Koko Face Yoga™ THE great natural solution to regain your youthful appearance! Did you know that there are 2 kinds of facial muscles? Sleeping muscles and over-working muscles? In our method, you will wake up the sleeping muscles to lift up the skin and relax over-working muscles for wrinkle reduction.  In addition to the Facial Yoga Exercises, you will learn how to keep good Face Posture® including Tongue Posture®, how to eat, drink, speak, smile, yawn, and how to stop bad facial expression habits, which are more important than Facial Yoga exercises.

We say Face Posture® is more important than Facial Yoga Exercises because your daily habits create your face. Even if you do a lot of facial exercises, if your tongue is down all the time, you will NOT see good results. You might be having tension in the jaw all the time, or you might be speaking with lower teeth showing all the time. Such bad habits cause faster aging. Facial exercises are here to help establish better habits.

In other words, once you master better Face Posture®, you do NOT need so many exercises. We say only 3 minutes per day is all you need for Face Yoga Exercises.

That makes you wonder why that is short, considering the fact that the body needs way longer workout in general. Does that really work only from such a short time of exercising?

Yes, definitely! Unlike body muscles, facial muscles don't need a lot of exercise, because facial muscles are much smaller and the purpose of facial muscles is different from the one for body muscles.

The purpose of the body's muscles is to move the body. That's why body muscles are connected from bone to bone. Whereas the purpose of facial muscles is to create facial expressions mostly (excluding jaw movement for speaking, eating, etc), and the muscles are directly connected to the skin. In Japan, facial muscles are sometimes called "Skin Muscles".

You do need Face Yoga Exercises, especially at the beginning, but once you master better Face Posture® habits, you will not need so many exercises for the rest of your life. My personal goal is to die with Mewing Tongue Posture® 🤣.

We Koko Face Yoga™ are all about improving our daily facial habits for facial expression and functions, with Face Yoga Exercises.

The beauty of Koko Face Yoga™ is that you can do most of the exercise anytime anywhere. When you do a facial massage, you need to first wash your face, and apply skincare cream. But for Koko Face Yoga™, most of the exercises do not require any face cream or anything. All you need is your face! Once you learn how to do it, you can do the exercises on the go! Ex. when you are working in front of a computer screen, while walking, while cooking, etc. How easy is that? Incorporate those exercises into your daily routines, so it’s easy to continue. Remember, consistency is key to success.  

Unlike injections or those medical beauty procedures, Koko Face Yoga™ is NOT a quick fix. We don't believe in quick fixes, as quick fixes don't last for a long time. Like Eastern medicine, we want to improve our conditions slowly, so they last the rest of our life. That means it requires consistent training on a regular basis. But the more you try, the easier it gets, and the clearer you feel the sleeping muscles.

In fact, I had sought a quick fix! I experienced a plastic surgery failure at the age of 27 years old! That was the beginning of Koko Face Yoga™ journey. A plastic surgeon advised me to add an implant to my chin, to make it a little bit pointy and if I don't like it, I can have it removed easily and the area would go back to its original shape. So I did it, didn’t like it, and had it removed, but as you guessed, it did not go back to its original normal shape. My chin got slightly distorted and tilted to the side. Of course, huge regret! That’s when I realized that I should have pursued natural beauty methods such as Face Yoga!

Anyway, I moved to the States to introduce the greatness of Face Yoga at the age of 37. Soon after that, I already gained high-profile clients such as Kim Kardashian.  My media appearances include not only “Keeping Up With The Kardashians“, but also "America's Got Talent" (AGT), “Shark Tank“, “Good Morning America”, “Fox“, “Popsugar“, “Vogue“, “Magic for Humans“ at Netflix, and more! Kim Kardashian even tweeted saying “legit”!

Still suspicious? There is even a real science study about Face Yoga. In 2018, Northwestern University proved that Facial exercise improves the appearance of the facial aging process. Did I forget to tell you that I have a beauty therapist license CIDESCO, the most prestigious international therapist license?

Let me explain how Koko Face Yoga™ can improve one by one.

