Danielle Collins, founder of the Danielle Collins Face Yoga Technique, talks to Jeanne about natural anti-aging methods through facial exercises. A scientifically proven method to reduce the signs of aging, without the use of invasive methods.
Danielle Collins, founder of the Danielle Collins Face Yoga Technique, talks to Jeanne about natural anti-aging methods through facial exercises. A scientifically proven method to reduce the signs of aging, without the use of invasive methods.
Key moments in the episode:
00:00 Introduction
02:56 What is Face Yoga?
05:51 Is this going to get rid of my wrinkles? Is there a difference between wrinkles and expression lines?
07:41 Exercises and techniques for forehead wrinkles.
13:23 Can you do Face Yoga if you've had Botox?
14:12 Does Face Yoga have the same effect as Botox?
16:33 Face Yoga exercises for droop eyes, crows feet, and puffy eyes.
19:35 Exercises for lifting the cheeks and reducing wrinkles around the mouth.
22:20 Face Yoga for the neck area: Reducing wrinkles and tightening the skin around the neck and under the chin.
25:02 How is facial massage beneficial for me, and how to do it?
28:55 Acupressure for the face: Why does it work and how to do it?
32:13 Danielle's story and history of illness, why Face Yoga and what led to this?
41:00 Conclusion
Links to Danielle Collins: Website | Book & Skincare | Podcast | Youtube Channel
Jeanne Retief: Blog | Podcast | Shop | Instagram
[00:00:00.460] - Jeanne
Good morning, FIGGI Goddess, and welcome to the My FIGGI Life Podcast. Today we have the leading face yoga expert, Danielle Collins. She is going to speak to us about face yoga today. I'm going to give you a brief introduction of who she is, what she does, so stay tuned if you're interested in learning about anti-aging techniques that are more holistic, completely natural that we can do every day for ourselves.
[00:00:28.820] - Intro
Welcome, goddess, to your sacred space. This is my FIGGI Life podcast, where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self-discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI life. And now, here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:00:50.020] - Jeanne
Welcome back to this episode with Danielle Collins. As the world-leading face yoga expert with 17 years experience teaching to millions worldwide, it's fair to say that face yoga is well and truly part of who she is. When she created the Danielle Collins face yoga method, her vision was for all to fully embrace and love who we are inside and out and have a toolbox of techniques to use every day so we are in control of our own faces and our own wellness. Danielle has appeared on ITV 1:00 this morning, channel 4's Steph's packed lunch, BBC 1:00 holding back the years, and channel 4's How Not to get old. Danielle believes in combining traditional techniques that have been used for thousands of years, particularly in Eastern medicine with modern, scientifically proven research. And yes, the face yoga method has been scientifically proven. Face yoga has been proven to make you look three years younger in 20 weeks in a study by dermatologists at Northwestern University. Also, a study which was conducted by doctors using her method on the BBC One show, TwinStitute, showed that face yoga can make the skin look one year younger in just a month.
[00:02:09.280] - Jeanne
So, Danielle, has been the face of major campaigns for Nintendo, BT, Group on, Clarence, Adidas, and Albas Oil. And she has collaborated with renowned brands such as P&G, Unilever, Dr. Robux, and SweatyBetty. Welcome to the My FIGGI Life podcast, Danielle.
[00:02:27.830] - Danielle
Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
[00:02:31.170] - Jeanne
I've always loved face yoga. I've been following it for a number of years. I have your books. I actually recently just ordered a hard copy of your book because I find it much easier to page through it than to have it on my Kindle. I also resonate with your story so much. So before we start diving into all of that, maybe you can just explain to our audience if they don't know, what is face yoga?
[00:02:56.060] - Danielle
Well, face yoga is a natural way and looking and feeling the best version of ourselves. There's five main aspects to the Danielle Collins face yoga method, which is what I've been teaching for the last 17 years. The first is the facial exercise. This is about strengthening and toning certain muscles in the face, and just like we can do that with the body as we do this with muscles in the face. It helps build the lift and tone in the muscle and the skin attached, is tightened and tautened. The second aspect is the facial massage. So many people are familiar with facial massage. Maybe if you've gone for a facial treatment. But the wonderful thing about face yoga is you can actually do it for yourself every day very easily, very simply. And it's just about gently massaging the face to help things like lymphatic drainage, which helps to drain toxins of the face, reduce puffiness. It helps to boost blood circulation, which helps the skin to look healthy and glowing. It's very good for naturally boosting the collagen and elastin in the skin, so our skin's natural plumping agents. Very good for releasing stress and tension.
