When you smile, you are using the zygomaticus major muscles, and these help accentuate the cheekbones and give a tapered or upside down triangle shape to the face. As these muscles also help lift the mouth when smiling, toning up these muscles not only adds shape and definition to the face but also counter-acts the natural downward droop of the mouth.

Exercising these muscles can be easy or more challenging, depending on how you use your face when talking. Some people’s faces are very animated when they talk and use these muscles a lot.

Others tend to only move the mouth when talking, while the rest of the face stays still.

If you are one of the latter group, isolating and exercising these muscles will seem strange, but the effort is worth it to avoid that drawn and sunken look a face full of slack muscles assumes as time goes by.

Use your index finger and middle finger for resistance. Place the first and middle finger of your right hand together, as if you were making your hand into an upside-down ‘gun’. Your finger nails are facing you and your palms are facing away from you.

Where your fingers should be placed inside your mouth. Open your mouth and place the two fingers of your right hand in your mouth, between your teeth/jaw and your left inner cheek.

Hold the fingers in your mouth my clamping down on them with your lips. This also tones the muscles around the mouth.

Now push your fingers gently away from your teeth/jaw, but at the same time try to push your fingers back against your jaw with the muscles in the cheek. Try not to squint the eyes when performing this exercise. 

Keep the tension isolated to your lower cheeks only. Hold for a slow count of up to 30 and then slowly relax.

Repeat this exercise with your left hand on the opposite right cheek.