Why Are Dermatologists Against Facial Exercises?

I received a question regarding my YouTube video, Facial Exercises: Rawsome Flex. Tonya, do you think the good doctor is wrong?- a viewer asked as she pointed me to another video by Dr. Schultz, Effects of Facial Exercises on Your Skin, where he states that facial exercises make your face worse by encouraging wrinkles, lines and saggy skin. 

Dr. Schultz, MD, is a dermatologist specializing in facial rejuvenation and the detection and treatment of skin cancer. In his video, the doctor says: "All elastic fibers, whether they are in your skin or in your clothing, have a finite fixed number of stretches in their life and after which they stop contracting."

In Yogic Tradition, life indeed is measured not in years, months or days, but in the number of breaths. But this "finiteness" never applied to the number of stretches. Quite the opposite!

My facial exercises are derived in part from yoga practice. And one thing we know with certainty: Yoga works. Yoga practitioners, other things being equal, stay younger longer. And yoga involves a lot of stretching. 

If stretching were bad, if facial stretching were a "total no-no," as Dr. Schultz claims, then my years of daily Bikram yoga practice and daily facial exercises should have ruined my skin by now, and I'd have a mass of turkey wattles. But those years haven't ruined me. They've made me.

In this article: Are Facial Exercises Damaging? You Must Know the Truth, I give a point-by-point rebuttal to Dr. Schultz' arguments against facial exercises. Read it and decide for yourself how to answer the viewer's question if the good doctor is right or wrong.

For more information about facial exercising, check out my book Rawsome Flex, which contains a complete facial exercise system composed of 30 exercises.

Answering Your Questions

Q: I have started the raw food diet. I feel so much better. I've lost some extra weight. I have more energy. But I've read that this is not a safe diet. Give me some proof!

A:  Understandably, our minds appeal to authority. Many conventional modern medical professionals are against the raw foods diet. Conventional modern medicine and their nutritionist allies approach raw foods from (what they conceive as) rational perspectives. They bring "concerns." They propose theories as to why raw foods don't work, shouldn't work, "can't work." But they don't even know what the raw food lifestyle is, nor have they ever tried it.

Nutritional science sees the raw food diet as a problem to poke holes in. But it is a miracle to live through. To discuss the raw food diet is easy--anyone can do that. But to live through it...to allow yourself to be transformed by it ... those things take time and persistence.

The raw food lifestyle is not an intellectual proposition. It's an experience. How do you learn what love is? There is only one way ... by loving. The one way to know whether the raw food diet works for you ... go raw. 

The best proof? Ultimately the only solid proof is your own experience.

Q: Tonya, what do you think of [insert name of supplement here]?

A: Recently, I was given a DVD that promotes a certain anti-aging supplement. "The biggest breakthrough ever" in anti-aging, it said, the result of 40 years of diligent clinical research studies. The researchers themselves touted their product right on the screen. 

While they explained the miraculous properties of their invention, they were inadvertently showing off their own old-looking, wrinkled skin covered with age spots. Then ... enters a beautiful young woman. She is shown happily swallowing the colorful pills. You, too, viewer, can look like this ... My first reaction: Physician, heal thyself!

Ads often say something along these lines: You can use this yourself to get energized without caffeine, herbs, or sugar. Folks "jump out of bed" in the morning instead of feeling stiff and cranky. Need more zip in your day? Feel like you're dragging yourself around? This energy formula can put more energy into your life ... 

But maybe you should first ask yourself: Why are you tired? Why do you look aged? The answer likely is: Your body is overloaded with toxins. That's why it is not capable of using the nutrients you're already ingesting. Will supplements help? Consider ... if you get "immediate energy" from a supplement, such as the one in the advertisement I've paraphrased above, that means it's a stimulant! And with stimulants, the body will demand more and stronger stimulants to get the same effect. This is not the way to health! For more information about the negative effects of stimulants, read Quantum Eating.

Absorbability is vital. The key to promoting health is absorbing as much of the nutrients that go into your body as possible. The right way to get there is to cleanse your body so that it can get everything it needs from a simple raw food meal.

We should rely on raw foods for proper nutrition. Leave the bizarre supplements in their cans and jars and bottles, on the store shelves. Mainstream marketing would have you believe that health comes from consuming lots and lots of certain nutrients. The more the merrier! They scare you claiming you're going to be "deficient" in this or that. We just need the nutrients and minerals we need. Not less. Not more.
 
Indiscriminately throwing a number of nutrients together could actually cause more harm than good. The bottom line: Not all nutrients work all that well together. In fact, a sort of competition can occur between some nutrients.

Even doctors promote supplements accompanied by claims along this line: Suppose you could drop all of your unwanted fat ... without going to the gym or watching your diet? 

The human body, properly maintained through raw foods and a healthy lifestyle, already knows perfectly well how to get the nutrients it needs. That diet, that lifestyle, of course, must be worked at, continuously. 

How can you recognize a fraud? Just as in other things, "easy is sleazy." If someone tells you: No diets ... No exercise! ... No discipline! ... Beware.