[00:03:58.090] - Danielle
And then the third aspect is the acupressure. So my method is very much a combination of scientifically proved techniques, as well as techniques that have been used for many thousands of years, particularly Eastern medicine. So in Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and shiatsu, so the acupressure is very much rooted in those traditional techniques. So as you apply pressure to specific points on the face, it has many benefits for our well being, for our health. So for example, those points on the face can help us reduce headaches, reduce stress, help her sleep better, reduce jaw tension, help with things like sinus issues. But also pressing and massaging those points again can help with the face aesthetically as well. So again, we're looking at boosting that blood circulation, really working, releasing the tension. The fourth area is the facial relaxation. So some muscles need to be really exercised and lifted, and other muscles we actually need to learn how to relax, to not overuse, and to definitely release a lot of the stress we're holding in them. So facial relaxation is a really key part of my method as well. And the fifth area, which I think is the most important, the most holistic part, is the well being.
[00:05:14.050] - Danielle
So this is about how can we look at ourselves as a whole. It's wonderful to exercise the face. It's wonderful to massage the face. This is great. But actually how you're going to get real results and how you're really going to feel the best version of yourself, you're really going to feel your true wellness is when you look at yourself as a whole. So this is everything from how well are we sleeping? How are we working or reducing our stress levels? What exercise are we doing? What are we eating? There's so many aspects to it, and I really encourage a holistic approach with all of my face yoga techniques.
[00:05:50.700] - Jeanne
So let's get into those a little bit, because I think the key question that everybody is probably thinking is, is this going to get rid of my wrinkles? So before we talk about that, can we just ask you to explain to us, is there a difference between wrinkles and expression lines?
[00:06:06.960] - Danielle
Well, with face yoga, it will work with both. I mean, if you want to really break it down, we can talk about dynamic wrinkles and static wrinkles. So you've got the dynamic wrinkles, which are usually caused by our expression lines. And we've got the more static wrinkles, which tend to come even if we don't express in that area, but they can come over time, perhaps because we've lost tone in the muscle, maybe we've had a reduction of collagen and elastin in that area. There's natural plumping agents in the skin. Maybe there's less hyaluronic acid in the skin now, and it means the skin is just not bouncing back in the way that it used to. So we do have two different types of lines or wrinkles, but face yoga is really working with all of them. It's very much a holistic approach. So I always say everything's about energy, and it really is. When we get the energy flow, in yoga we call it Prana, in traditional Chinese medicine we call it Qi, when we get that energy flowing around the face in the right way through things like the massage, through things like the acupressure, we're instantly softening those lines and wrinkles.
[00:07:10.850] - Danielle
When we're working on certain parts of the face and we're starting to strengthen and tone the muscle, we're starting to gently lift the face. And for me, I think one of the the most important ways to reduce your lines and wrinkles is to start to have an awareness of your face. So when are you holding your stress? Where are you holding your stress? Which emotions are linked to certain lines and wrinkles? That awareness and that mindfulness can really be key in reducing and preventing certain lines and wrinkles in your face.
[00:07:42.080] - Jeanne
There are three to five key areas in the face that I'm really interested in and that you also address, and maybe we can just start quickly going through them. The first and the biggest one for me is my forehead. Because I talk with my hands and my face a lot. I'm an anxious person, so I tend to scrunch my eyes and my forehead during the day and these little lines between my eyebrows. And you talk a lot about these muscles being the muscles that we have to learn to relax more. Can you maybe tell us how we do that?
[00:08:14.690] - Danielle
Well, there's a few ways you can do that. So first of all, a really lovely technique is just simply placing both hands up onto your forehead and just starting to practice widening your eyes, looking up towards the ceiling with your eyes, looking down towards the floor, looking one from one side to.
[00:08:32.770] - Jeanne
The other side. And that's a lot harder than you think, just by the way.
[00:08:35.850] - Danielle
It's a lot harder than you think. Absolutely. But what we tend to do is we tend to express with our forehead and not enough with our eyes. So actually what tends to happen is our eyes start to become quite fatigued. Maybe we start to notice that we get a puffiness or a darkness under the eyes, circulation is maybe a bit stagnant. The energy is a bit stagnant there. And actually we're constantly showing every expression with our forehead area. And first of all, it's important to also say there's nothing wrong with lines and wrinkles. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having lines on the forehead or lines on any area of the face. My method is really about celebrating aging, feeling positive about aging. But if there are certain lines and wrinkles you want to naturally reduce or you want to naturally prevent, then there's some really nice techniques you can do. I would definitely say the first thing would be to start to focus on how you can express more with your eyes. So I've never had anything like Botox or fillers or anything like that. But what I've done is I've actually trained myself because I'm very expressive.
[00:09:37.950] - Danielle
I use my hands all the time. You can probably tell when I'm talking this podcast. I express all the time with my hands, but also I express a lot my eyes too. So I've taught myself to actually show my feelings and emotions much more through the eyes, which is lovely because it opens up the eye area. It helps the eyes look vibrant and full of energy, but it just stops me using my my forehead area. So do that technique where you've got both hands or one hand on the forehead, practicing widening your eyes looking up and down. So that's the first thing you want to do. The second thing you can do is just start to massage that area. So you can massage on a daily basis, but you can particularly massage after any time where you have held a lot of stress and tension or you've overexpressed that area. So you can just use your fingertips. You can just gently move across your forehead, so just moving outwards. Try to relax that big frontalis muscle at the front of the forehead. You can also just use your index fingers and just go between your eyebrows.
[00:10:39.290] - Danielle
You can just start to relax that process. Oh, that one's lovely. Exactly, because we're working on the lovely acupressure points to reduce stress as well. But you can encourage your skin to bounce back from any times where you know, for example, you've been hunched over your phone, you've been concentrating on something or you felt quite annoyed or angry at something or you've been having a conversation with somebody and actually you've been quite expressive. Maybe you've been quite surprised about something, whatever it is, massage that area afterwards. Make sure you've got clean hands, ideally clean skin. But even if you're doing just a little bit of massage, should have on the go whilst you've got your makeup on, then that's absolutely fine too. So that would be the second thing, the massage.
[00:11:18.660] - Jeanne
When you're saying massage, you're not talking about a deep tissue massage, right?
[00:11:22.730] - Danielle
Absolutely. It's really light. Because what you want to do is signal to those muscles, relax, let go. Actually, if you're going too deep, that's great if you want to build up that energy and there's lots of benefits in that. But in the case I'm talking actually, even light fingertips tapping over that area and just saying to that muscle, It's okay. It's okay to let go. It's okay to relax a little bit. So that's the second thing I would say to do. Third thing I would say to do is the mindfulness. So that is about saying, What emotion am I clinging onto? Or what emotion am I repeating over and over again? Or what emotion am I finding hard to shift? And how is it manifesting on my face? And I've learnt over the years, if I'm really annoyed about something or anxious about something or worried about something, I tend to pull this area between the eyebrows in. I don't get what's called 11 lines. I seem to get like 11, 11, 11, 11 lines. They come all along there. That's an example. And I know actually if I've gone through maybe an hour or maybe a couple of days where I feel stressed or I feel really quite annoyed or angry about something, actually, I'm needing to work on that area a little bit more.
[00:12:37.290] - Danielle
But it's also understanding the moment. So I often say to people, have a little mirror on your desk, for example, glance at that throughout the day and actually have a look what your face is doing, because your face will very quickly tell you what's going on inside. And then we can often quickly shift out of that emotion as well. It doesn't have to be even dealing with it in our head. It can actually just be physically relaxing the muscles on the forehead, and then you feel that perhaps an unhelpful emotion just dissipate.
[00:13:06.900] - Jeanne
That's really a key thing to consider because I think sometimes we forget to have this holistic approach because we think, okay, we've got to exercise, we've got to work, we have our to-do list, but you forget to go inside and think about it that way. A lot of people get Botox for their forehead wrinkles. And I've played around with the idea myself, I've never been brave enough to do it. I don't know if I'll ever be brave enough to do it. But can you do this if you've had Botox?
[00:13:38.120] - Danielle
Yeah. So it is okay. What I would say is you need to wait normally two to four weeks. I would say on the side of course, you wait four weeks before you're massaging that area if you have had Botox. I also always say talk to your doctor or your aesthetician or whoever's administered your Botox and ask them when and where you can massage your face. They may say wait six weeks. They may say three weeks is okay. They may say avoid certain areas because they're going to know how much Botox they've given you and in which areas of your face.
[00:14:11.360] - Jeanne
As well. Would you say this has the same effect as Botox? Botox really just relaxes that muscle so that you don't use it so much. But as I understand it, Botox can also not completely reverse the lines that are already there. It just helps more lines from forming. Yeah, I mean.
