If you’re concerned about wrinkles or deep-set facial lines, then you may want to give up whistling. Plastic surgeons have claimed that, alongside smoking, whistling is bad for the muscles around your face. Frequent whistling causes the muscles to strain into an unusual position, and creates lines around the mouth. The puckering motion made in order to whistle can cause folding and indentation on the surface of the skin and weaken collagen. Particularly as you get older, the skin gets weaker and more prone to damage, causing wrinkles. But whistling is not the sole culprit of facial lines. Smiling and frowning are known to cause them, with some facial lines being termed ‘smile lines’ or ‘frown lines’. Even kissing can cause wrinkles, with a similar puckering motion of the lips and cheeks that whistling requires. This makes it seem almost impossible to avoid these lines, and if you are truly determined to avoid any wrinkles as you age, then the only certain way to do so is to avoid moving your facial muscles at all.
Of course, such a thing is impossible and laughing, whistling and kissing are pleasurable activities that can boost mental and physical wellbeing. As such, they can help skin remain young and healthy due to increased hormone regulation and blood circulation. With this line of thinking, and contradicting the suggestion that moving your facial muscles causes wrinkles, it has been argued that actively exercising facial muscles can decrease the number of fine lines as you get older. This is due to the elastic collagen in skin and muscles becoming more flexible as it is regularly stretched and exercised, and the increased blood circulation bringing more oxygen to the skin.
Thus the claim that whistling causes wrinkles faces some contention – it is true that regular whistling may cause wrinkles, but regular facial exercise through smiling and laughing can help combat the negative effects of aging and skin damage. So don’t ban whistling just yet, especially if it causes you to smile after.
