Why Making Silly Faces Is Serious Somatic Work
On facial expressions, grimasses, and the intelligence of the nervous system
When was the last time you intentionally made a really silly face?
Not a polite smile.
Not a socially acceptable expression.
But a full-on grimace: tongue out, eyes wide, jaw moving in strange directions.
For many adults, the answer is: years ago. And that’s fascinating — and a little concerning — from a somatic perspective.
On facial expressions, grimasses, and the intelligence of the nervous system
When was the last time you intentionally made a really silly face?
Not a polite smile.
Not a socially acceptable expression.
But a full-on grimace: tongue out, eyes wide, jaw moving in strange directions.
For many adults, the answer is: years ago.
And that’s fascinating — and a little concerning — from a somatic perspective.
The face: a small area holding a surprising amount of tension
In somatic work, we often talk about the jaw, the throat, and the eyes as key places where tension accumulates. The face contains over 40 muscles, many of them small, subtle, and chronically underused or held in habitual patterns.
Think about it:
We learn early which expressions are “acceptable”
We suppress others to fit in, stay polite, or feel safe
Over time, certain muscles stay contracted, while others go offline
The result?
A face that works hard to contain rather than to express.
From a nervous system point of view, this matters much more than we were taught to believe.
Your brain listens to your face (not only the other way around)
We often assume emotions start in the brain and then show up on the face. But neuroscience and psychology have been telling a more circular story for decades.
This is known as the facial feedback hypothesis.
In short:
👉 The way we move our face sends information back to the brain and influences how we feel.
One striking example comes from research on Botox.
In several studies, researchers observed that people who received Botox injections — which temporarily paralyze certain facial muscles — reported:
Lower intensity of emotional experience
Reduced subjective feelings of happiness
Changes in emotional processing and empathy
Why?
Because when the face can’t move freely, the brain receives less emotional feedback.
As Aubrey Marcus summarized in a podcast with bodyworker Tom Myers:
When facial muscles can’t naturally express (including smiling), subjective happiness goes down. The brain uses feedback from our grimaces to regulate hormones and emotional states.
This also affects social interaction. People unconsciously read micro-expressions to understand each other. Reduced facial mobility doesn’t just change how you feel — it changes how others feel with you.
Somatics: restoring movement, restoring information
From a somatic perspective, the goal is not to “look happy” or perform emotions.
It’s to restore movement, sensation, and choice.
When we explore facial expressions and grimasses in somatic yoga classes or individual sessions, something interesting often happens.
At first, many people say:
“This feels awkward”
“I feel silly”
“I’m not sure I’m doing it right”
And then — usually a few minutes later — there’s laughter. Relief. Warmth. A sense of aliveness in the face.
Because what we’re really doing is:
Waking up dormant muscles
Letting long-held tension discharge
Giving the nervous system richer, more nuanced sensory input
What about the “bad” emotions?
Here’s an important part that often gets skipped.
Many facial expressions we avoid are directly linked to emotions we’ve learned to label as bad or unwanted:
Anger (tight jaw, flared nostrils, narrowed eyes)
Sadness (drooping eyelids, trembling lips)
Disgust (wrinkled nose, pulled-back mouth)
Fear (wide eyes, frozen mouth)
If those expressions were once unsafe — socially, emotionally, or relationally — it makes sense that the face learned to limit them.
But when facial movement connected to certain emotions is chronically inhibited, those emotions don’t disappear. They often go underground, showing up as:
Jaw pain, headaches, teeth grinding
Emotional flatness or overwhelm
Difficulty knowing what we actually feel
Somatic facial work gently reintroduces these expressions without needing to act them out in life. The face gets to move; the nervous system gets the message; the emotion can complete a cycle.
No drama required.
Face yoga and face massage: a softer doorway
For some people, jumping straight into exaggerated grimasses can feel like too much.
This is where face yoga and facial self-massage can be a beautiful, nervous-system-friendly entry point.
They:
Increase blood flow and sensory awareness
Invite movement without immediate emotional charge
Help rebuild a sense of safety and curiosity in the face
Often, once sensation returns through touch and gentle activation, expressive movement feels more accessible — and even enjoyable.
From a somatic lens, this isn’t “less effective.”
It’s simply meeting the system where it is.
The vagus nerve and the face: an intimate relationship
The face plays a key role in ventral vagal regulation, the branch of the vagus nerve associated with:
Safety
Social engagement
Emotional regulation
Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory highlights how facial expression, eye contact, voice tone, and the listening muscles of the middle ear are deeply interconnected.
When facial movement is limited or frozen:
Social engagement becomes harder
Emotional expression narrows
The nervous system may stay in low-level defense
Gentle, playful facial movements can:
Support vagal tone
Increase flexibility between emotional states
Help the system shift out of chronic vigilance
In other words: making faces can be a regulation practice, not just a warm-up.
Emotional processing lives in the details
Another underestimated benefit of facial work is emotional nuance.
Many people describe their emotions in broad categories:
“fine,” “stressed,” “overwhelmed.”
But emotions are layered, subtle, and constantly changing.
Facial expressions help us:
Differentiate emotional states
Allow mixed emotions to coexist
Process feelings without needing to explain or analyze them
Sometimes a face movement releases sadness.
Sometimes irritation.
Sometimes joy that didn’t feel “allowed” before.
No story required.
The body knows.
Why we resist — and why that matters
It’s worth naming that discomfort around grimacing is not random.
For many of us, expressive faces were once:
Mocked
Shamed
Labeled “too much”
Or learned to be unsafe in certain environments
So when resistance shows up, it’s not a failure.
It’s information.
In my somatic yoga classes and individual sessions, I often see people move from hesitation to genuine enjoyment — not because they’re “doing it better,” but because their nervous system learns it’s safe to express again.
An invitation (no mirror required)
You don’t need a special practice or a long routine.
Try this sometime:
Close your eyes
Slowly move your jaw, lips, tongue, eyes
Let the movements be exaggerated, strange, unnecessary
Notice sensation rather than appearance
Then pause.
Notice your breath.
Notice your mood.
Often, something has shifted — quietly, but clearly.
Final thought: seriousness is overrated
Somatic work doesn’t always look deep and quiet.
Sometimes it looks like crossed eyes, puffed cheeks, and spontaneous laughter.
And maybe that’s part of the wisdom.
Because a nervous system that can play, express, and move freely
is a nervous system with more choice, resilience, and capacity for connection.
Even — or especially — when it looks a little ridiculous.
Selected research & references (for curious minds)
Darwin, C. (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Strack, F., Martin, L. L., & Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile
Havas, D. A. et al. (2010). Cosmetic use of botulinum toxin-A affects processing of emotional language
Wollmer, M. A. et al. (2012). Facing depression with botulinum toxin
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory
