Exercising facial muscles is a great way of looking young. AT finds out if it can work in India . Forget those anti-ageing creams and Botox for now. There's a simpler way to look young without going under the surgeon's knife: facial yoga. In New York, facial yoga (face stretching, pulling face muscles up and down) is now the hippest way to stave off wrinkles and look forever mint-fresh. Much like a toned body, regular facial workouts enable proper blood circulation, reduce wrinkles and give you that glow. Surprisingly, it's catching up in India, too.

Rachana Parikh, a senior personal fitness trainer of a well known chain of gyms in Ahmedabad, says, "Facial yoga makes your skin glow. Apart from regular physical exercise, people should start facial yoga. It will be 100 per cent beneficial." Model Vaishali Desai chips in, "I do a lot of face exercises like uplifting my chin to keep my cheeks in shape and to avoid double chin.

These kind of exercises are easy and can be done anywhere." Renee Menezes, a course co-ordinator at a leading yoga institute in Goa, says, We teach facial yoga in our institute and it's quite popular among foreigners as they tend to get wrinkles faster, lose out moisture from the face and have worn out skin when they are young. We teach them different exercises for their mouth, facial muscles, lip muscles, eyebrows and eyes."

Some haven't tried it yet, but would like to in the near future. Actress Gul Panag feels, "When one does yoga to keep the body in shape, why should the face be left out?" Agrees, television star Sangeeta Ghosh, "Facial yoga helps face muscles." "Since facial yoga prevents wrinkles, it is bound to get popular in India too," feels model Anchal Kumar.

So if you want to look young without paying a bomb, how about trying some facial yoga for a change?