Are you irritated and tired, or just seem to be so? If a person is constantly asked about why she or he is so sad and what happened, then his face signals trouble. If everything is ok, why do others read something else from the face? Today we will talk about such a phenomenon as Resting Bitch face (RBF) or Resting Sad face.
Myofascial Face Massage, Social Fatigue & Resting Sad Face
When a face is continually tense, the people around us recognize it as a clear sign of self-perceived inferiority. My face, for examplae, was so tense that, whether someone was making a joke at my expense or complimenting me, I could not help but respond in a bashful, embarrassed way. A sheepish grimace would betray me constantly by showing others that it was easy to make me uncomfortable. By undermining my ability to stay composed and be assertive, it made me a target for mistreatment by unkind or unthinking people. Myofascial facial massage obliterates this submissiveness. If you rarely look uncomfortable, people learn quickly that they are the ones that will look bad if they try to bully you. Moreover, you will be able to keep a fantastic poker face. The person who can keep a straighter face usually controls the situation. These days I only smile when I want to, and I can even tell the punchline to a joke with a straight face. Even after a long day of gregariousness, I can easily assume a calm, expressionless demeanor.
Social fatigue and resting sad face occurs when prolonged social encounters become stressful, overwhelming, and cause a person to seek rest from social interaction. When you are experiencing social fatigue, people can usually see it in your face. It derives from the fatigue of facial muscles. When these muscles tire, or when their latent trigger points become active, it becomes depleting. They are draining to use, and this diminishes our ability to express and be friendly. Studies have show that the amount a person smiles and makes socially engaging facial expressions are two of the best predictors of likeability. Using your face makes people want to be around you. But if your facial muscles are in perpetual fatigue, you can’t emote, and you will ultimately feel dejected.
Resting Sad face (or resting bitch face) is a popular term for a facial expression (or lack of expression) that unintentionally appears angry, or irritated. When we allow our face to relax more than usual, the tense muscles that we can not relax become readily apparent and belie our attempt to appear calm. One of my favorite rappers and music producers, Kanye West, has been called a poster child for bitchy resting face. This is probably attributable to the car accident which broke his jaw and introduced extensive trauma to his face. Our goal should be to let the face rest as much as possible and rehabilitate the facial muscles until a completely resting face is no longer bitchy. We want to shoot for a wide-eyed, peaceful resting face. Compressing and massaging your face will make it so that you rarely experience social fatigue and your resting face is inviting and receptive rather than contemptuous.
What is social fatigue and how can you manage it?
Social fatigue occurs when prolonged social encounters become stressful and overwhelming, and cause a person to seek rest from social interaction. Much of social fatigue derives from the exhaustion of facial muscles. When these muscles tire, or when their latent trigger points become active, they become debilitating. They are draining to use, and diminish our ability to express and be friendly. Studies have show that the amount that a person smiles and makes socially engaging facial expressions is one of the best predictors of likeability. Using your face makes people want to be around you. But if your facial muscles are in perpetual fatigue you can’t emote and you become dejected and depressed. When you are experiencing social fatigue people can usually see it in your face and your face expresses false emotional signals.
The problem of a Resting sad face is at the intersection of sciences - psychology, and physiology. Scientific statistics are such that 91% of patients turn to face surgeons with complaints of a "sad or tired facial expression." In plastic surgery, even a new stream has appeared: Face Expressive Lifting or facial expression lifting.
The Signs of Resting Sad Face Syndrome
First of all when your face is at rest and expresses sadness or dissatisfaction even if you are in a good mood – you have signs of a resting sad face. With time this expression is printed on your face because facial muscles freeze in the contraction phase and become 30% shorter than the original length. When the surface area is reduced, the skin becomes wrinkled and laid in folds. These are functional manifestations of resting sad face syndrome. When the mobility of facial expressions fails, people can no longer easily express emotions. Their facial expressions become sharp, twitchy, and inanimate, and their face freezes like a mask.
The signs of Resting Sad Face Syndrome:
- Mouth corners drooping
- Lips downturned
- Downturned mouth
- Downturned eyes
- Downturned nose
- Downturned face
- Wrinkle between eyebrows
- Wrinkle between eye and nose
- Crease on nose bridge
- Hooded eyes
- Ptosis of eyelid
- Ptosis of both eyelids
- Ptosis of the eye
- Nasolabial fold
- Nasal groove
- Lip twitching
- Tight lips
- Tight chin
All these changes in facial expressions are caused by muscle hypertonicity and face muscle contraction. It means that facial muscles reduced their ability to stretch and pump up blood to the face causing the effect of a "frozen or malicious smile." The reason is the tightness of the facial muscles.
Chronic spasm of muscle fibers leads to muscle thickening and debilitation of its functional properties. The muscles seem to freeze in the position of maximum contraction. Thick muscular bellies make facial expressions very heavy and rough.
One of the common facial muscle spasms causes by resting sad faces is chronic emotional stress. When you are nervous, frightened, and sad or experience misfortune you increase the activity of your facial muscles. As a result, the lips and chin are tightened, the teeth are clenched and new wrinkles and folds appear.
The second reason for Resting sad faces is our mimics. We constantly make faces subconsciously pulling depressor muscles and making these expressions habitual. As a result with time you start to have a sad expression printed on your face. You need to start to be aware of this subconscious move. Once you start to control your mimics you will stop producing facial tension.
The third reason for resting sad faces is our physiology. Nature has provided man with antagonists - pairs of muscles of mutually opposite action. The non-obvious reason is the eternal struggle of levators and depressors on the face. The levator muscles help express positive emotions, while the depressors help express negative ones.
Unfortunately, the number and volume of depressor muscle fibers is much greater! For example, if we take only one muscle called platysma, it plays a major role in expressing anger and disgust, you will understand that this muscle can pull all your lower face down.
In general, it is worth noting that negative emotions prevail in our world. Psychology identifies six basic emotions: joy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, and sadness. And only two of them are positive. To express negativity, people use 41% of their facial muscles, and they do it quickly, clearly, and bitingly. So it happened evolutionarily: pleasure can only please, but fear, anger, and stress can save a life.
First, in order to fix resting sad face we must acknowledge the resting b face problems. Your face is a reflection of your nervous system. It means that you need to work with your macular system and your psyche but definitely not to rush to facial surgeons and inject face with Botox. Myofascial face massage is the only natural possible method of correction of psychoemotional states.
How to fix resting B face? It is important to return facial muscles to their former shape, tone, and length and relieve facial tension that has accumulated over the years. As a result, the skin over the relaxed muscles will straighten out. Thus we get a relaxed and younger-looking face without aggressive invasions into our skin. Cosmetic compression used in our face workouts obliterates facial tension and smoothes facial skin. Moreover, you will learn how to keep a fantastic poker face and always control the situation with your mimics and maintain the ability to stay calm and composed.
We have developed an amazing 30-day face fitness video program for Resting Sad Face: Myofascial Release for the face – stress off! This program offers the best natural resting bitch face treatment. Remember, that any woman with a relaxed face looks happy and pleased. Look below to see the face fitness results of women who took this program:
By Marina Zuzie,
Medically Reviewed by Tatiana Zuzina, Tartu University, Estonia