[00:14:29.040] - Danielle
There's lots of theories about Botox versus face yoga. And the first thing I would always say is I'm definitely pro-choice. So I definitely aren't someone who ever says don't go and get this or don't go and do that, because actually, I think it's so wonderful now that we live in a world, particularly as women, where we can choose what we want to do. So if it feels like the right path for you, you've fully done your research and you fully understood the risks behind it as well, then it's absolutely a fine route to go down. I mean, I choose not to do it personally because I like to be in control of my own face. I like to know what I'm putting into my body. I like to choose to put as much natural into my body as possible. And also I like the results to be cumulative over time. What I've seen with many friends and peers that have Botox is that you do get very quick results and actually it can be amazing. But actually, that's wearing off very quickly as well. So usually within 10-12 weeks you're having to go and get an injection again or again.
[00:15:35.450] - Danielle
And actually it's like an up and down process. So with face yoga, it's actually quite lovely to see that you are over time getting better and better results. The results are slower, but they're also longer lasting and you also have an immediate tool. So for example, if you do start to see a little line appearing through the day, say between your eyebrows, instantly you've got those tools in your own hands to start to reduce that, to soften that, to relax that. It's not like you're having to wait for another four weeks or eight weeks until you go for a Botox appointment. So it's really entirely up to you which option you choose or whether you do both. But I know for me that face yoga, yes, it takes more time, it takes more dedication. But for me, I always go from a gut instinct point of view, and my gut instinct always says face yoga is completely the right choice for me.
[00:16:29.740] - Jeanne
Let's talk about the eyes a little bit. You have some really wonderful techniques, especially I struggle a lot with the insomnia, which is part and parcel of the anxiety. I have a lot of mornings where I really look like the cryptkeeper when I get up because your face shows it. You have such nice techniques to do just to wake up the eyes a little bit and to just make it feel a little bit more aware, to a little bit more, and to take away those puffy little bags underneath your eyes. So can you talk us through that?
[00:17:06.850] - Danielle
Sure. You're right. There's loads of great techniques in both my books, so Danielle Collins' face yoga and the face yoga journal. So there's over 51-minute techniques in both of those books, which is a really good reference just to have if you want to have it by your bedside, on your coffee table, in your desk or in your bathroom.
[00:17:24.480] - Jeanne
So don't feel- Yeah.
[00:17:26.020] - Danielle
Mine is in my bathroom. Exactly. And also, I have over a thousand videos on my YouTube channel, Face Yoga Experts as well. So there's loads of ways that you can do these techniques. So don't feel you have to remember everything I'm saying now as you're listening to this. But a couple of things I would definitely say to do. First thing would be a little bit of lymphatic drainage massage. So I really like using the ring finger for that. It's just a little bit of a lighter touch. Just going underneath your eyebrow, just going to the outer edge of your eyebrow, then underneath your eyes towards the inner corner of your eye and then round again. And it's really simple and it's really important to not drag the skin in this area as well. So it's about 10 times thinner than the skin and the rest of the face. So you want to be really, really gentle with that. In fact, the lymphatic system is just under the skin surface. So actually going deep and hard is not going to help with that lymphatic drainage, which is how you're going to start to reduce and remove the toxins, the fluid buildup in that area.
[00:18:25.630] - Danielle
So a little bit of lymphatic drainage first. Then you want to be working with your circulation. So really simple and easy index fingers. You can just tap around your eye area. You can go in both directions really easy. Nice light touch with that one. I would also say you want to really be working with boosting that energy and also strengthening and toning the muscles underneath the skin. Those simple eye exercises I talked about earlier where you're just having the hands onto the forehead area and you just widen the eyes and you can even go around the eyes and go around. So you're looking at every number on the clock face is really nice and then go the other way. And that's going to help to strengthen the muscles inside the eye. And it's also going to strengthen you've got a ring muscle that goes around the eye called the orbicularis oculy muscle, and it helps to really strengthen and tone that muscle. So just doing these every day, you don't need to do them for very long, one minute each, even 30 seconds each, but keeping it up regularly is how you're really going to see results.
[00:19:25.680] - Jeanne
Yeah, that's the key. Just keep going. Just keep doing it. The next part is the one that I struggle with the most, and this is the part around your mouth when you're doing the cheek exercises to lift the cheek and to also help the muscles around the mouth. And one of the key things that you keep saying is that we don't want to create additional lines while doing these exercises. So you have a lot of techniques where you show us to put the fingers around the place where the line would be, especially when you're doing the mouth exercises with the lips around the teeth. Oh, my goodness, I have the worst time not making lines on these sides of my mouth when I'm trying to do these. I may be doing it completely wrong, but I will tell you that I've had such amazing feedback from people in my life that I've said, Oh, my gosh, what have you been doing? Your cheeks are so defined, your face looks different. I've actually done the vector camera with the close-up of your skin and everything 3-6-12 months apart, and you can completely see a difference in the tightness of my skin and how it's been lifted. Can you just take us through these exercises and why it's so important for us to keep our fingers there not to make any more lines?
