Your Best Smile

As with any complex neuromuscular activity the smile can be trained in efficient performance and correct musculoskeletal activation. It has been well established that training exercises involving repetitive activity with visual feedback lead to improved function. These techniques have been applied to sports acting, dance, etc. and can also be applied to smiling.

Perform the following smile exercises in front of a mirror:

1. Move the corners of the mouth up slightly without revealing any teeth. Hold this position for ten seconds while you see and feel how the muscles move.

2. Move to a half smile. The upper corners of the mouth move slightly more upward, the lips spread, and the cheeks move somewhat. Hold this position for ten seconds, again seeing and feeling the movement of the muscles.

3. Advance to a full smile. The corners of the mouth move into the uppermost position, the lips are stretched taut, and the teeth become exposed. The amount of exposed dentition that constitutes a pleasing smile is determined by your personal taste and preference. Repeat in reverse sequence

4. To strengthen the smile muscles repeat these exercises using resistance. To accomplish this place two index fingers into the corner of the mouth and use them to resist the movement of the smile muscles. Each position should be held for ten seconds and repeated ten times a day.

For most people it is fairly easy to achieve the half smile because this is the extent of their typical smile, since minimal teeth have been bared. The importance rests in separating each of the muscle movements, giving an awareness of muscle movement as opposed to simply unconscious behavior.

A self curing silicon can be injected into the nasal spine to hold down the lip in a gummy smile.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 7:49 amand is filed under Neuromuscular Smile Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.