6 Ways to Stop Those Pesky 11’s Between the Brows

Frowning ages everyone. That repetitive motion of knitting your brows together has consequences and after approximately 80,000 squints, you will begin to see grooves appear on your once smooth forehead.

Maybe you need glasses, maybe your Mom squinted and you adopted her facial posture. Maybe you concentrate better with your eyebrows positioned a certain way, but if you want to stop frowning and reverse the depth of those lines, you’ll have to follow a few behavior modification guidelines.

Becoming aware of how you hold and mold your face is the first step in stopping the further development of lines – both horizontal and vertical – on your forehead. Years ago there was a story going around that Priscilla Presley had a clear, lineless forehead because Elvis would playfully smack her forehead if she was contorting it – the suggestions here have nothing as extreme as smacking but if you feel a frown coming on, just lightly touch or massage the area until you feel your brow relax.

Place a mirror at your desk so that you can easily see your beautiful self. Watch how you emote when you talk, answer the phone, chew and smile. What happens to your forehead?

Before bedtime or when you are alone, try this: place a one-inch long piece of office tape vertically over the elevens. If you have two or three vertical lines between your brows, you may require two pieces of tape to fully cover the area. The tape immobilizes the area so that you cannot make the frowning motion. This is especially helpful at night because chances are if you are frowning during the day, you are frowning in your sleep. That’s right, you might be frowning for hours at a time and you wouldn’t even know it. After a few nights of applying tape, you will see how rested you look when you awaken.

Some gals, upon discovering deep frown lines when they first look in the mirror, swear that by holding an ice cube to their forehead, the appearance of the 11’s begin to dissipate so they are less evident by the time they apply makeup for the day. Sounds like a lot of trouble and maybe a tad unreliable.

Alternatively, many women have opted for paralyzing injections to alleviate the appearance of the lines between the brows. This modality may work well for a time to stop the 11’s but typically, other lines and wrinkles begin to form when smiling or making other motions with your face. One side effect of these injections is the inability to read the user’s emotions because the face is devoid of movement in certain areas.

The most efficient way to rid your forehead of frown lines is to exercise them away using proven isometric techniques. The process is easy and only takes a few seconds a day to complete. Gone are the drugs and topical preparations that can deplete your bank account without providing you the results you desire.

Consider this: small facial muscles droop and sag then pool into other muscle groups. Because the facial skin is attached to the muscles, when this downward slide begins, your skin is pulled downward and this is when you see lines and wrinkles developing. Here’s an example: take a close look at the bridge of your nose. Do you see a line trying to develop? If so, this is a clear indication your forehead is elongating.

Your forehead experiences atrophy as your body ages and there is only one direction the forehead moves when the muscles are no longer tight and stable – south. One can compensate for elongating muscles in the forehead by lifting the eyebrows but if your forehead is mushy, this lifting can create horizontal lines that can become permanent. These lines etched into your forehead can make you look tired and older than your years.

The cascading, sagging forehead muscles can also push into the upper eye region resulting in lined, tired eye lids that lengthen and impair vision because the eye lids no longer have any oomph in them.

Facial exercise can tone, lift and from the inside out, tighten your forehead, your upper eyes, give plumpness to the upper cheeks so that the apples return, flatten nasal labial folds, sculpt the lower mouth and jaw line while tightening the neck and alleviating visible neck bands. There’s more: your skin will become radiant, smooth and healthy looking.

But not just any facial exercise program will provide the results you desire.

Contortions, twists and puckers, or funny faces miss the mark.

Real change in those tiny facial muscles under the skin requires anchoring techniques because facial muscles are attached on one end to bone while the other end attaches to another muscle or into the skin. Without an anchor the contraction is anemic.

What is an anchor? Your thumbs and fingers are the anchors and they are trained to gently grasp the muscles. These techniques provide strong contractions that will strengthen the core of your face and because the skin is attached to the muscles in the face, revitalization occurs. Most users say that facial exercise can help them look at least 10 to 15 years younger.

Start with your mirror and office tape right now. Wear the tape vertically over those 11’s for an hour as you watch yourself talking, laughing and eating in front of your mirror. Just know there is help for you and it begins with your fingers and your thumbs.