[00:20:43.330] - Danielle
Absolutely. You're key focus whilst you're doing these facial exercises is to exercise the muscles. So think about just like if you're exercising a bicep muscle in the arm, you really want to focus on that muscle and then you want the skin attached to be tightened and taught and firm. So very good for lifting and toning the cheeks and also softening and reducing any lines and wrinkles. But as we talked about earlier, there are certain expressions, particularly expressions which are rooted in stress that are causing lines and wrinkles. So as you're doing face yoga, I always want you to use a mirror and actually try and focus on the mirror that you're not making any lines. So you're doing exactly the right thing by using your fingers to say smooth those nasal labial folds, so the air between the nose and the mouth. Or, for example, there's a technique where I puff the cheeks out full of air and transfer the air from cheek to cheek. And actually when I do that, and I know a lot of you will find the same, I get those little vertical lines around the lip area. So I use the fingers and I just smooth and taun the skin around the lip area as I'm transferring the air from cheek to cheek.
[00:21:49.900] - Danielle
And that works really nicely with softening the lines. So never feel worried to slightly adapt a technique and never feel worried to go down to 50 % effort or 60 % effort rather than doing 100 % effort as well. You can always build up. It's better to go gently, to go slower, to feel comfortable, to look in the mirror to check that you aren't making or creating any lines and then to build up from there, because everyone's faces are so different.
[00:22:19.580] - Jeanne
I also want to talk a little bit about the neck area. I think this was the first-ever face yoga exercise I did, and the first time I read your instructions on how to do the exercise, tilting your head back, and you can explain it a lot better than I can, I thought, Okay, this is super easy. I'll just go ahead and do 60 of those. It's way harder than you think it is because you're soI was so surprised how weak these muscles are because I never really thought of it that way. You can really see a difference in the tone of your neck. As I understood, this is really one of the areas that you really can't do that much about once you have wrinkles and fine lines. So can you take us through that exercise and explain to us what does it do? How does it help tighten the neck?
[00:23:09.900] - Danielle
Sure, yeah. So I'm not sure exactly which exercise you're talking about, but I'll talk about a couple where you're bringing your head back. So first thing I would say is anything where you're bringing your head back, obviously take care if you've got any neck issues. So if you suffer from whiplash or any neck injuries, you don't want to bring your head all the way back. But if you're in the back of your neck is healthy and it's fine to do that, you can tilt your head back and there's two things you can do. You can either bring your fingers onto your collarbone and slightly bring your bottom lip out a little bit and hold there to really engage that big platysma muscle at the front of your neck. The other one you can do is where you come back, you've got your lips together and you've got the tip of the tongue going up and down towards the roof of the mouth. It's that one, yeah. Up and down towards the roof of the mouth, about a rate of one per second. I do recommend doing up to 60 of those if you can. And you should really feel that working, that area just at the top of the neck, just underneath the chin.
[00:24:05.060] - Danielle
So it's exercising that area, strengthening and toning that area, and it's tightening and tightening the skin attached to it. It's wonderful. It's also helping that with our posture as well. And we may get onto this later, but posture is so important when it comes to face yoga. So just by opening in that way, you're actually correcting that forward posture that we tend to have in day to day life, which actually can cause all sorts of problems for our face.
[00:24:29.700] - Jeanne
I really love those exercises because I did feel a difference in my posture as well, especially when I do it during the day. Sometimes when I feel like I've been doing a lot of research, or I've been bent over a lot with my computer work, it's such a great relief to bend your neck back a little bit or told your neck back a little bit and do this exercise, and you really feel and see a difference with this one. It's incredible.
[00:24:56.340] - Danielle
It's great. I love it.
[00:24:57.800] - Jeanne
You also talk a lot about facial massage. And usually when I do your massage techniques, I like to do it while I'm doing my double cleansing at night because I always feel like that's the part of our routine we don't always do as well. We're doing it so quickly and we're rushing through it. And I find it such a nice combination because my skin is silky from the cleansers I'm using, and it takes time to go through the massage. So I know I'm cleansing properly. Combined with that, you say the massage helps with lymphatic drainage and boosting collagen. How does that work? The lymphatic drainage, I think we've all read so much about it, but we can all know more, especially the collagen. How exactly does it boost collagen and why? Yeah.
