Turkey Neck

Turkey neck refers to the sagging or loose skin under the chin and around the neck, often caused by aging, loss of skin elasticity, or weakened neck muscles. It can be managed with exercises, skincare, and medical treatments like laser therapy or surgery.

Getting a tight and smooth neckline under the chin that proudly reflects freshness and confidence is additionally possible without painful operations. You can tighten your neck quickly by combining easy yet efficient neck workouts with other tried-and-true techniques.

One day, you may have wondered how you got a turkey neck after looking in the mirror. Additionally, many attempt to reduce weight to eliminate turkey neck, but this may result in more loose skin behind the chin.

Please continue if you’re ready to learn how to treat the turkey neck before it worsens. You will soon be able to say goodbye to turkey neck and drooping neck skin.

What’s a Turkey Neck?

Turkey Neck refers to a common aging symptom in which the skin around the neck and jawline starts to drop and lose its shape.

Commonly observed between the ages of 30 and 40, the condition can cause “draping” of the skin as it loses its elasticity, drooping at the neck, and the appearance of a double chin.

Because the neckline is so noticeable, many people with drooping skin may feel self-conscious and search for methods to improve their profile and jawline as well as lessen the effect of aging to look younger.

What Causes Turkey Neck?

Turkey neck can be caused by six factors:

Aging: As you age, your skin naturally becomes less elastic. The skin on your cheeks begins to droop as gravity takes over. The skin from your cheeks then gathers in your neck and beneath your jaw.

Weight: Gaining weight may result in the accumulation of excess fat around your neck.

Genetics: I frequently hear statements like “I have my father’s jaw” or “I have my mother’s neck.” Whether you have additional neck tissue or are prone to accumulating excess fat around your neck depends on your hereditary bone structure or anatomy.

Lifestyle factors: Smoking, UV damage, environmental pollutants, and eating poorly can all have an impact on how elastic your skin is.

Medication: Some drugs may result in weight increase overall or in the accumulation of fat in specific body parts, such as the neck. HIV lipodystrophy is a condition in which certain anti-HIV drugs result in the accumulation of fat in the neck and other body parts. Additionally, steroid drugs might increase neck fat and round out your face.

Weak neck muscles: The front of your neck has two platysma muscles. Over time, these muscles may weaken or separate, which could change how your neck looks.

Is It Possible to Avoid Turkey Neck?

The drooping neck skin that results in the dangerous turkey neck can be tightened. However, age, skin flexibility, and body composition all affect how long it takes to get cured of a turkey neck.

Younger people can tighten loose neck skin more easily since their skin is more elastic and less prone to be damage by UV rays. It will also depend on whether you have lost a lot of weight and your body has not gained enough muscle.

You may begin to notice drooping skin as early as your 20s. At this point, the skin’s strength and integrity begin to deteriorate. However, a lot of people in their mid-30s discover that their necks have abruptly aged.

Women’s muscle loss also really starts to pick up speed in their 30s. In the absence of strength exercise and adequate protein intake, women will eventually lose muscle. The stiffness under the chin also lessens as a result of this muscle loss.

For many people in their mid-30s, a combination of factors such as genetics, hormonal changes, decreased collagen, weight gain or loss, and deteriorating body composition finally come to a head. Although it is possible to tighten dropping neck skin, you will need to increase skin elasticity and strengthen the affected area.

Turkey Neck after Weight Loss

Losing weight should help tighten loose skin under the chin, right? However, it may worsen it.

You may lose the “fullness” behind your neck skin if you lose weight. Consider it analogous to blowing out a balloon. The result will be loose, wrinkled skin that falls with gravity. The area will resemble a loose, deflated balloon, even though you might lose some of the fat deposits there.

Because the skin is so stretched out, drooping neck skin might result in drastic or quick weight reduction. Your body will “deflate” as you lose that much weight, leaving the loose skin feeling empty.

When you lose weight, your body will have less muscle and fat, resulting in less full skin. The remaining wrinkled skin will make it clear that you’ve lost weight in certain places, such as your neck.

Your neck and body will drop if you don’t have enough muscular mass. Lean muscle mass keeps the body from becoming “skinny fat” by toning and tightening it. If you don’t have enough muscle, you can be obese despite being underweight.

After losing weight, you must do the following to eliminate dropping under-neck skin:

• Enhance skin elasticity
• Improve your body’s composition.
• Exercise to strengthen your neck muscles
• Increase collagen

How to Tighten Turkey Neck Skin.

You must increase the flexibility of your skin, restore collagen, and strengthen the affected area with exercise to prevent and treat the turkey neck.

One of the main causes is lost collagen. Your body will naturally create less collagen as you get older. However, things like smoking, UV exposure, environmental pollutants, and eating poorly can all contribute to and speed up development.

