Double Chin Exercises: What They Can and Cannot Do

Double chin exercises can engage the muscles under your jaw and at the front of your neck, ease tension and train better posture, but they cannot reduce the fat under your chin, because the body doesn’t lose fat from the spot you exercise. A double chin mostly comes from genetics, overall body fat, age-related skin changes and posture. Below you’ll find what causes it, six gentle exercises with step-by-step form, the posture and photo habits that change the look of the area the most, and when it’s worth seeing a professional.

Short answer: what to expect

Exercises work on muscle and posture; they don’t change fat or loose skin in one spot. That doesn’t make them pointless; it just helps to know what you’re training.

What a short daily routine can realistically give you:

• Muscle engagement under the jaw and along the front of the neck.
• Posture awareness. Many of the moves start with lengthening the neck, which reminds you how you hold your head the rest of the day.
• Less tension in the jaw and neck after long hours at a screen.

What it can’t do is shrink fat under the chin or tighten loose skin. The research on facial exercise is thin overall. The best-known study followed 16 women who completed 20 weeks of daily, then alternate-day, face exercises; dermatologists rated their upper and lower cheeks as fuller in standardised photos (Alam et al., 2018). It was small, had no control group and didn’t look at the chin or neck. Larger controlled studies are needed. For the full picture, see does face yoga work.

The good news: posture and camera angle change how the area looks more than most people expect, and you can adjust both today.

What causes a double chin

A double chin usually comes from several factors at once, and most of them have little to do with effort. It’s a common feature, not a flaw, and it shows up at every size and age.

• Genetics. Genes influence where your body stores fat, how firm your skin is and the shape of your jaw and chin bones. A shorter jaw or a chin set further back can make fullness under it more visible, even at a lower body weight.
• Overall body fat. Fat under the chin rises and falls with fat across the whole body. Exercising the chin doesn’t target it.
• Age and skin laxity. With age, skin gradually loses firmness and elasticity, and sun exposure speeds this up (AAD). Fullness under the chin and neck can come from skin, fat or the underlying muscle, or a mix of the three (Cleveland Clinic).
• Muscle. The platysma is a thin, sheet-like muscle just under the skin that covers most of the front and sides of the neck and runs up toward the jaw (StatPearls). With age, its edges can become more visible as bands.
• Posture. When your head drifts forward and down toward a phone, the soft tissue under your chin folds together and looks fuller while you’re in that position. A modelling study estimated that the load on the neck rises steeply as the head tilts forward (Hansraj, 2014).

Exercises can only touch the last two, and only modestly. If the fullness is mostly along the jaw, see what causes jowls; for loose neck skin, see our turkey neck exercises.

6 double chin exercises to try

These six moves engage and stretch the muscles under the jaw and at the front of the neck, and train a more neutral head position. Sit or stand tall with your ears roughly over your shoulders. Move slowly, keep every tilt small, and breathe normally.

Safety first: never throw your head back or force your neck into a position. If you have a neck condition (a disc problem, arthritis in the neck, a recent injury, or tingling or numbness in your arms), jaw joint (TMJ) pain, or recent surgery or injections in the area, check with a doctor or physiotherapist before you start. Stop any move that causes pain, dizziness, clicking or pins and needles.

1. Chin Lift (about 40 seconds)

1. Sit tall and look straight ahead.
2. Lengthen the back of your neck, then lift your chin a little, just enough to look at the line where the wall meets the ceiling.
3. Close your lips and push your lower lip gently up over the upper lip. You should feel a light stretch under the jaw.
4. Hold for about 5 seconds, then bring your head back to level.
5. Repeat 5 or 6 times.

Common mistake: crunching the back of the neck. Think “lengthen up, then tilt slightly”, not “tip back”.

2. Tongue Press (about 45 seconds)

1. Sit tall with your head level and lips closed.
2. Press your whole tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth, from the tip to the back.
3. You should feel the muscles under your chin engage. Hold for about 5 seconds.
4. Relax the tongue fully, then repeat 6 to 8 times.

Common mistake: clenching the teeth while you press. Keep your teeth slightly apart and your face soft. The Tongue Reach in our face yoga exercises guide pairs well with it.

3. Neck Curl (about 45 seconds)

1. Lie on your back on a bed or mat with your knees bent and your arms by your sides.
2. Gently nod your chin toward your chest, as if saying a small “yes”, without lifting your head.
3. Keeping that nod, lift your head just a centimetre or two off the surface.
4. Hold for 3 to 5 seconds, then lower slowly and relax.
5. Start with 3 to 5 repetitions and build up gradually only if it feels comfortable.

Common mistake: leading with the chin or lifting high. The movement is small; the effort is in the front of the neck, not the shoulders. Skip this one if you have a neck condition.

4. Platysma Stretch (about 35 seconds)

This is a gentle version of the Sky Smile move from the Gluvy app.

1. Sit tall and tilt your head back slightly, only as far as is comfortable, to look toward the ceiling.
2. Smile as wide as you comfortably can with your lips closed, or pull the corners of your mouth gently down and out.
3. You should feel a stretch along the jaw and down the front of the neck. Hold for 3 or 4 slow breaths.
4. Bring your head back to level and relax. Repeat 3 or 4 times.