[00:25:44.690] - Danielle
Sothere's still unfortunately not enough studies about how face yoga actually boosts the collagen and naturally increases that production of collagen in the skin. It's very much anecdotal evidence at the moment, and that's one of the big reasons that I didn't put that specific part of it in either of my books because I wanted every reason I gave in there to be very much scientifically based. However, anecdotally and actually from many top top skincare experts, beauty experts, yoga experts, dermatologists around the world, and now agreeing that if you massage your face is actually helping to regenerate new skin cells. And as you regenerate new skin cells, this is helping to regenerate new collagen. It's also helping to maintain the collagen that we already have. So we're working very much with that dermis, to that middle layer of skin where your collagen and elastin lies. And we're really helping to just help bring that fresh blood to that area, bring the fresh oxygen to that area, encouraging new skin cells to be formed, which is actually helping that collagen, which essentially is a plumping agent in the skin. And we naturally tend to lose the collagen in our skin, well, reduce the collagen in our skin by about one % per year from about the age of 18.
[00:27:07.760] - Danielle
So we're in that decline in collagen all the time. So actually anything we can do to naturally boost the collagen in our skin like massage is a really beneficial thing to do. There are other things you can do to naturally boost the collagen in your skin. Actually, there's certain foods that you can eat. So foods high in antioxidants, foods high in protein is really important as well, high in amino acids. Also, hydration is incredibly important for our skin to actually produce collagen to actually stop the collagen decline becoming quicker and quicker, which obviously we don't want to happen. Using an SPF is really, really important. And actually it's been shown that around 80 % of our aging process and decline in collagen is actually down to sun damage. So it's really important to actually wear SPF. I know that this is a bit of a controversial topic, SPF and sunscreen for many reasons. It's about finding the right balance for you. But it's actually really important to do that. It's also proven that sugar can break down the collagen in our skin as well. Actually, I know that we all like sugar, and I know that I would like to be zero sugar, but I'm absolutely not zero sugar, and that's something that I know that I can definitely work on more.
[00:28:31.550] - Danielle
But actually, that's another way that our skin is breaking down the collagen. So it's not just about boosting the collagen through things like the massage and through things like a good diet or water, but it's also looking at ways that we can maintain our current collagen and stop it being broken down at too much of a quick rate.
[00:28:53.280] - Jeanne
The last thing I want to ask you about is acupuncture, which you also touch upon in your book. The favorite one for me is the one I do before I go to bed, which is the one between your eyes. I think you press down and then you massage a little bit and one and then the next circle. Why does that work so well? Because even if I am struggling to fall back asleep during the night, I try and do that, and it's really such a wonderful calming method.
[00:29:19.770] - Danielle
It's wonderful. I actually use acupuncture, which is acupuncture is done with needles. Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry. Acupuncture is done with our fingers. But both things exactly the same concept. And actually we can use our fingers acupuncture as obviously we're going deeper and we are getting deeper benefits, but actually using the pressure of our fingers is amazing. So there are certain points of the face. You always need to look at the face as a map for the body. And as we press certain points on the face, we're actually having really good benefits for aspects of our health and our wellness and even certain organs of our body as well. So the one you're talking about is in a corner to the eyes, just on the edge of the nose, which is absolutely lovely. It's so calming and I recommend this one for helping too with insomnia. So if you are struggling with getting to sleep or you suddenly wake up at night. So pressing that point massage in one way or the other. I also recommend it for reducing eye strain. So if you've got tired eyes, maybe you've been looking at the screen a lot, maybe feel a headache coming on because it's actually working there very much.
[00:30:30.050] - Danielle
If we look at the acupuncture acupressor in terms of traditional Chinese medicine, it's actually helping to unblock something which might be blocked there. So we call it qi or life force energy, and we're actually helping that life force energy to flow as it should. So acupuncture and acupressure again has gone through numerous studies to show so many benefits for our health and our wellness, and it's one of those things that is very difficult to prove why, they have proven it has helped multiple, multiple times with things like reducing stress, improving skin, helping people's health, so many aspects of wellness. But it's one of those things that's very difficult to measure because it's actually our subtle energy body. It's our life force energy or in yoga we call it Prana, in traditional Chinese medicine we call it qi. But we all know that feeling. We know when we feel healthy and at peace and just have a lovely sense of energy and we're sleeping well and we just feel genuinely healthy. And that's when our qi or our prana or our life force energy is flowing as it should. We also all know that feeling very well of feeling very stressed or stuck or stagnant or not being able to sleep well or not feeling completely healthy or having lots of just underlying ailments.
[00:31:57.500] - Danielle
And actually that's a sign that that life force or that qi or that prana is not flowing the way it should. So working on these acupressure points or if you're working with needles, the acupuncture points can help just unblock some of that stagnant energy there and just let everything flow.