After the age of 20, women’s collagen production begins to decrease by around 1% annually. Although this might not seem like much, it adds up over the years, so by the time you get to middle age, your body may only be producing 30–50% of what it used to.

The good news is that collagen peptide supplements have been shown to rapidly restore lost collagen. Taking collagen will increase the hydration and elasticity of your skin, making it tighter and less prone to wrinkles.

By toning and strengthening your neck muscles, you can counteract the signs of aging. Additionally, this will promote collagen synthesis and enhance blood flow to the neck region.

Do the foods you eat contribute to the aging of your skin?

By raising AGEs, a diet heavy in sugar and processed carbs can also aggravate the skin. Advanced glycation end products, or AGEs, are toxins that are produced when the body interacts with fat, sugar, and protein.

Wrinkles and a loss of skin firmness result from the accumulation of these toxins, which also harm the skin’s collagen and elasticity. Because of oxidative stress, inflammation, DNA damage, and decreased cellular energy, exposure to environmental pollutants also contributes to skin aging.

Dehydration worsens the appearance of wrinkles and decreased skin elasticity, which can lead to dropping skin. Your skin is mostly composed of water, thus dehydration will affect how well it functions.

To stay hydrated, consume at least half your body weight in liters of water per day. Consequently, you should at least drink 80 liters of water each day if you weigh 160 pounds.

Why Turkey Neck Won’t Get Better With Weight Loss

You can’t eliminate the dropping skin under your chin by losing weight alone. Losing weight won’t make the turkey neck go away; in fact, it can even make it look worse.

What causes turkey neck when you lose weight?

Losing weight will cause you to lose muscle and fat, which could cause problems because the skin won’t have anything to adhere to. The skin will simply hang there if it has been stretched out.

After losing weight, loose skin might appear even worse because it has been stretched, has nothing left to adhere to, and has lost its elasticity.

Your body composition won’t necessarily improve if you only lose weight. Being overweight can result in “skinny fat,” a condition in which you appear thin yet have a high body fat percentage relative to your muscle mass.

Your body will be toned, tightened, and shaped by your muscles. You’ll be more vulnerable to dimpling and dropping skin without it. By burning fat and gaining lean muscle, you can enhance your body composition in addition to losing weight.

For women, keep your body fat percentage under 25%, and for men, keep it under 18%. By including resistance training in your muscle-building exercises, you can reduce body fat.

You may tone up those trouble spots and reduce body fat by combining cardio with strength training and HIIT activities.

Lose the Turkey Neck Naturally (Non-Surgical)

So, how may neck fat be eliminated?

Rebuilding lost muscle in the under-chin area can be achieved by incorporating neck workouts into your weekly routine. This will tighten and tone the area beneath your chin and around your neck.

Gaining muscle and burning more fat will also improve your body composition. You may be too slim, but your body fat percentage may still be excessive. You should ideally keep losing weight by burning fat rather than muscle.

It will be essential to strengthen the skin around your neck. Eliminating the loose fat on your neck can only yield mediocre results if your skin is poor or damaged.

Collagen peptide supplements are the most effective method of increasing the amount of collagen in your body. This will help tighten the skin around the neck without the need for laser treatments or surgery. Collagen peptides are useful for rapidly increasing skin elasticity, or its capacity to bounce back, according to studies.

Collagen is lost with age if you don’t give your body new collagen, which deteriorates your skin. The secret to tightening under-neck skin and enabling it to “snap back” to its natural shape is increasing the suppleness of your skin.

Turkey Neck’s Top 5 Exercises

The top 5 effective turkey neck workouts are listed below.

Chin Presses

• Open your mouth and make the “ahh” sound. Cover your teeth with your lower lips.
• Slowly slide out your lower jaw and lean your head slightly back to raise your chin.
• Roll your tongue tip to the roof of your mouth.
• Apply upward pressure while placing the heel of your palms beneath the base of your chin—not the jawline, but the muscles behind it.
• To produce resistance, slowly open your jaw downwards.
• Hold for 30 seconds and repeat 3 times.

Scooping

• Make a “ahh” sound with your lips open.
• Hold your teeth firmly in place by folding the corners and edges of your lips down around them.
• As you close your mouth, slowly “scoop up” by extending your lower jaw forward.
• When scooping, tilt your head back and pull your chin upward.
• For ten repetitions, open and close your jaw; on the final one, point your chin toward the ceiling. On the final rep, hold the highest position for an additional 20–30 seconds.

Neck Smoother

• Slide your hand down until your wrist is on your collarbone after placing it flat on your neck. Over this hand, place your other palm.
• Tilt your head back.
• Keep your hands firmly pressed against your collarbone.
• Roll the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth while extending your lower jaw.
• Your neck muscles should tense as you smile. Wait 30 seconds.

