A person’s face is often the first thing others notice; it endures the full force of our criticisms, harsh beauty standards, plucking, scrubbing, lotions, and potions. Yet much of the attention we give a face is largely superficial, viewed without being perceived, molded without being felt.
There are places in the body that tend to speak louder than others. When someone comes in for bodywork, they are very likely to sense tension in common problem areas like the neck, shoulders, hips, and hamstrings, yet be entirely unaware of tension around the eyes and jaw, even when presenting with very real symptoms like visual strain, headaches, or clenching.
The head is the epicenter of our nervous system. All 12 of the primary meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine are present. All five senses are represented: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Treatment of the face and head is a powerful way to facilitate deep relaxation and shifts the body into the parasympathetic nervous system response.
How are facial muscles different from other muscles in the body?
- Other muscles attach to bones via ligaments; they usually cross a joint and function to bring two bones closer together.
- Facial muscles, on the other hand, attach bone to skin; they articulate movement in the skin rather than the bone, and in doing so enable us to make complex facial expressions.
There is a quote by B.K.S Iyengar that says, “If you open the armpits, the brain becomes light. You cannot brood or become depressed.” This quote is fascinating because it suggests that our posture relates to our emotional states in a feedback loop rather than being a result of emotional states as previously believed, at least in Western thought. This isn’t superstition; studies have shown that posture influences a person’s confidence. Public speakers and politicians have been taking advantage of this fact for ages. There’s a whole modern theory called Embodied Cognition that speaks to the ways our bodies impact the mind. Smiling might actually make you happier.
All that is to say – when working with the face, we are working with facets of the human body that are built to express our inner world, so if we take the embodied cognition concept to heart, relaxing the muscles of the face may evoke a sense of peace and stillness that, yes: triggers the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) but even beyond that – triggers the perception we have of ourselves as a peaceful person. This has major implications for the intersection of the psychological sciences, massage, and the kinesthetic arts, which I find endlessly fascinating, and I hope you do too.
A Few at Home Tricks for Relieving Tension in the Face:
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