[00:32:13.650] - Jeanne
Also, just to understand how you got into face yoga, and I love your story because one of the things that really surprised me when I first started reading about it, I was super surprised at how many muscles are in the face because we're so concerned with exercising our bodies and understanding the different muscles in our bodies. When I first read your book, I was like, What? Wow, there are so many muscles in my face. I did not know that. It's hardcore anatomy that you also need to deal with. I want to ask you what led to this and how you qualify for this, but I want to preface it by how your journey started. You had chronic fatigue syndrome that you were diagnosed with, I think, when you were 22. I had such compassion for your story when I read this because I didn't have the same, but I was diagnosed with panic disorder. For a while, I couldn't leave my house without having a panic attack. I couldn't eat because I thought I was going to choke. Everything in my life that was normal, I couldn't do anymore. That frustration and depression and that anxiety of wondering when are things going to be normal again and having to stop doing things in your life that you did every day, it's just so incredible.
[00:33:29.610] - Jeanne
Can you just take us through that journey and how that made you do what you do now?
[00:33:34.590] - Danielle
Sure, yeah. I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been through. I know you came on my podcast and you talked about it and talked about your journey. It's so wonderful to hear how you've got so many coping strategies now and I guess for me it was a similar thing. It was a very low, a very difficult, a very dark moment which I then learnt coping strategies and managed to heal myself from. I actually did my university degree in education, English literature. I knew I always wanted to teach. That's something I've been interested in since I was really, really little. But as I graduated from university, I became very, very ill and I was diagnosed with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome, which actually started with the illness of glandular fever. And very quickly I became bedridden and housebound. So I was incredibly ill. I was in a lot of pain throughout my body, overwhelming fatigue. I had a whole wide range of symptoms, which meant that actually I couldn't do much for more than about an hour a day. And I definitely wasn't into anything holistic, anything wellness focus, especially after what I've just talked about with everything to do with wellness.
[00:34:44.730] - Danielle
Because I absolutely wasn't into that. I used to burn the candle at both ends. I used to push myself. I was very, very stressed in every aspect of my life. I'm very much perfectionist pushing myself. All of this, combined with getting the virus and a whole variety of other factors I've now learnt about over the years led me to becoming very unwell. But one thing I did have in me still was that determination, even though in those very dark, difficult moments. And actually I really thought I must heal myself from this. And someone suggested, why don't you try a bit of yoga? Now I didn't even know what yoga was, I never even heard the word yoga. So I actually found a videotape, an old VHS videotape on yoga, and I started just doing a little bit of breathing exercises from it. I could only do the warm-up, I couldn't do the whole part of it. I would just do the warm-up and I'd do it in bed every day. And it was almost like that light bulb moment saying, Okay, Danielle, there is something that you can do to heal yourself. So then I started just to dive into as much as I could.
[00:35:49.000] - Danielle
I started to do positive affirmations. I did visualization. I would do breathing techniques every day. I do whatever gentle yoga I could do every day, all within my limits. I did a lot of mindset work, a lot of clearing through, a lot of mindset blocks, as well as actually looking how I could heal my body. So changing my nutrition at the time, it was really about for me, cutting out sugar, cutting out caffeine, cutting out alcohol. They were the three big triggers for me personally, I mean, I know everyone's very different with that. And I started to also then reach out to other people. I started to see a life coach. I started to have acupuncture and acupressure. I started to have massages, a whole variety of things. And within just over a year, I managed to completely heal myself. I had this energy and this peace within me that I had never really had before. And I knew that I had gone through that for a reason. And I knew that this had led me to my life's path, which was helping other people either to overcome a similar illness or just to feel healthier and happier.
[00:36:54.260] - Danielle
So first training I took was in relaxation therapy, so I could teach meditation and relaxation classes. I then went on to train as a yoga teacher. I did training in nutrition, I did training in face massage, training as well. Being a coach, I mean, over the years I've done many other trainings as well. And initially I started teaching meditation, relaxation, wellness and yoga classes. And I absolutely love teaching this and helping people with their wellness. But something really interesting that is happening more and more is people were saying to me, Danielle, I love what the yoga and the wellness is doing for my mind and what it's doing for my body, but what about my face? And we're going back 18 years ago now, and actually we didn't have the same options for the face as we have now. So if you go down a more invasive route, that just wasn't available. And if you go down a more natural route, we didn't have those options. We didn't have social media, even the internet was very new back then. So people couldn't find ways to actually help themselves naturally look healthier, look more youthful, look more glowing.
