Actor Journey : How to Increases Relaxation and the Face Exercises in Acting

Close your eyes and allow the movie in your mind to travel through the land of your favorite film images. Allow your mind’s eye a free hand, and sit back and enjoy the show. Films from childhood, cartoons, adventures, love scenes, swells of music, and magnificent landscapes will dance in your imagination.

Mental Relaxation exercises 1

1. Sit in a chair, keeping your back straight, your head balancing straight on the top of the spine, feet flat on the floor, arms either on top of your lap with palms down or hanging at your sides, and your eyes closed.
2. Just breathe, letting the air come high into the chest, so that the rib cage and breastbone move with each inhalation and exhalation. Don’t let the air fall into the stomach area. Keep it in the upper chest.
3. Open your mouth slightly, so that the teeth are not touching. This is actually releasing the jaw.
4. Sigh three of four times without moving the head around or fidgeting. Just sit and breathe, and sigh without moving. 
5. Concentrate on your eyes. Imagine that the eyes are two soft pools of clear, calm water. Check for twitching or furrowing of the brow. If you find tension around the eyes, release it with a sigh or a deep breath. Make sure that no other part of your body is moving, that your jaw is released, and your breath is high in the chest and steady. Throughout the Mental Relaxation exercises, keep checking for ways that the tension escapes to other parts of the body, like feet that curl around the legs of the chair, or hands that suddenly grab the seat, or eyelids that uncontrollably flutter. Keep checking for tension, and release it, while concentrating on the eyeballs themselves.
6. Now, lift the eyeballs up as high as you can, while keeping the lids closed. You should feel the stretch of the tendons around the eyes. Do not lift the head up or bend it downwards, but try and keep it straight and easy as you keep the eyes lifted. Keep breathing and sighing, and hold for twenty seconds. Don’t lock the jaw. Then, release the eyes to their normal position.
7. Stretch the eyes to the left, and hold them there for ten seconds. Release them to their normal position. Repeat to the right. Stretch them down towards the tip of the nose. Hold for ten seconds and release.
8. At this point, check for signs of rising tension anywhere in the body, particularly in the face, head, neck, and shoulder region. The eyelids remain closed, but an inner eye is vigilantly at work keeping all the instructions in order. A small, quiet invisible director inside the mind’s eye is investigating.
9. Now, rotate the eyes to all extreme positions. Up, right, down, left, up, right, down, left, etc. Try to breathe normally, keeping the jaw released and the head still, as you stretch the eyes as far as you can in each position, rotating to the next. Do about five rotations.
10. Now, rotate the eyes in the opposite direction, up, left, down, right, etc., and repeat about five rotations.

Mental Relaxation exercises 2

1. Concentrate on your eyebrows. Raise them up and bring them down. Move up and down as quickly as you can. Repeat this motion in rapid succession for about ten seconds, and then stop to rest. Then, repeat it again.
2. Try to do the same movement with the eyebrows, only this time incorporate the entire skin of the scalp, so that it too moves back and forth. Repeat a series, rest, and do it again.
3. Squinch the face together, as if you had an extreme lemon reaction, and hold for a few seconds, then release. Repeat five times.
4. Spread the mouth in a thin, wide, tense smile, then quickly draw the lips together in a tight, round kiss position. Go back and forth between the two positions.
5. Concentrate on the upper lip. Tap it with your fingers. Pinch it and pull it into different directions. Now, without using your hands, imagine that the upper lip is divided into two segments like the mouth of a bunny. See if you can move the two sides independent of one another. Try to do this and breathe at the same time.
6. Now, pull the lips over the teeth like you were pretending to be toothless. Open and close the mouth, while stretching the lips over the teeth and releasing.
7. Now, do a combination of all of the above movements and incorporate the eyes, moving freely from one type of movement to the other. Don’t forget to breathe!