Warm up

Before you do any body exercises, you do warm-up exercises. The same thing applies to the face. By vibrating the cheeks as much as possible, you can relax many facial muscles, because the lips are the core part of the face and a lot of muscles are started from the lips. So by relaxing there, other facial muscles are relaxed too. Why do you need to relax the facial muscles? Because When facial muscles get tense, they become less elastic, bigger, and harder, and show wrinkles, bigger faces, and/or asymmetrical faces. But it is hard to relax the facial muscles because facial muscles are close to the brain. As long as you are nervous, stressed, or concerned about something, the stress is transmitted to the facial muscles and  they get tense. But this way, you can force your facial muscles to relax physically. Massaging helps, but you cannot massage every time you get stressed. That's why I like this quick exercise to relax my facial muscles and mind at the same time. (Watch the tutorial.)

Face Posture®

Then, let's talk about Face Posture® before moving on to other exercises.Have you noticed that more mature people show grumpy faces than younger ones? The mouth corners start sagging with age and show a grumpy face. Then even if you are not grumpy, the brain misunderstands that you are grumpy. Now you are officially grumpy… Lots of people misunderstand that all facial muscles get weaker with age, but it's not. Overworking muscles get stronger with age, and sleeping muscles get weaker with age. (Check the anatomy here.) In this particular grumpy face case, DAO, Depressor Anguli Oris muscles get stronger with age to sag the corners of the mouth downward.There are so many Face Posture® habits that we should improve, and this is just one of them.

The most important thing for Face Posture® is Tongue Posture®. Do you know where your tongue is right now? I know it's in the mouth, but inside the mouth, is the tongue up and flat on the palate (A), only the tip of the tongue is touching the palate (B), the tip is in the middle of the upper and lower teeth (C), or sitting on the bottom inside the mouth (D)? The correct answer is A. It should be up and flat on the palate. This correct Tongue Posture® is the most important thing for the face because the tongue is a core muscle for the face. (Watch Mewing 101). 

Many people do ab exercises because the stomach is the core muscle of the body, but don't forget to train the facial core muscle aka tongue too!

I am known as a Mewing Tongue Posture® influencer, so we offer so many tongue exercises to train your tongue to keep the correct tongue position.

By the way, at this point, you might be wondering what is Mewing? Mewing is a cute nickname for the correct Tongue Posture® that the public nicknamed because of Dr. Mike Mew, the British dentist who started talking about the importance of Tongue Posture® on YouTube. Watch my collaboration with Dr. Mew here.

Why is correct Tongue Posture so important?

Health Benefits

1. Nasal Breathing

With correct Tongue Posture®, your airway will be more opened, so it's easier for your nose to breathe, VS when the tongue is down in the mouth, it slightly moves back to restrict the airway, so it triggers mouth breathing because nose breathing is harder. I cannot stop discussing how beneficial nose breathing is, and that is why we offer Sleep Tape too.

2. Jaw pain will be reduced

One of the main causes of jaw pain is tension in the jaw. When we are stressed, we tend to clench and cause tension in the masseter muscles. That is human nature, but it is possible to minimize the habit. One effective technique is this Mewing Tongue Posture®. When the tongue is up, the bad tension in the masseter muscles will slightly shift to the palate, so the tension in the jaw will be reduced. 

3. Body posture will be improved

Tongue is the core muscle for the face, and it stands up the face straight. There is a long nerve starting from the crotch to the line on the back of the tongue to the middle head. With the correct tongue position, your head moves back above your butt, which makes your body posture better. Some even claim that they got taller with mewing!

4. Sleep quality will be improved

Often the causes of snoring or sleep apnea are related to mouth breathing. With the tongue up and flat against the palate, the airway will be more open and it’s easier for you to nose breathe. 

Beauty Benefits

1. Your face will be lifted

Your face will be physically lifted with the tongue, because the tongue is flat and touches the palate fully all the time. Although you should NOT press hard against the palate and should be highly touching there, you are doing that position all the time, so it will slightly lift the maxilla bone (upper jaw) and because cheek bones are on the sides of the maxilla, cheek bones will be lifted too. We do many face exercises to lift up cheeks, but lifting up bones is more effective than muscle exercises.

