5 Facial Massages You Need to Try Right Now

All of us love to get body massages. They relieve tension, improve circulation, ease muscle stiffness and pain, and much more. Today, in addition to regular body massages, it seems like doing a facial massage is all the rage.

A facial massage is like a mini workout for your face. The basic idea is to work through the facial muscles in your jawline, cheekbones and forehead with your hands or using a roller or even a suction cup. You can use similar techniques to a regular body massage: stroking, tapping, pinching and kneading.

Now, you might wonder whether there are any significant facial massage benefits, and if so, what kind of facial massage techniques should you try?

What Are the Benefits of Facial Massage?

Since the trend of facial massages is just getting started, there’s not much research that breaks down the exact benefits. However, based on reviews of anyone who tried facial massages for themselves, we can identify a few clear improvements.

Toning and relieving tension in the skin. Generally, when we’re stressed, our skin becomes tense, which can lead to wrinkles over time. A quick massage would in turn relieve that tension and keep your skin energized.

Increasing blood flow. Just like any good exercise, facial massage brings more blood to the skin, which helps remove impurities and saturate your skin with oxygen, boosting circulation.

Pure relaxation. Massage is a wonderful treatment against emotional tension too. Just a few minutes and you feel calm, rejuvenated and at ease.

In addition, there are no known side effects to trying facial massages. And you can do them yourself at home at any time. Here are five face lifting massages you should totally try.

1. Lymphatic Drainage

Your lymphatic system is part of your overall immune system, connected through lymph nodes, which drain lymph fluid, remove bodily waste and transport white blood cells. If there’s an obstruction in the system and the fluid starts to build up, you need a special type of massage to fix it — lymphatic drainage.

You can get a lymphatic facial massage done by a professional, a member of the Lymphology Association of North America, or you can try a simplified version at home by yourself. You don’t need any facial massage tools or facial massagers to do it.

1. Start under your ears and apply gentle pressure in a circular motion at the top middle and lower parts of your neck, along your arteries
2. Move over to your chin, then underneath the corners of your mouth and at the end of the jaw
3. Then massage the area underneath your eyes, the top of your cheekbones and right by your ears
4. Finally, massage your forehead right above your eyebrows, then your temples and then right by your ears again

Try to repeat the lymphatic facial massage every few days for a few weeks to get the best results.

2. Sinus Massage

Another one of popular facial massage techniques is meant to target your sinus pain and nasal congestion, which are frequently caused by seasonal allergies and the common cold.

You can do the sinus massage to alleviate sinus pressure yourself and repeat it as often as you’d like:

1. Put gentle downward pressure towards your face at the various points along your nose, between your eyes and your mouth

2. Move up and down in slow tapping motions
3. Use two fingers to apply pressure on the area just below the bridge of your brow and hold for about five minutes

3. Gua Sha

Gua sha facial massage is a form of alternative therapy that uses a specific massage tool to scrape your skin with the goal of improving your circulation, moving stagnant chi, as well as reducing chronic pain and inflammation. Thus you can even use gua sha for face slimming.

To perform gua sha face massage:

1. Start at the chin and move the massage tool along your jawline
2. Spend more time massaging the areas where you feel more tension
3. Then move from your nose to your ear
4. Apply selective pressure to your temples and the bridge underneath your brows
5. Finally scrape upward from the bridge of your nose across your forehead

4. Facial Cupping

Like gua sha, cupping is also an alternative therapy widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, but uses suction cups instead of scraping or rolling face massagers. The suction increases blood circulation and helps ease muscle tension.

Since improper facial cupping technique could leave bruises and not deliver much in terms of results, it’s best to find a professional practitioner — Chinese medicine and acupuncture clinics often offer facial cupping as a service.

5. Mewing

While not strictly one of the facial massage techniques, mewing has exploded in popularity in the past few years, with mewing tutorials and mewing exercises spreading all over YouTube.

Mewing was popularized by Dr. Mike Mew, a British orthodontist, and essentially consists of shifting your tongue to a mewing tongue position — that is mostly glued to the roof of your mouth. Then you apply pressure with your tongue for a few minutes at a time to strengthen your jaw muscles.

As a result, mewing promises a more defined jawline and shaped muscles all over the lower part of your face. There hasn’t been any definitive research on mewing, but it doesn’t seem to be dangerous either. Just remember that mewing is not a substitute for actual jaw problem treatments.

As you can see, facial massage techniques are not so cut-and-dry. You can approach relieving tension, improving blood circulation and easing muscle pain in a variety of ways — and the five examples above are definitely a great way to start.