Face yoga, mewing, chewing gum for a sharper jawline, cheek exercises for definition, neck exercises for platysmal bands. All of them are widely promoted. Some have modest evidence behind them. Most have none. And a few do the opposite of what they claim.
This article looks at what the actual research says about facial exercises, category by category, and what to do with that information.
Written and clinically reviewed by Dr Ibrahim Hawli, MBBS. Tajmeel Cliniq, Glenroy, Melbourne.
Why this is worth asking properly
Anyone who has looked into facial ageing online has seen the claims. Do these exercises daily and your jawline will sharpen. Push your tongue against the roof of your mouth and your midface will develop. Chew this gum and your masseter will build. Do this cheek routine and volume will return.
The interesting thing is that most of these claims cannot be dismissed outright. Facial muscles exist. Muscles can be trained. In principle, an exercise that recruits a facial muscle could have some effect.
The problem is that “in principle” is doing a lot of work. What the evidence actually shows is more limited than the promotion suggests, and the mechanism sometimes works against the goal rather than for it.
Face yoga: the one with actual evidence, and its limits
Face yoga refers to structured exercises that engage various facial muscles with the goal of improving facial appearance, particularly firmness and fullness.
The one piece of decent research on this is a 2018 study from Northwestern University, published in JAMA Dermatology. Twenty-seven middle-aged women completed a 30-minute daily facial exercise routine for eight weeks, then reduced to every second day for a further twelve weeks. Independent dermatologists assessed photographs taken at baseline and at the end of the study.
The result: modest improvement in upper cheek and lower cheek fullness, judged to make participants look approximately three years younger by the end of the study.
That is a real finding, but it deserves the caveats.
Sample size was 27. All participants were women aged 40 to 65. The exercise required was substantial: half an hour a day for two months, then continuing. Compliance in the general population is likely to be far lower than in a monitored study. The improvement was in fullness, not in lines or skin quality. And a fair number of participants dropped out.
The honest summary: face yoga does something modest, in one specific way, for a substantial time commitment, based on one small study. If you are willing to do half an hour a day indefinitely, you may see a small improvement in cheek fullness. It is not going to replace anything more substantial, and it will not do anything for the concerns most people bring to a cosmetic clinic.
Mewing: an idea that outran its evidence
Mewing is the practice of holding the tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth while breathing through the nose, with the aim of encouraging forward development of the midface and a sharper jawline over time.
It comes from ideas advanced by two British orthodontists, John and Michael Mew, on the influence of tongue posture and mouth breathing on facial development. The underlying observation that tongue posture influences craniofacial development in children is not controversial. It is the extension of those ideas to adults, and the specific claims about jawline sharpening, that are contested.
The evidence base for adult mewing changing bone structure is essentially absent. Adult bone does not remodel in the way this would require, and no study has demonstrated the claimed changes. What people who mew often notice is a small change in how they hold their jaw and neck, which can affect posture and the appearance of the lower face slightly through soft tissue positioning alone. That is not what is being claimed and it is not what most people are looking for.
There is a real concern that some people who mew aggressively develop temporomandibular joint symptoms, and one review of TMJ literature noted that sustained tongue-to-palate pressure can contribute to joint strain in susceptible individuals.
The honest summary: mewing is not going to give an adult a sharper jawline in the way the claims describe. The bones do not remodel that way. Small changes in soft tissue positioning are possible from any postural change. If mewing causes jaw discomfort or clicking, stop.
Chewing gum for jawline definition
The claim is that regular gum chewing builds the masseter muscle, which produces a sharper, more defined jawline.
The mechanism is partly correct. The masseter is a chewing muscle, and like any muscle it does respond to repeated use. Chewing gum does exercise it. Over time, sustained gum chewing can produce measurable masseter enlargement.
The problem is what “masseter enlargement” actually looks like on the face.
The masseter sits at the angle of the jaw. When it enlarges, it does not produce a sharper jawline. It produces a wider, squarer lower face. The angle of the jaw becomes more prominent from behind, not more defined from the front. In most cases the result is the opposite of the goal.
There is a specific population where increased masseter development might have a positive aesthetic effect. Someone with a very narrow lower face where added lower-face width would be a positive change. That is unusual, and it is not the population the online claims are addressed to.
More commonly, people who chew gum heavily develop the same masseter enlargement seen in chronic jaw clenchers. The jaw clenching concern page covers this in detail. Patients often arrive asking about lower-face widening, and the answer sometimes traces back to years of chewing gum on top of a preexisting clenching pattern.
The honest summary: chewing gum for a sharper jawline is one of the clearer cases where the exercise works against the goal. Muscle enlargement widens the face, it does not sharpen it. In most people, the recommendation is to chew less gum, not more.