2. Defined Jawline

The muscles around the jawline and chin will be toned because those are the muscles you will activate by Mewing tongue placement. Hence, you will be a beautiful, defined jawline easily. In fact, the jawline is one of the most obvious improvements since you start mewing, and if you just google the word "Mewing", you will find so many before/after photos showing the jawline changes.

3. No More Double Chin

Double chin will be easily improved in 1 second, just by Mewing! You are literally lifting up the tongue muscles (Blue area on the upper neck anatomy here.) If you have strong tongue muscles but just haven't been activating them yet, just because you didn't know this correct Tongue Posture®, it takes only 1 second to improve the look dramatically. It is like natural neck toning. If the muscles are weak and need exercises to activate, it will take time to see a big difference, but it does work. That is why we offer so many tongue exercises (App and Daily Courses) and our YouTube has countless positive comments every single day.

4. Fuller Lips and Defined Eyes

Because you keep good tension on the tongue, you will reduce bad tension on the chin (Mentalis), and this not just lifts up the face, but also activates the upper lip and philtrum (skin between the nose and upper lip). You should feel some slight tension in the philtrum or upper lip while Mewing. It is common that with age, the philtrum gets weaker, but if you keep the correct tongue placement, you will be activating the philtrum and upper lip for a long time. Also, because the maxilla (upper Jaw) will be lifted, the eye sockets are lifted and the eyes are more awake looking as well. 

5. Better Teeth Alignment for Kids

If your face is still growing, you will have better teeth alignment so you won't need braces or those orthodontics treatments. One of The major reasons why the teeth get crooked is the palate is narrow, and all the teeth don’t have space to sit nicely, so they are hitting each other and get crooked. Poor posture matters too, but widening the palate with the tongue is the easiest way to fix or prevent crooked teeth. If you are currently receiving orthodontic treatment, you should take this seriously too, because if you just fix the teeth without fixing your tongue position or other facial structures, you might get unexpected damages later. It is the dentist’s job to fix your teeth, and they are just a small part of the body. Only one area (teeth in this case) is fixed, and if the other areas are not fixed, the other areas may try to compensate for the change and it can cause tension or pain in specific areas to balance. I believe the public should know this, instead of just relying on your doctors.

There are more benefits if you are interested. Check our Mewing 101 video to learn more and also keep following us for the latest techniques as I keep learning new every day!As a part of Face Posture®, We often talk about other Face Posture® too, such as how to eat, drink (swallow), breathe, yawn, smile, etc as well. Please check our YouTube videos if you are interested.Now finally, let’s talk about Koko Face Yoga™ exercises.Our primary focus is all about the 2 purposes.1. Wake up sleeping muscles to lift up2. Relax overworking muscles for wrinkle reduction1. Wake up sleeping muscles to lift upAs you can see in the anatomy, there are some blue areas in the middle of the face. They are mostly facial expression muscles (vs functional muscles explained later). They are just sitting there and tend to get weaker with age. They are often used only for facial expressions. That’s why if you don’t smile often, your face sags. Smiling is the best way to activate cheek muscles (Zygomaticus major and minor). Once you know which muscles are sleeping (blue), then you can try to effectively activate them by Koko Face Yoga™ exercises through our social media, App, and Daily Course.
By the way, the lower eyelid (often called “agyosal” in Korean) looks like tiny eyebags and Malaris are super sleeping. That’s why they are darker blue.2. Relax overworking muscles for wrinkle reductionAs you can see in the anatomy, the face has more red overworking muscles. That means there is a lot of tension in the face. We do need some tension for daily facial activities, but modern faces have too much tension due to increased stress levels in general. One of the strongest red muscles is the masseter muscles. They are used for speaking, eating, drinking, and yawning, but because they tend to get overworked, often they receive too much tension enough for you to feel pain in the TMJs (Temporomandibular Joints). Disalighted TMJ does not just cause pain but also cause asymmetry, and saggy skin such as jowls. So it is extremely important to try to relax them. In fact, facial postures create mind postures. Relaxing masseters help reduce your stress too.
You might notice that there are 2 kinds of red here. Darker red means super overworking muscles. Masseter is 1 and the other is corrugator muscles between eyebrows, to frown when you are stressed or focused. It is very helpful to understand which muscles are which color, so you can try to use them strategically for better aging because your faces deserve a better aging process!

