing it on with minimal impact onto the skin and facial muscles.
A lot of people will think that this is true and for the longest time have abided by these standards of skin management.
But research and new studies, including those at the forefront of this by Shiseido, show that massaging the skin, pinching and stretching the skin all work on the superficial fascia which needs to be regularly manipulated and massaged.
This is very important because like skin, what happens is that this fascia stiffens and dehydrates with age. So not only does our skin age but the fascia and muscles supporting the skin begin to age and create a sagging and crabiness effect.
So we want to keep these areas hydrated, flexible and strong. We can achieve this by manipulating the face with pinching and pulling it. So we see then, that all of these movements do work to help heal the skin on the surface level!
It's also worth noting that when we pressurize the skin, studies have shown that we proliferate skin stem cells into the dermis the deep layer of the skin where they're able to form a new functioning collagen Matrix. It is almost like a new collagen grid that boosts collagen production in the skin after a short period of pinching and pulling on the skin.
This means that not only does pinching and pulling soften the fascia, but it also releases adhesions which decrease the flow of lymphatic fluid, blood flow nutrients and hormones to the skin, but it also stimulates collagen production.
When working on the skin, it is important to work on several levels than just the skin for instance. So of course we are massaging, rolling the skin, releasing the superficial fascia for increased lymphatic flow and so on.
But we also need to go one layer deeper, release tense muscles, soften tense ligaments and strengthen the muscles, keeping them plump and well functioning just like on the body. This is where my face yoga technique excels.
With the deep tissue massage that we do in the My Face Yoga Gym, we also stimulate the proper functioning of the fat cells so that they keep a healthy size, they don't either retract or lose volume or develop edema which swells in other areas of the face. The face will hold onto excess fluid in the face and some areas but the fatty tissue is also healthy plump and in the proper kind of like, I wouldn't say size because there's not like one size fits all but like a healthy expression of the fat, the fatty tissue.
And then of course there are the bones at the inner, most inner surface of the face and here we have the stimulation of all the others like the soft tissues that will naturally also increase circulation and promote healthy strong bones.
Learn the foundations of face yoga and tone, tighten and awaken your face muscles with a 31-day free trial in the My Face Yoga Gym.
Use code: 31FREE
Sign up via the link in bio or www.myfaceyogagym.com
Discover more research here:
https://international.shiseido.co.jp/lbr_en-contents-001.html
https://corp.shiseido.com/en/news/detail.html?n=00000000002998