Jaw workouts and jaw exercise devices
A related category is silicone jaw exercisers marketed for the same purpose, and jaw workout routines involving isometric jaw clenching.
The same anatomy applies. Anything that recruits the masseter repeatedly builds the masseter. In most people that widens the lower face rather than sharpening it. In addition, isometric jaw clenching for exercise is essentially voluntary bruxism, which is not something you want to train yourself into. See the article on why jaw clenching hurts for what happens when the chewing system is loaded repeatedly.
The honest summary: jaw exercise devices marketed for lower-face definition mostly do the opposite of their promotion, and they carry a real risk of triggering or worsening clenching patterns.
Cheek exercises for volume
Various routines involve puffing the cheeks, sucking them in, and repeating specific movements with the goal of restoring or building midface volume.
Midface volume loss with age is primarily a fat compartment change, not a muscle one. The fat compartments of the cheek change independently of each other, and they do not respond to exercise of the underlying muscles.
Small changes in how the cheek reads from muscle recruitment are possible, and this may account for the modest cheek fullness change in the Northwestern face yoga study. Whether that generalises beyond a monitored 30-minute daily routine is a different question.
The honest summary: cheek exercises are unlikely to restore substantial volume loss because the underlying tissue change is not muscular. Small effects on fullness are plausible with substantial time commitment.
Neck exercises for bands or laxity
This is the one where the mechanism works most obviously against the goal.
Platysmal bands, the vertical cords sometimes visible in the neck, are the edges of the platysma muscle becoming visible as the muscle separates in the midline with age. The neck bands concern page covers the anatomy in detail.
Strengthening the platysma with neck exercises does not help. It typically makes bands more prominent, because a stronger, thicker platysma has more prominent edges. The muscle is already contracting too much. Reinforcing it works against the goal.
The honest summary: neck exercises for band prominence are contraindicated. If bands are your concern, do not do neck exercises for them.
Forehead and eye exercises
Various routines target the muscles of the upper face with the goal of reducing lines. The mechanism these claim is unclear, since expression lines are caused by muscle activity in the first place, and strengthening those muscles is the opposite of what would reduce the lines.
There is no good evidence base for these claims, and the mechanism suggests they cannot work as described.
What actually works, briefly
For the sake of balance, some things that do help are worth mentioning.
Sleep, nutrition and hydration. Boring, effective. Genuine effects on skin quality and how the face reads.
Sun protection. The single most evidence-based intervention for facial ageing. Daily broad-spectrum SPF makes a demonstrable difference over years.
Skincare with proven ingredients. Retinoids are the most extensively studied, with reasonable evidence for texture and fine line improvement over months.
Not smoking, moderating alcohol. Both have well-documented effects on skin quality and facial ageing.
Managing stress and any clenching pattern. Reduces one of the drivers of lower-face muscle enlargement.
None of that is new or exciting, and that is roughly the point. The interventions with actual evidence are the ones that have been recommended by dermatologists for decades.
The pattern in most facial exercise claims
Reading across the different claims, a pattern emerges.
The mechanisms suggested are usually plausible in the abstract. Muscles do exist, they do respond to use, and it is not unreasonable to think that exercising them might have an effect. But the specific effect claimed rarely matches what actually happens when you build the muscle. Building the masseter widens the face, it does not sharpen the jawline. Building the platysma makes bands worse, not better.
And in the cases where the mechanism does work, the effect size is small, the time commitment is large, and the evidence is thin.
That does not mean facial exercises are worthless. It means they should be evaluated on the actual evidence and the actual anatomy, not on the marketing.
In summary
- Face yoga has one small piece of decent evidence, showing modest cheek fullness improvement over a substantial time commitment
- Adult mewing is not supported by evidence for the claims made, and can cause TMJ symptoms in susceptible people
- Chewing gum for jawline definition works against the goal in most people, because masseter enlargement widens the face rather than sharpening it
- Jaw exercise devices carry the same problem plus a risk of triggering clenching
- Neck exercises make bands more prominent, not less
- Forehead and eye exercises lack a coherent mechanism
- The interventions with real evidence are the boring ones: sleep, sun protection, proven skincare, not smoking
If you are considering starting a facial exercise routine because someone online promised a specific result, work back to the anatomy first. If the mechanism does not make sense, the routine will not work. And in a few cases it will actively make things worse.
If you have questions about your specific facial anatomy or a concern that facial exercises did not resolve, you can book a consultation with Dr Ibrahim Hawli.
Related reading:
About the author: Dr Ibrahim Hawli, MBBS, is a registered medical practitioner at Tajmeel Cliniq in Glenroy, Melbourne. Ahpra registration MED0002627622, verifiable on the public register.
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