Best Exercises/Activities For Bell’s Palsy & How To Close Eyes When You Have It?

Bell’s palsy is a type of temporary facial paralysis, which mainly takes place from trauma or damage caused to anyone among the facial nerves. Facial palsy is a common cause of paralysis of the face.⁽¹⁾

The problem starts all of a sudden and becomes worse only after 48hours. Bell’s palsy takes place because of damage to the seventh cranial nerve i.e. the facial nerve. Discomfort and pain mainly take place on a particular side of the head or face.⁽²⁾

According to the latest studies, Bell’s palsy or facial palsy takes place in the case herpes simplex virus reactivates within the bone present behind one’s ear, also known as a temporal bone. Whenever this takes place, the nerve swells and shuts down rapidly. Bell’s palsy has relations with sensation or feeling of the inhibition of face movement. If a person has a problem, you should consult your doctor in no time.⁽³⁾

Physical therapy is recommendable to speed up the recovery process for Bell’s palsy patients. Most of the exercises are simple and involve facial expressions and they include-

Movement Of Facial Parts: You should start this Bell’s palsy exercise by simply moving each of your facial parts by facing a mirror. Especially, you have to move your mouth, forehead, cheeks, nose, and eyebrows. Even you should put efforts to raise the eyebrows. You may find that a particular side will rise higher and that too easily than the other one. However, you should avoid trying to move the affected side forcefully. Instead, you should use the fingers for moving the muscles in an inappropriate direction and try to stimulate upward and downward movements as much as you can.

Scrunch The Face To Stimulate Cheeks And Nose Movement: You should put efforts to scrunch the face for stimulating movement in your cheeks and nose. Many of Bell’s palsy patients may perceive that the respective facial region does not need enough movement. However, weakness and stiffness in the facial region of cheeks and nose may affect your entire face and hence, you should never overlook it. You should once again use the fingers so that the affected side of your face acts in the same way as the movement of the unaffected side.

Inhale From The Nose For Flaring Up The Nostrils: You should take steps to inhale from your nose to flare up the nostrils. However, you should perform this activity frequently. Rather, you should try different combinations of slow, deep, fast, and strong inhalations. Alternatively, you should cover your unaffected nostril, so that it causes the affected nostril to perform its functions a bit harder. Whatever Bell’s palsy exercise you do, you should make sure of avoiding difficulty breathing in the exercises.

Try Smiling By Closing Your Lips: In the case of mouth exercise for Bell’s palsy, you should start to try smiling by keeping your lips closed. You should use the fingers to make sure of keeping the two corners of your lips or mouth in an almost similar position over the face. After doing this activity for certain numbers of times, you should take the fingers away and take steps to hold the smile in the right position unaided for the time you can. Later on, you should repeat the exercise by simply lifting each corner of the mouth separately.⁽⁴⁾

If you have Bell’s palsy condition and your eyes affect adversely, you should look down and close your eye slowly. You have to use the fingers for stretching the above eyebrows and rub the eyelid slowly. The main objective of the exercise is to avoid stiffing of the eyelid. You should check your eyelid movement and if you experience any trouble closing your eyes, you should also try for squinting activity.⁽⁴⁾

Based on the facts, we should say that there are large numbers of exercises or activities, which you should perform to manage your condition of Bell’s palsy including the issue related to closing eyes.

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Also Read:

• How Do You Get Bell’s Palsy & How Long Does It Take To Recover From Bell’s Palsy?
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• What Vitamins Help With Bell’s Palsy & Can I Go To Work With It?