Common mistake: letting the head drop far back. A small tilt is enough to feel the stretch.

5. Gentle Jaw Jut (about 40 seconds)

1. Sit tall with your lips closed and teeth slightly apart.
2. Slowly slide your lower jaw forward until you feel a light stretch under your chin. Don’t force it.
3. Hold for about 5 seconds, then let the jaw slide back.
4. Repeat 5 or 6 times.

Common mistake: jutting hard or clenching. Keep it slow and soft. Skip this move if you have jaw pain, clicking or locking, and see a dentist or doctor about those symptoms. If your jaw often feels tight, our jaw tension relief routine is a gentler place to start.

6. Head Tilt (about 45 seconds)

1. Sit tall with your shoulders down and away from your ears.
2. Slowly tilt your right ear toward your right shoulder until you feel a gentle stretch along the left side of your neck.
3. Hold for 3 or 4 slow breaths. Don’t pull your head with your hand.
4. Return to centre and repeat on the other side. Do 2 rounds per side.

Common mistake: lifting the shoulder to meet the ear. Keep both shoulders low.

Together, the six moves take about four minutes. Do them daily or a few times a week, for how your neck feels and for the habit, not for a promised change by a set date. For more jaw and lower-face moves, see our jawline exercises.

Posture and photo fixes

How you hold your head, and where the camera is, often changes the look of the area under your chin more than any routine. ### Ease up on tech neck

Hours of looking down at a phone or laptop let your head drift forward and fold the tissue under your chin. Small changes help:

• Raise your screen. Set the top of your monitor roughly at eye level, and lift your phone toward your face instead of dropping your chin to it.
• Reset with chin tucks. Every hour or two, glide your chin straight back (without nodding down) and hold for a few seconds. It reminds you where neutral is.
• Check your ear-shoulder line. In a side mirror, your ear should sit roughly above your shoulder.

Camera height

A camera below your face, like a laptop on your lap, looks up at the underside of your jaw and exaggerates fullness there. Raise it to eye level or slightly above for calls and selfies.

Chin forward, not up

For photos, push your face gently forward toward the camera and tip your chin very slightly down, keeping your neck long. It feels odd but defines the line between jaw and neck.

If you compare photos over time, keep the light, camera height and head position the same; our face yoga before and after guide shows how.

The spot-reduction myth

Exercising a muscle doesn’t selectively reduce the fat on top of it, and that includes the chin. The same goes for massage: see gua sha for a double chin for what gua sha can and can’t do here. The idea that you can target fat in one place with exercises for that area is called spot reduction, and the evidence doesn’t support it.

In one randomised trial, adults did abdominal exercises five days a week for six weeks. Their abdominal muscle endurance improved, but abdominal fat and body fat percentage did not change compared with a control group (Vispute et al., 2011). There’s no reason to expect the small muscles under the chin to behave differently.

Fat under the chin changes with overall body fat, which depends on genetics, sleep, activity and diet. If weight is a health concern, talk to your doctor rather than following a plan aimed at one body part. And if your double chin simply comes with your bone structure and genes, that’s normal.

When to see a professional

See a doctor promptly if the area under your chin changes suddenly or you find a lump, rather than reaching for exercises.

• Sudden or one-sided swelling under the jaw or in the neck, especially with pain, redness or fever. Swelling of the face or neck can have many causes, and swelling with trouble breathing or swallowing needs urgent care (Cleveland Clinic).
• A lump under the chin or at the front of the neck that you can feel, or one that keeps growing.
• Possible thyroid symptoms, such as a swelling at the front of the neck, a change in your voice, or difficulty swallowing.
• Pain in the jaw or neck that doesn’t settle, or clicking and locking of the jaw.

If the fullness is long-standing and simply bothers you, a board-certified dermatologist or plastic surgeon can explain cosmetic options, such as injections, devices, procedures aimed at fat or skin under the chin, and surgery. These are medical treatments by licensed clinicians, each with its own costs, risks and recovery, and different things from exercise. Whether any of them suits you is a decision to make with a qualified clinician.

Practise chin and neck exercises with Gluvy

Gluvy is an iPhone app with 200+ guided face yoga video exercises, including chin, jaw and neck moves, and 3-week plans that take 5 to 10 minutes a day with a timer on every step. Practise chin and neck exercises with a 3-week guided plan to follow moves like the ones above on video. Alongside the plans, the chin and neck massage course and the Neck & Chin Drainage course guide you through gentle strokes under the jaw, one of about 34 gua sha and facial-massage video courses. New to gua sha? Start with our gua sha routine. For more areas, browse all our face exercises by area.

Sources

• Alam M, et al. Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging. JAMA Dermatology, 2018.
• Vispute SS, et al. The effect of abdominal exercise on abdominal fat. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2011.
• Hansraj KK. Assessment of stresses in the cervical spine caused by posture and position of the head. Surgical Technology International, 2014.
• DeCarlo A, Siddiqui W. Anatomy, Head and Neck, Platysma Muscle. StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf.
• American Academy of Dermatology. 11 ways to reduce premature skin aging.
• Cleveland Clinic. Turkey neck.
• Cleveland Clinic. Facial swelling.