Looked in the mirror lately only to see a misshapen face that has hooded eyes, sagging cheeks and a double chin looking back at you? Maybe even today you lifted the skin up and back and wished it would stay that way.

If this is the sad state of your face, you may unwisely believe that only injections or plastic surgery can save it. You would be wrong!

Facial exercise has long been touted as the safest, most reliable remedy for sagging facial features because it is natural and cannot do harm. Just like exercise works for your arms, legs, torso and body, facial exercise can indeed create a newer looking face in just minutes a day.

That's right, in just minutes a day you can control the look of aging in your face using specialized facial exercises designed to tighten, lift and firm up sagging muscles and skin.

Droopy cheeks, down turned mouth corners, even that dreaded wattle can be chiseled when you learn how to create strong facial muscles. Muscles that weave over and under each other lose their elasticity by the time your face is 40 and by age 55, you can believe those muscles have elongated at least one-half inch.

Elongated muscles show up on our arms as jiggly arms. Inner thigh muscles soften due to muscle atrophy. We either begin wearing clothing that covers up our out of shape bodies or we hit the gym and begin a fitness routine.

It seems that most of society has begun to sit up and take notice that diet and exercise is vitally important to our vitality. People are out moving around; they walk, jog, lift weights, and go to Yoga classes, Pilate's classes, spinning classes, and more to keep their body in better shape so that it purrs and runs smoothly for years and years.

The face has been forgotten. Oh sure, there are plenty of skin care items that would like for you to believe their hype – an eye lift from a jar, fillers for wrinkles and diffusers that illuminate the skin. Skin care will not lift sagging muscles. There is no such thing as a face lift from a jar. Neither can you stand on your head nor lie on your back long enough so that your facial muscles do not sag.

Your personal appeal is centered around your face. When people see you, they look at your face then make assumptions regarding your health and well being just by looking at your eyes, your mouth corners and your expressions.

If you indulge in risky behavior when it comes to your face, you may end up disgruntled, disfigured or even dead.

Risky surgeries and procedures occur daily. This is because someone elects to do something drastic to change or alter their appearance without fully weighing all the consequences of using surgery or injections to look younger.

These pathways of surgery and using injections that plump and paralyze the face have not been fully explored by the scientists who develop the procedures and the serums. Scary but true. Most injections used by the medical community have not had extensive testing to show results for long-term use. Long term use is considered six months or more; if you are considering using Botox for your frown lines and you use the serum for over six months, you are pretty much on your own insofar as long use complications.

These quick fixes are not reliable methods but only temporary measures that act as a stop gap; they do nothing to stop aging in the face.

Using exercise stops aging and as long as you continue to exercise your face a few minutes a day several times per week, you could look ten to fifteen years younger than your peers for a very long time.

There's no expensive equipment to buy to perform these highly specialized movements. All you need are your thumbs and fingers and your white cotton gloves. And, don't forget your camera – be certain you take photos before you begin so you can see how far you have come in just nine weeks. You'll soon forget that you once had sagging cheeks, hooded eyes and a turkey wattle that made you look and feel older.