Facial features and looks often suggest your health and personality. Having sunken cheeks can convey lot of negative things about your look and you appear older than your age, exhausted and sick. With growing age, your cheeks tend to sink and hollow, it is natural phenomenon to some extent. In fact some of the facial features such as wrinkles and sunken cheeks are first sign of ageing.
However, besides aging, there are many other reasons that may cause hollow cheeks. The main underlying reason for it is loss of skin elasticity and depletion of subcutaneous fat in your cheeks.
What Are The Causes Of Sunken Cheeks?
Cheeks look supple, smooth and puffy due to presence of large amount of collagen tissues in the skin. Collagen tissue helps to maintain skin elasticity and thus keep them smooth and supple. Subcutaneous fat beneath the facial skin helps to keep the face plump.
- With growing age, there is loss of subcutaneous fat and slight amount of muscle wasting even though the bone remains intact and normal. With all the above changes in the supportive structures of the facial skin, it begins to sink and cause sunken cheeks.
- Besides aging there are many other factors that may be responsible for sunken cheeks. Lack of nourishment and starvation can cause loss of subcutaneous fat under the cheek as a result the cheeks begin to sink. If you do extreme exercises you are likely to lose fat from certain areas such as cheeks and thighs etc.
- Sunken cheeks may also occur if you do not eat enough or if you are dieting or due to dehydration. Sunken cheeks are one of the sign of chronic disease. Serious health conditions such as cancer, tuberculosis, bulimia and anorexia nervosa can cause hollow and sunken cheeks.
Natural Ways To Get Rid Of Sunken Cheeks
- Many people seek cosmetic enhancement of their sunken cheeks. There are wide varieties of measures to improve the profile of cheeks. One of the most commonly used methods is facial implants. It is a surgical procedure where patient’s own fat from other part of body is planted in the cheek area. This fat is often obtained from abdomen, thigh, or the buttocks. Besides grafting method, fillers are also used to enhance the puffiness of cheeks.
- Sunken cheeks can also be inflated with simple exercise of mouth and face. Fill your mouth with air and keep the lips closed. Now move the air to the right side of your cheeks and keep it there for 10 seconds. Now move the air in left side of mouth and let the air remain for 10 seconds before exhaling it out. Repeat this exercise at least 5 times in a day.
- Smile is a good exercise for strengthening and toning muscles of cheek and face. With your lips closed, smile to an extent as lengthy as possible. Extend the corners of your mouth to touch the ears. Now make effort to wrinkle the nasal skin. You will experience contraction of muscles of cheeks. Hold your smile in this position for 10 seconds and relax. Repeat it several times in a day.
- Eat nourishing diet consisting of all essential nutrients. Protein, fats and carbohydrates are essential for the body. Minerals and vitamins too are needed for maintaining healthy skin and muscle structure. Avoid dehydration by drinking at least 8 glasses of water in a day.