Brow Lift Exercises and Gua Sha Brow Technique: A Guided Routine

Brow lift exercises may help the muscles around your brows feel more toned and relaxed, and they build awareness of frowning and brow-raising habits, but they do not reposition your eyebrows the way a surgical lift does, and the evidence for a visible change is limited. The most useful approach pairs gentle, anchored brow exercises with a light gua sha sequence along the brow bone. Below you’ll find four exercises, a step-by-step brow gua sha routine, and how to track the area honestly.

Can exercises lift your eyebrows?

The short answer: not in any guaranteed way. Brow position depends mostly on bone structure, skin, age and the balance of the muscles that pull the brows up and down. Exercise can only influence the last of these, and only modestly.

Research on facial exercise is small. The best-known study, a 2018 pilot in JAMA Dermatology, enrolled 27 women aged 40 to 65; 16 completed 20 weeks of daily, then alternate-day, exercise, and dermatologists rating their photos saw fuller upper and lower cheeks (Alam et al., 2018). It didn’t measure brows, had no control group, and used 30-minute sessions. A 2025 systematic review of 12 studies on facial exercise, myofunctional therapy and massage concluded the evidence is still insufficient (ASJ Open Forum, 2025). Larger controlled studies are needed.

What you can realistically expect is a temporary feeling of a lighter, less tense brow area, a few calm minutes, and better awareness of habits like frowning at screens.

Anatomy of the brow in one minute

Your brows sit where muscles pulling in opposite directions meet (StatPearls, facial muscles):

• Frontalis is the broad forehead muscle. It is the only muscle that raises the brows, and when it contracts it creases the forehead into horizontal lines.
• Corrugator supercilii pulls the brows down and toward each other. It makes the vertical “11” lines when you frown.
• Procerus sits over the bridge of the nose and pulls the inner brows down.
• Orbicularis oculi circles the eye and closes the eyelids. Its outer part also tugs the tail of the brow down when you squint.

The goal of a brow routine is balance: relax the muscles that pull down and in, work the area without over-firing the frontalis. That last part matters because repeated, unanchored brow raising folds the forehead in the same spot, one of the reasons forehead lines form. Our guide to forehead wrinkles explains this in more depth.

4 brow exercises with an anchor

The “anchor” is simple: your hands hold the forehead skin smooth and still, so the brow area works without the forehead bunching up. Sit tall, relax your shoulders, and use a mirror the first few times. Holds and reps below are suggestions; do fewer if anything feels strained.

1. Anchored brow raise

• Setup: Place both palms flat across your forehead, little fingers resting just above your brows. Press only enough to keep the skin from moving.
• Movement: Try to lift your brows slightly, as if surprised, while your hands keep the forehead smooth.
• Hold and reps: Hold for about 5 seconds, release fully, and repeat 5 to 8 times.
• Common mistake: Letting the skin slide up under your hands. If it creases, press a little more firmly and lift a little less.

2. Brow resistance press

• Setup: Lay your index fingers horizontally just above each brow, along the brow line.
• Movement: Press down gently with your fingers while you try to raise your brows against them.
• Hold and reps: Hold for 3 to 5 seconds, release, and repeat 5 times.
• Common mistake: Pressing so hard you pull the eyelids down. The resistance should feel light.

3. Frown release

• Setup: Rest the palm of one hand on the centre of your forehead as the anchor. Place two fingertips of the other hand between your brows.
• Movement: Smooth slowly outward from between the brows toward one temple, then the other, while you consciously let the frown go. Breathe out as you glide.
• Hold and reps: About 30 seconds of slow strokes.
• Common mistake: Rushing. This is a relaxation move for the corrugator and procerus, so slow is the point.

4. Wide-eye hold

• Setup: Keep one palm flat on your forehead.
• Movement: Open your eyes wide and look upward without raising your forehead, then soften your gaze.
• Hold and reps: Hold for about 5 seconds, relax, and repeat 5 times.
• Common mistake: Squinting or straining. Blink between reps and skip this move if your eyes feel dry or tired.

Safety: Stop any move that causes pain, headache or eye discomfort. Check with a doctor first if you’ve had recent eye or facial surgery, injectables in the area, or an eye condition.