Jowl Eraser

• Make a smile without opening your mouth, then make duck lips by curling your lips outward.
• To make your cheek muscles contract, smile at the corner of your lips.
• To strengthen the muscles beneath your chin, place your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
• Tilt your head back a little to raise your chin. To tighten your neck muscles, slowly move your jaw forward.
• You can repeat this posture three times and hold it for up to 30 seconds.

Chin Tucks

• Under your neck, place a ball roughly the size of a softball.
• Squeeze your chin into the ball after lowering it toward your chest.
• Hold for five to ten seconds, then slowly raise your chin again and do it a few more times.
• Then move your jaw forward while tilting your head back and holding it there. Try not to apply too much pressure, but maintain your jaw in this forward position.
• Hold for five to ten seconds, then gradually return to the starting position.

Does turkey neck get better when you chew gum?

Another good exercise for stiff necks is chewing gum, which helps build stronger jaw and upper neck muscles. Simply put some gum in your mouth and chew it for 20 to 30 minutes each day.

In addition to preventing skin dropping, these workouts will increase blood circulation without the need for laser treatments. However, take a step back if you have excessive jaw muscle tension.

Face Yoga Exercises for Turkey Neck.

Regularly perform neck and face workouts. To make sure your muscles are getting a proper workout, perform each exercise one after the other. On the other hand, gently exit the pose if you experience any pain.

Maintaining proper posture when exercising is also crucial. You can maintain the stance and fix your posture by following these steps:

• Bring your shoulders down by taking a deep breath and letting go of the tension surrounding them.
• Hold your neck high, relax, and straighten your back.
• Breathe slowly while opening your chest and relaxing your forehead.
• Refrain from slouching.

The following face yoga poses don’t require any additional equipment and can be used at home to treat turkey neck.

Neck Power Pose

This exercise helps you tone and shape your neck in its natural shape by using the platysma and related muscles. A large muscle that extends from the upper jaw to the shoulders is called the platysma.

Method for doing it:

• Step 1: Squeeze and lift the platysma by placing your fingertips on your collarbone to feel the muscles contract. Try it a few times to get a sense of what you will be doing when you work out.
• Step 2: Push the backs of your fingers under your chin and run them up your neck. Close your fists gently. As you perform the exercise, this lifts the skin on your neck slightly upward, preventing wrinkles.
• Step 3: While maintaining that posture, slowly extend your fists and elbows. Maintain the connection between your fingers and chin. It’s natural to see drooping skin pulling up near your chin, and frequent exercise will cause your skin to tighten up.
• Step 4: Press your tongue on the roof or bottom of your mouth while keeping it open.
• Step 5: Squeeze the muscles in the front of your neck while moving your head up and down one second at a time and attempting to touch your chin to your chest. Spend ten seconds practicing this motion.
• Step 6: Relax the position. Breathe deeply three times. This stance should be repeated two more times.

Neck Lifter

This exercise helps eliminate a double chin and tones weak neck muscles and drooping skin. Your neck will appear smoother as the muscles tone and the skin above them tightens. You are strengthening the muscles in the upper neck and under the chin with this workout.

Method for doing it:

• Step 1: Position your hands beneath your chin so that it is parallel to the ground.
• Step 2: Place your hands on your chin, breathe in through your nose, close your mouth, and move the tip of your tongue up and down the roof of your mouth once every second.
• Step 3: Complete this task for 30 seconds, then pause for 5–6 seconds.
• Step 4: Repeat step 30. Then slowly lower your hands.

YUM Neck Line Reducer

Despite its humorous appearance, this exercise is effective in strengthening the muscles in your neck and chin. Therefore, it’s okay if you giggle while performing this exercise.

Method for doing it:

• Step 1: Raise your gaze and gently tilt your head back.
• Step 2: Position your hand’s palm beneath your jaw.
• Step 3: Say the word “yum” quietly. Do this repeatedly for a minute.
• Step 4: Repeat after releasing the posture.

Double Chin Lift with Tongue

This exercise, which helps tone the muscles in this area and decrease turkey neck, is popular even among males. This short and simple method was created by Fumiko Takatsu.

Method for doing it:

• Step 1: Take a deep breath, let your shoulders drop, and relax. Keep your neck and back straight. Orient your eyes toward the ceiling.
• Step 2: Raise your head while maintaining eye contact.
• Step 3: Make sure there are no wrinkles on your forehead. To prevent wrinkles, you can also put your hand on your forehead.
• Step 4: Extrude your tongue, point it up, and hold it there for five seconds.
• Step 5: Now shift your tongue to the right and hold it there for five seconds. After that, shift your tongue to the left and hold it there for five more seconds. Breathe and release the posture.
• Step 6: Do the set once again.