[00:37:59.240] - Danielle
So I remember as I trained as a yoga teacher thinking, How crazy is it that we learn everything from the neck down and nothing about these 57 muscles in the head, face, neck area? Also, I was very interested in the face and I did some training in facial massage, and I would give some of my clients facial massages from time to time, and that was wonderful. And they noticed how amazing their skin looked after a treatment. But I didn't want it to be just about a treatment. I wanted them to actually be able to do face yoga on themselves, really do these face massages on themselves really easily every day in a really simple way. So I did a lot of research and I researched into techniques that have been used in yoga, I have had a traditional Chinese medicine, as well as looking at the science of the face. So looking at the three key layers of the skin, looking at how the muscles are composed, the lymphatic system, the bone structure. And I started to put together some key techniques. And I would teach them just at the end of my yoga classes.
[00:38:59.870] - Danielle
And people were loving it and they were really starting to see results. And actually looking back now that was so important for me honing my techniques because actually I was getting feedback from people I was seeing every day or every week. They were doing before and after photos for me. I would record little face yoga workouts for them just on a CD and they put a home on their CD player and listen to it and then do the face yoga techniques and come back a few weeks later and tell me the results that they've got. And that was really, really important. Then I started to think, okay, well, maybe this is something that I can actually take more nationally because I was teaching very much locally in the city that I live in, in Bath here in the UK, and I thought maybe this is something I can take nationally. I took a very big gamble, it's nothing I'd ever done before, and I applied for a national yoga show to speak on stage about face yoga. And of course, I was completely unknown and nobody was talking anything about face yoga back then at all.
[00:39:57.750] - Danielle
It was a concept that, yes, if you knew about the roots of yoga or perhaps you lived in India, you understood about, but actually, particularly in Europe and the Western world, nobody was talking about this. And the yoga show, it was the Om Yoga show in London, said to me, yes, come along and talk about face yoga. And I thought to myself, who is going to come and watch me do this? Anyway, I had 100 people come and turn up, which was absolutely amazing. And I made that little CD and I sold out of that little CD straight away. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, there are people who are as passionate about this as I am. And I've been very blessed over the last 17, 18 years. I now train people to be face yoga teachers. So I have a face yoga teach training certification. We have nearly 2,000 teachers in 71 different countries. I've written two best-selling books. I have a skincare line. I have a podcast, a YouTube channel, and I've been lucky enough to teach all around the world. And most of all, I'm able to do what I feel most passionate about, which is help people feel good and and that's really at the core of everything I do.
[00:41:02.610] - Jeanne
I think that's why it's been such a success, because it really comes through in everything you do, your whole demeanor, your energy, the way you communicate the techniques. You're such an inspiration to us, and I have so much compassion for your story, and I'm such a big believer and follower of Face Yoga. FIGGI goddess, you really need to check this out if you haven't already. Please go to Danielle Collins's website, get yourself her book. Her journal is amazing for keeping track of what you're doing every day and which exercises you're doing. She also has a skincare line. She's got a wonderful collection of Gwasha massage tools, and she's got so many videos on YouTube that show you how to use it and what to do with it. So, Danielle, is there anything that you would like to tell our audience about where they can find you, how they can interact with you?
[00:41:54.880] - Danielle
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me at faceyogaexpert. Com, and if you just go there on the homepage, you'll find a really fun quiz which is called, Which type of face yoga are you? And actually start to discover which type of face yoga you are and therefore what type of face yoga you should be doing. And you're emailed some key resources that are just right for your type. So that's a great place to start. You can also go on my website. And if you just look at the bottom of my homepage, you'll see a free guide on necklifting. Maybe if I give you the link for that and the quiz, then you can put that in your show notes as well, because that's a really good place to again start to learn some key techniques completely for free. And then you can take it from there. Obviously, you can follow me on Instagram, face yoga expert. I'm on YouTube, face yoga expert. Facebook, YouTube, all the places, face yoga expert.
[00:42:47.270] - Jeanne
Thank you so much for being on the My FIGGI Life podcast, sharing these things with us and also enlightening us on this more realistic approach to anti-aging or dealing with fine lines and wrinkles, holistic wellness, mental health, mindfulness. I'm very, very appreciative.
[00:43:04.070] - Danielle
Thank you so much for having me.
[00:43:05.840] - Jeanne
Okay, FIGGI goddess, that's it for us for today. Remember, as always, everyone deserves to celebrate the goddess within. Until next time, we'll be back to you again on the My FIGGI Live podcast.
[00:43:19.010] - Intro
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