5 easy to do home exercises for bell’s palsy

bell’s palsy is face exercises

Imagine waking up one morning unable to either blink your eyes or purse your lips. A frightful experience isn’t it? Unfortunately, this is what approximately 23 out of 100,000 people aged 15-60 years may suddenly find themselves in one morning.

Bell’s palsy is a kind of facial paralysis that makes muscles of one side of your face extremely weak.

The affected individual may fail to control the facial muscles of his affected side. Significant damage to your facial nerve, which is responsible to regulate the muscles of the affected side of your face, is the prominent cause of Bell’s palsy.

Numbness and weakness in your face’s affected side, drooling, difficulty to close eye of the affected side, pain behind or in your ear, increase in sensitivity to sound, loss of taste, and eye problems are some of the common symptoms of Bell’s palsy.

However, following certain exercises regularly can help you alleviate the discomfort resulting due to this type of facial paralysis. Read on to discover all about it.

what are bell’s palsy exercises?

Bell’s Palsy exercises are one of the most effective treatments to improve the functioning of your facial muscles and alleviate your discomfort.

Performing various Bell ’s palsy exercises daily can help prevent further shrinking of your facial muscles. These exercises work on your muscles of face, eyes, nose, lips, and other facial parts to promote your facial movements effectively. And, the best part is that you can perform them at your home.

So, if you are looking for some effective Bell’s palsy exercises, we are here to help you. Find below a list of exercises to alleviate discomfort due to Bell’s palsy.

effective facial exercises for bell palsy’s to do at home regularly:

While performing various facial exercises for Bell’s Palsy, sit in front of the mirror.

1. Eyebrow Exercises

• Look in the mirror, raise your eyebrows, and hold them in the raised state for 10 -15 seconds. Continue holding your eyebrow in the raised state till the corner of your mouth or cheek begins to move. Wrinkle your forehead.
• Place your four fingertips on your affected eyebrow, and rub by making a firm stroke with your fingertips up to the hairline.
• Make a frowning face and try to draw your eyebrows down.

2. Lip Exercises

• Curl your upper lip up. Then raise it and try to protrude your upper lip.
• Close and lightly compress both your lips just as the kid in the picture above. Then, release them and again lightly compress both the lips. Try to maintain the lip compression till your eyelid begins to move. During this exercise, focus on relaxing the muscles that surround your eyes. Initially, your eye movements might occur. Following this regularly, you will be able to perform these lip movements without involving your eye.
• Pucker your both the lips and maintain lip compression for some time.
• Snarl by stretching both your lips.
• Now smile. While smiling focus on your smile till your eyelid is not involved. Watch your eye and lower eyelid. Also, watch your neck muscle and try not to pop it out while you are smiling.
• First smile without showing your teeth up and then smile by showing your teeth.
• Speaking activities also help improve lip movements. Practice speaking words that involve letters B, M, F, and P slowly and softly, and repeat them by looking in the mirror continuously. Maintain our eyelids open while you are speaking.
• Puff your cheeks out with air in them. Now, hold your air-puffed lips shut ensuring that no air escapes out. Hold your puffed cheeks for 3 to 5 seconds.

3. Nose Exercises

• Wrinkle up your nose.
• Sniffle
• Have a deep breath through your nostrils and try to flare your nostrils.

4. Eye Exercises

• Compress your eyes making them narrow as if you are trying to look at the sun. Close your eye gently as the kid in the picture above.
• Look down. Keep your neck straight and without bending it look down, this helps in exercising your eye and eyelids.
• Place the back of your index finger on your closed eyelid and use the opposite hand along your eyebrow in order to stretch your eyebrow upwards. This exercise helps your affected eyelid to relax and prevent it from becoming too stiff.
• Gently press your eyelids together.
• Wink your one eye gently and then the other. Make sure you do not push it.
• Wide open your eyes without involving the movement of your eyebrow. Stop widening your eyes if you experience any inappropriate muscle movement.

5. Neck and Chin Exercises

• Tilt your head to one side and slightly backwards, then hold it for ten seconds and slowly get back to normal. Follow the same on the other side. This neck exercise stretches your neck muscle and improves its flexibility.
• Wrinkle or harden your chin
• Like a boxer, stick out your chin

care tips:

While performing these exercises at home, to mitigate your discomfort resulting due to Bell’s palsy, you also need to take some proper care. Make sure you follow these care tips.

• Try chewing your food by involving both the sides of your mouth. Doing so helps you retain normal patterns when you get your normal movements back.
• Make sure you do not chew the gums as chewing the gums exercises your wrong muscles and may also make you suffer from synkinesis.

Want to know more about Physiotherapy exercises for Bell’s Palsy? Use Portea chat and book online video consultation with a physiotherapy doctor for more details.

Manjiri Kochrekar

Author

Manjiri loves to explore various facts, ideas, and aspects of life and pen them down in her own words. Writing is her passion, which means she enjoys writing on a vast variety of subjects, and health care is just one among her several specialty areas. She works closely with the Portea Health care team to churn out informative health content.