shiatsu for the face

Faces transmit information. They are the site for the major sensory inputs and the major communicative outputs. Changes in neuromuscular activity lead to visually detectable changes in facial action.

Muscles can be divided into two groups: voluntary and involuntary. Those that move with our permission. And those that move without it. Facial muscles are involuntary muscles.

Briefly, the neural activation of the striated, involuntary, muscles results in the release of acetylcholine at motor end plates, which, in trun, lead to muscle action potentials that are propotated across muscles fiblers and activate the phyciochemical mechanism responsible for muscle contraction.

Our feelings are connected to our faces.

An automatic facial expression is an involuntary action of a voluntary muscle. The 7th facial crania nerve controls the muscles involved with facial expression

muscles of mimicry

Expressions are habitual, self imposed, reflexes, culturally imprinted.

Darwin.

Darwin believed that expressions had no function. That they e non-adaptive movements of the nervous system. He concluded that emotions are not learned, but rather, biologically determined.

expressions come from the nervous sysem. The tyof muscle moved is determined by the type of emotion felt.

Evolutions. Just as man has evolved, so have his facial expression. As we adapt to our environment, our face adapts itself to our adaptation. Our face is an inventory of gboth our emotional and ration reactions.

A shiatzu massage does more for the face than does any kind of beauty cream. It irons out the wrinkles. But the best exercise ever is laughter. It’s like an aerobic workout for the face.

Mind and Body.

Movement or action of the body runs parallel with thought and emotion.

The thinking process is not purely mental. Extentsive neural connections in theb rain from those parts that influence movemtn, equilibrium, and balance of the body to those parts that direct thought and emotion. What the brain communicates to the body depends ow what information the body has imparted to the brain and vice versa. The two are an indussoluble union. The implication is that we literally think with our bodies.

Therefore, maybe, it's possible to regulate emotion experience by self-initiated expressive behavious (like Smile Therapy). Experiments by more contemporary researchers on motivated, self-initaiated expressive behavious have show that, if people an control their facial expression during moments of pain, there will be less arousal of the automomic nervous system and a diminution of the pain experience.

Emotions activate both our minds and our bodies.

Diana Vreeland claimed that there’s nothing more beautiful than the face of a relaxed French woman and this is because of the language she speaks. French works out the mouth muscles more so than English does. Say “chèrie” then say “dear” and you can feel the difference.

Years ago, fashion mags declared that the best way to exercise the mouth to avoid having that Hardcore Look is to repeat the vowels over and over again. A E I O U, A E I O U, A E I O U.

Exercising the face.

Facial expercises can help tone the face. They can also relieve stress and depression. But exercising the face can also modify our state of mind.

Emotional expression can evoke emotional feeling. That is, intentional management of facial expression contribures to the activation of emotional experiences.. so if you exercise your face to look happy, you'll be happy.

When we feel possitive, our zygomatics responds. When we feel negative, our corrugator responds.

Wrinkles.

Wrinkles are caused by aging skin. But they are also caused by facial expressions.

Eyebrows.

The forehead is an evolutionary product of the brain's expansion. The eyebrows are located here. Eyebrows protect the eyes but they also indicate emotions.

When one feels under attack, the eyebrows lower themselves to protedt the eyes but thus limiting the visuals. Whereas raising the eyebrows tends to increase the Visuall field.

Expression for the information of others is most liable to be made with the mouth, the organ of communication with the world; while expressions that betray thoughts unintentionally to the outer world are most liable to begin in the eye and forehead.

The worried look is caused bythe motion of the corrugator.

Muscoli mimici and involuntary gestures.

Our thoughts affect our expressions because our thoughts activate the nervous system, and the nervous system controls muscle motion.

When the sensorial system is highly excityed, it bombards our system with nervous energyl and it is the flow of this nervous energy that produces our facial expression

Emotions contract facial mucles.

the physiology of laughter

How many muscles does it take to frown and smile? Seventeen muscles to smile and 43 to frown.

The smile is visible joy.

The zygomaticus major tends to contract itself when we feel good. This contraction moves the chin as weel as the upper lip) upward causing fine wrinkles to be formed under the eyes.

Facial ying yang...smiles and frowns. Opposite sensations. Opposite motions on the face.

Are you up. Or are you down.

