Massage your Face
{A Written Practice}
Massage your Face
A simple way to settle the nervous system
Although many of us could use lessons on facial expressivity (particularly us white folk), since expressivity of the face is directly related to wellbeing, almost everyone stores tension in their face.
If you don’t realize this, curve your hands into paws or claws (not the nails but the shape of the claw) and pull them down your face with pressure. Don’t hurt yourself, but dig a little into the musculature of the face. You know where glasses rest on the bridge of your nose? Take your thumb and forefinger and squeeze the spot between your eyes, right into the bone hollow of the narrowest part of the top of the nose. Or massage your temple with the flat of your thumb. Or dig your thumb into the joint where your jaw hangs from your skull. Breathe deeply while you do this.
Have you ever spent five or ten minutes really deeply massaging your face? It could change your life. Your face is wired directly into your Autonomic Nervous System, and since it directly expresses the heart, we carry all kinds of micro-tensions in our faces. Really dig in there and drink the sensations as you do. Don’t hurt yourself, but breathing into the tension as you would in yoga, allow yourself to explore the tension topography of your face and allow it to dissolve.
Related Practices:
For more on facial expressivity, see Making Faces. See Self-massage. See Cello. See Hold Tight to Littles. See Weighted Blanket. See Interocept. Massaging your face is a way to Change the Inputs to your nervous system.Photography: | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.