Jamie Shane: Mom was right about those funny faces

I would lay odds that at some point during the course of your childhood, someone in your family said to you: “If you keep making that face, it’ll get stuck that way.”

And you laughed it off. We all do. Ha!

Its quite an awakening the day you realize that every expression ever made has slowly carved its way into the skin of your face, leaving a road map of your past joys and sorrows. But such is the nature of life.

An entire market has been birthed to combat this. Botox, Alpha-hydroxy, plastic surgery — all developed to combat the signs of aging. But is aging the sole problem? Or is it also that we wear the same expression on our face all day every day, and, lo and behold, it got stuck?

Few of us give a passing thought to the neutral expressions our faces assume when we aren’t laughing or crying. Our features just settle home and rest. But this neutral expression tells more than a few of our secrets.

There are those who always seem to have a “sour puss” as my grandmother would put it, wearing their disappointments for the whole world to see. Whether they realize it or not, this puss is imprinting itself onto the face’s features. It is manifesting a face presented to the world.

My laugh lines are cherished. The furrow over my brow, not so much. Those are honestly owned and willingly shared. It’s the unconscious frown I find sometimes when I’m working that demonstrates my point. That’s not something I want to present to others right out of the gate.

People react to first impressions. They make judgments based on very little actual information, deciding quickly what kind of person you are. For good or bad, this is just true. The tone of voice, the set of your shoulders, the posture of the body, the expression of the face all contribute lightning quick to a person’s perception of you.

What is your face sharing without your consent?

As it happens, I know a yoga breathing technique to combat this. (Really? No! You don’t say!) Leave it to those yogis to think of everything.

Make a “C” shape out of your left hand. Then lay the pad of the thumb between the top and middle knuckle of the forefinger. Now, wrap the fingers of right hand around the top of the left fingers, laying the right thumb next to the left one. You have a very loose fist, like a tunnel made out of the hands.

With the thumbs next to one another, you should see a natural ‘hole’ between the bottom and middle knuckles. Bring this hole about 12 inches away from the mouth and slightly lower. Inhale through the nose, long and slow. Then exhale through the mouth, blowing like you would blow a kiss. Blow right through that hole, long and slow. Close they eyes and breathe deeply, slowly and consciously. In through the nose, out through the lips.

You should hear the breath traveling through the hands like a low, soft whistle. Exactly like wind blowing gently through a tunnel.

This exercise will make you feel calm and happy and bring an easy expression to the face. It is not recommended midday, or when you have work to do, as it will also make you feel very relaxed and maybe even a little sleepy. But if you practice this regularly, Yogi Bhajan says that your face will become charming and innocent.

Whether or not you think that is a good thing is up to you. But I’ll take that over frown lines any day of the week.

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Jamie Shane was trained by world renowned Yogi Hari and has taught in cities across the nation. She is the owner of Bija Yoga & Massage Studio, 971 3rd Ave. N, and can be contacted at 239-775-0888, or yoda@bija971.com