If the mind is heavily excited aby positive sentiments, a great quantity of nervous energy is suddenly blocked in its flow and can't be used for other thoutghts of emotions. Positive feelings activate great quantites of nervous energy.

This e xcess energy has to trelease itself inanother direction and is thus deterred to the motor nerves producing a kind of semi-convulsion thate we call laughter.

Thus laughter i reflects the need to consume a surplus of nervous energy.

Good humor is good for mental stimu,ation. A happy man, even if not smiling, has a tendency to draw back the corners of his mouth. The exitement of pleasure accelerates the circulation, makes the eyes glitter and increases facial color. Even the brain receives a major flow of blood andis thus stimulated. This increases mental powers making ideas more rapid.

Smiling is not only a signal of pleasure, it can also help you live longer and beat stress. Cardiologists say that a 60 second smile is equal to 40 minutes of transcendental mediation. Apparently the movement of the facial muscles invloved in smiling affects blood flow to the brain triggering the release of beneficial mood chemicals as well as increasing mental simulation.

Skin.

Every three weeks the entire epidermis (the top 3 layers of your skin) is shedded. This means about 500 million cells a day (and it's this shedded skin that composes part of our household dust). The shorter the cycle of desqumation (the process by shich skin does all that shedding), the fresher the skin looks and the smoother it feels. Exfoliation helps the process along because it whicks off dead cells.

voluntary and involutary muscles

The neck.

The playsma dresses the neck. It's contraction pulls the mouth down. Fear, pain, terror and disgust make it contract. It drops when relaxed.

The neck is the connects the head to the body, the mind to the flesh.

The neck is rounder in front than in behind.

The neck is a separate set of muscles and plays a huge roll in the jobs done by the face.

The platysma originates at the pectoral region and is inserted at the inferior part of the mandibola and the angles of the mouth. It's nerved at the seventh facial nerve.

Double chins.

The double chin can be the product of excess weight, loose skin, terrible muscle tone, or an excess of champagne.

Universal facial expressions: High levels of agreement for happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and contempt across cultures. The existence of universal emotions with innate expressive correlates was scientifically formulated by Charles Darwin (1972/1965), whose ideas were revived a century later by Paul Ekman (1972) and Carroll Izard (1971). Photographs of emotional facial expressions that elicit high consensus among Western judges are shown to people in different cultures, with generally significant agreement about which emotions are signaled by the different expressions.

Facial Feedback.... Ekman asked subjects to move facial muscles so as to create facial expressions that accompany emotions. Different emotional expressions produced different changes in autonomic NS activity: Anger: increased HR and skin temperature Fear: increased HR but decreased skin temperature Happiness: decreased HR, no change in skin temperature Facial Expressions Signal Emotion Darwin: emotions are innate patterns of muscle contraction, often of the facial muscles (snarling vs sneering) Facial expressions signal our emotional states to others Facial expressions are common across cultures Facial expressions are similar in blind and sighted children

Facial expressions of emotion.....Some scientists believe many facial expressions, such a smiling, laughing, and crying are almost universal among cultures and have a genetic bias. Children who are born blind display the same facial gestures as sighted children do. Paul Ekman of the University of California argued that emotions we experience occur because they help us adapt to the challenges we face....facial feedback hypothesis states that changes in facial expressions can produce changes in emotional feelings.

the aesthetic quality of laughter

Chiara came home today complaining about her gym teacher. That woman has an attitude like milk gone sour. I know, I’ve seen her many times. She always has her forehead muscles corrugated. And she just refuses to accept the fact that there’s no amount of jumping up and down to Britney Spears that’s going to change it. Because she’s, you know, frustrated. And That Kind of frustration produces alot of bad karma. That’s why whenever I see someone with A Pinched Pyramidal, I get out of their way. There are two kinds of pyramidal muscles. Those on the forehead and those near the pubic bone. Like a gentle reminder that the genitals are linked to the brain. Darwin use to ride trains just to look at people’s faces. So that he could compare their facial expressions with their behavioral patterns. He wrote an entire book about these observations. The lines on your face indicate the muscles you most often use and, since every facial muscle can be directly related to an emotion, the lines on your face map out your emotions. If attitude changes our expression, then expression changes our attitude. You are your face, she said. I like Pierluigi because he keeps me wrinkle free.