Gua sha brow sequence

A light gua sha sequence along the brow bone can feel soothing and help the area relax. This is a short version of the brow and forehead steps in our full gua sha routine.

Prep and tool angle

1. Cleanse your face and pat it dry.
2. Apply a few drops of facial oil to the brows, forehead and temples. The stone should glide, never tug.
3. Hold the stone almost flat, at roughly a 15-degree angle to the skin. A flatter angle spreads the pressure and keeps it gentle.
4. Use light pressure throughout. If you’re choosing a tool, our guide to how to choose a gua sha stone compares shapes and materials.

The strokes

1. Inner brow to hairline. Place the curved edge at the inner end of one brow and glide straight up to the hairline. Repeat 3 to 5 times, then move slightly outward and repeat until you reach the middle of the brow.
2. Along the brow to the temple. Fit the notch or curved edge just above the brow hairs and glide from the inner brow along the brow bone to the temple. Repeat 3 to 5 times.
3. Temple hold. At the end of the last stroke, rest the stone on the temple and hold for about 3 to 5 seconds with gentle pressure while you breathe out.
4. Finish down the neck. Glide from the temple down in front of the ear and along the side of the neck.
5. Switch sides and repeat the whole sequence.

The whole sequence takes 2 to 3 minutes. Why does it feel refreshing? A small pilot study of body gua sha in 11 healthy people found a short-term increase in blood flow at the skin’s surface (Nielsen et al., 2007). It was not done on the face and didn’t look at lasting changes, so it says nothing about lifting brows. For a broader look at the research, read does gua sha work.

Safety

• Stay on the bone. Never stroke over the eyelid or along the lash line, and never press on the eye itself.
• No marks. Facial gua sha should not leave redness that lasts or bruises. If you see bruising, you pressed too hard; let it heal before your next session.
• Skip irritated skin. Avoid areas with breakouts, cuts, rashes, sunburn or recent cosmetic treatments.

How often and how long

A few minutes daily, or most days, is plenty. Try the four exercises (about 3 minutes) plus the gua sha sequence (2 to 3 minutes) for a routine of around five minutes. Consistency matters more than length: a short routine you keep is better than a long one you abandon. Our guide on how often to do face yoga covers how to build the habit and when to take rest days.

Combine with eye-area care

The brow and the eye area work together. If your upper lids look heavier in the morning, puffiness is often part of the picture, and it tends to vary with sleep, salt and alcohol. Gentle depuffing massage and a regular sleep schedule may help your eyes look fresher; our guide on how to debloat your face covers the basics.

If your concern is the fold of skin over the lid, read our guide to face yoga for hooded eyes, which pairs well with this routine. For moves around the rest of the face, browse all facial exercises by area.

Track your brows honestly

Small changes are hard to judge in a mirror, so take simple, consistent photos:

• Same light, same place. Stand facing a window at the same time of day.
• Neutral face. Relax your forehead completely and look straight ahead. Don’t raise your brows for the photo.
• Same distance and angle. Front view at eye level, phone at arm’s length.
• Monthly, not daily. Compare photos a month apart and note how the area feels, not only how it looks.

Our guide to face yoga before and after photos explains how to set this up. Gluvy’s progress journal lets you save selfies and notes in one place.

Practise brow exercises and gua sha with Gluvy

Getting the angle, pressure and order right is easier when you can watch every stroke. Gluvy’s gua sha video courses include about 34 guided routines, among them the brow gua sha courses, with a timer for every step. For the exercise side, Gluvy’s face yoga video workouts cover the forehead, eyes and the rest of the face in 3-week plans of 5 to 10 minutes a day. You can download Gluvy for iPhone and start with a short daily session.

Sources

• Alam M. et al. Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging. JAMA Dermatology, 2018.
• Efficacy of Conservative Techniques for Mechanical Facial Rejuvenation: A Systematic Review. Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum, 2025.
• StatPearls. Anatomy, Head and Neck: Facial Muscles. NCBI Bookshelf.
• Nielsen A. et al. The effect of Gua Sha treatment on the microcirculation of surface tissue: a pilot study in healthy subjects. Explore (NY), 2007.