In terms of practical exercises, our App and Daily Course introduce countless exercises, but next, let’s talk about each facial area from the bottom up.

1. Neck

Double chin is one of the common concerns for many people. Due to the excessive use of  phones, more people look down for a longer time and are receiving more gravity than ever. Once a day, twice, or even more, look and stretch the neck. (Watch the tutorial.)Double chin is one of the easier fixes by Koko Face Yoga™, because it is a bigger area. Double chin, triple chin, turkey neck, you name it. A lot of exercises can be done anytime anywhere, but for those neck exercises, we suggest you do them when you go to the restroom and sit down on a toilet! Do not do it while driving lol.

2. Jawline

Whether you have chubby cheeks or skinny cheeks, saggy cheeks are a common aging concern. There are multiple exercises you can do, but for example, Anti-Bulldog (Masseter Stretch) is our favorite. When I was working for a corporate in Tokyo, every time I go to restrooms, I was doing it. Then I got a heart-shaped face, instead of chubby cheeks as the before/after photos show. I was so impressed and that inspired me to do more Facial Exercises. 

3. Cheeks

Cheeks are relatively bigger parts of the face, so they matter so much for visual impression. With age, cheek muscles get weaker and sag down, because they are blue sleeping muscles.  With fuller, high cheeks on cheekbones, you’d easily look much younger and fresh. We teach Cheek Squat and other cheek exercises, and good Face Posture®, Tongue Posture®, it is not difficult to lift up cheeks. Cheeks are one of the 2 areas you should always mini-lift up whenever your face is resting. The other is mouth corners. Those 2 are set as anatomically connected.

4. Laugh Lines

You may be concerned about your laugh line, smile lines, or nasolabial fold lines, but they are relatively easy to fix. You just want to iron out the tense muscles from inside of the mouth by using your tongue and or fingers. This easy trick is very popular in Japan. In fact, this kind of Tongue Exercise might be more popular than Face Yoga there, because it gives quick results. You do not have to spend on expensive filler to fill the fold, thanks to this easy, quick trick. Some people might be concerned about smiling because they think laughing causes more lines, but if you don’t smile or laugh, the cheek meltdown happens. Please note that smiling is very important to build cheek muscles. You just want to iron out the lines if you are concerned about them. 

5. Fuller Lips

I see many Face Exercises to train all the lip muscles (Orbicularis Oris), but in my opinion, you should NOT train the bottom lip. You should train only the upper lip because the lower lip is already overworked downward. So our method focuses on the upper lip and philtrum. (Watch the tutorial.)

6. Eyes 

Eye areas tend to have many issues, but it is hard to treat them with filler injections or those medical procedures because the areas are close to the eyeballs. That is where Koko Face Yoga® comes in. Our favorite exercise is a lower eyelid lift-up and Malaris. Basically, lower eyelids are not just sleeping muscles but also SUPER sleeping muscles. So by activating the super sleeping muscles, the entire eye muscle (Orbicularis Oris) will be activated. You can see the eye changes in our Before After picture. It is challenging to lift up only the lower eyelids without moving anywhere else. That is why if you cannot do it easily, once you master it, you will see a big difference. Eyes will look more open, lifted (cat eye), and defined, including eyebrows. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it reduces eye bags too. The cause of eye bags is that fat around the upper eyeball starts dropping with gravity and age. So by lifting up the dropped fat to up, you are physically lifting the eye bag fat up to the original position. (Watch the tutorial.)

7. Forehead

With age, the forehead muscles become stronger to leave horizontal lines and 11th vertical lines between eyebrows. At the same time, the eye muscles become weaker as well, because they are sleeping muscles. In other words, the weaker the eye muscles become, the stronger the forehead muscles become. So it is important to activate the eye muscles to relax the forehead. I see sometimes people workout the overworking muscles in the forehead, but it doesn't make sense to me. (Check some exercises to relax forehead here.)

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