Please do it right now. I’m only guessing, of course, but, chances are, your face is too tense. At least a little bit scrunched up and strained. It has little to do with your body, I think. Your brain is just trying too hard.
Sometimes, random advice sticks with you. I never forgot the gist of this line from James Altucher I read years ago: “So many times I’m nervous and anxious. So I do this: I relax my jaw. I relax my shoulders. I relax my eyes and forehead. I try to slow the tension I feel in my chest.” Back then, I opened my mouth, wiggled a jaw my bit, and was shocked at how stiff it felt. “He’s right! Why is there so much tension in my face?”
I don’t always have an answer to that question. In the last week, for example. I haven’t been sleeping too well, and every time I loosen up my face, there’s a lot to unwind. Whatever the subconscious stressor may be, every now and then, we can only deal with it on the surface and wait for it to pass.
Try it! Open your mouth. Lower your jaw. Wiggle it from left to right and back a bit. Stretch your cheeks. Relax your forehead. Can you feel your wrinkles releasing? Your skin slowly expanding back into place? Where else has the tension holed up? In your nose? Around your eyes? In the tips of your ears? Just…pause. Inhale. Breathe out, and let some of that tension go with it.
It may have been your brain that turned your face into one big squint, but the connection goes both ways: Let your face tell your brain that tomorrow’s another day. Do it regularly, and with time, your face will need less and less unfurling.
