No need to be worried by sagging jowls, crow's feet or frown lines – even if you hate the thought of surgery. Facial exercise can help you look younger without the pain and expense of a facelift.

Facial exercise is the non-invasive approach to lifting and toning your facial features. Exercising the muscles under your skin increases the amount of oxygen to the facial muscles and helps rejuvenate the cells, giving your face a younger and healthier appearance.

Doing the right facial exercises regularly can lift and tone your whole face - including your chin, cheeks, and eyebrows - and what's more, it should take no more than just a few minutes of your day. It's never too early to start - even if you are under 40 - you should start facial exercises to maintain the great muscle tone you have for as long as possible.

To understand just how facial exercise works, you first need to understand what wrinkles and lines are. You may assume that wrinkles are the result of the skin stretching - but the truth is that skin wrinkles when the underlying muscle weakens and is no longer able to offer support. The result - sagging skin, bags, lines and wrinkles.

Unlike other muscles in your body, the muscles of your face are connected to both the skin and the bone, forming a cushion for the skin to rest on. It's when your face muscles start to lose their tone that wrinkles and lines appear. Facial exercise – like any other exercise - can tone up those muscles resulting in smoother, healthier looking skin.

You may be worried that facial exercise may actually cause wrinkles because of the repeated facial movement. This is a popular misconception that simply isn't true. With regular facial exercise you strengthen the underlying muscle which will improve your appearance, defining facial features and making you look much younger.

It is important to remember, though, that just as with any other kind of exercise, facial exercise can cause problems if you don't do them properly. You need to learn how to do each exercise by following clear diagrams and instructions, attending a class or watching a video.

While facial exercises do lift your face - the results aren't as dramatic as a surgical facelift. Do the exercises regularly though and the difference in your face may be enough to make people think you've had cosmetic surgery.

And there are some big advantages over cosmetic surgery. Unlike cosmetic surgery facial exercising won't cost you a lot of money. Nor will you need to undergo a second painful and expensive procedure after 5-10 years as gravity undoes the surgeon's work.

Facial exercise - like any form of physical exercise - brings extra oxygen to the skin's surface reducing toxins and enhancing the delivery of essential nutrients. The result is more youthful looking skin that glows. You certainly won't get that from cosmetic surgery.

Of course you do have to build in time to do your facial exercises into your day. To start with if your face muscles are seriously weakened it may take you a little while to bring back tone and develop muscle mass. Just like going to the gym after you've neglected your body for a long time.

Once your face is toned and lifted and your face muscles are at their optimum strength then it should take no more than half an hour two or three times a week to maintain your new youthful look. Not a lot of time to spend on looking younger – and the results will last as long as you want them to.