Jaw Release Exercise

When you chew gum, do you recall how your jaw moves? Chewing gum allows us to relax our jaw by moving it up and down. One of the simplest workouts for a turkey neck, this practice involves comparable movements.

Method for doing it:

• Step 1: Raise your head toward the ceiling while sitting upright with your back straight.
• Step 2: Open and close your jaw repeatedly in a circular motion while chewing with your mouth closed.
• Step 3: Chew for twenty to thirty seconds, then pause for ten.
• Step 4: Do the same thing 15 to 20 times.

This exercise can also be performed without raising your head. But while chewing, try rotating your head from left to right.

What is the Best Exercise for Tightening Your Neck?

The Neck Lift is the one workout we would choose if you asked us how to eliminate the chicken neck. The muscles under the chin and throughout the neck are especially targeted and strengthened by the neck lift. This easy workout is a good and affordable way to have a tighter, more defined neck and jawline since it helps with drooping, muscle tone, and firmness in the neck area.

Bonus: Stretches

Yoga neck exercises improve circulation, increase flexibility, and target and strengthen the neck muscles to help minimize turkey neck. These stretches increase blood flow, bringing essential nutrients and oxygen to the skin, and promoting a healthier appearance.

Additionally, they assist reduce tension in the neck muscles, which can lessen skin strain, and they promote lymphatic drainage, which lowers swelling and fluid retention. You may reduce the look of a turkey neck and get a firmer, more toned neck by doing these stretches on a daily basis.

Creams that are beneficial for turkey neck

A regenerating serum that lifts, firms, and tightens the drooping skin below your chin is another option.

Using a serum that has skin-strengthening compounds like retinol helps tighten neck skin as part of an enhanced skincare regimen. UV damage can also be prevented by applying sunscreen to the area around your neck.

Unfortunately, a lot of the well-liked skin-tightening lotions and treatments that are currently available on store shelves include harmful substances. These poisonous serums may include dangerous substances like phthalates and parabens. These are referred to as “hormone disruptors” because they cause negative consequences by interfering with your body’s hormones.

Your thyroid function may be hampered by testosterone and estrogen, which are typically the most affected. Menopausal women are aware that an estrogen imbalance can worsens skin conditions. Having your hormones under control and at normal levels is ideal.

For this reason, it’s important to utilize an improving serum that has only natural, hypoallergenic components and is free of GMOs. Look for a serum that contains only premium natural components, is non-GMO, and is devoid of dangerous chemicals.

Senestem is a substance that can promote collagen formation in the targeted location. According to one study, it tightened the skin on women’s faces and faded age spots, thereby reducing the appearance of aging.

How Can Turkey Neck Be Prevented?

• Regularly perform neck-toning exercises like neck lifts, chin lifts, the scoop, neck stretches, and jaw releases if you want to learn how to prevent turkey neck with face yoga and eliminate its dropping neck naturally.
• At least five times a week, perform these exercises, making sure to use the right form to prevent strained muscles. Drink plenty of water, eat a healthy diet, and follow a skincare regimen that incorporates moisturizers and firming lotions to complement the workouts. This complete technique can improve the appearance by firming and toning the neck area.

Conclusion

• If you want to treat turkey neck without surgery, you will need to reduce body fat, build neck muscle, lose extra weight, and strengthen the skin beneath your neck.
• To remove the extra skin behind your chin, you don’t require laser skin tightening, botox injections, or turkey neck surgery. These turkey neck remedies don’t always work, and cosmetic surgery is extremely costly. The best benefits will come from strengthening the area beneath the chin and increasing the flexibility of the skin.
• Facial exercises can help eliminate a double chin and strengthen the muscles in the neck. As people age, their neck muscles start to weaken, thus it’s critical to do workouts to strengthen them once more. Having additional neck muscles might help the extra skin tighten up and look younger.
• Increase your intake of collagen and cut out foods that aggravate the skin, such as processed carbohydrates, sugar, and unhealthy vegetable oils. To increase skin cell turnover and skin suppleness, apply a neck cream or serum.

FAQs

Reference

• Cpt, J. S. C. (2024b, September 30). 5 best exercises to get rid of turkey neck naturally (Without Surgery). Trainer Josh. https://trainerjosh.com/fat-loss/get-rid-of-turkey-neck/
• Clinic, C. (2024a, September 9). How to get rid of ‘Turkey neck.’ Cleveland Clinic. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/turkey-neck
• Doctor Nyla Medispa. (2024, October 28). What Causes Turkey Neck and How Can it Be Treated? https://doctornyla.com/blog/what-causes-turkey-neck-and-how-can-it-be-treated/
• How to get rid of turkey neck: 5 best turkey neck Exercises | Luvly. (n.d.). https://luvly.care/blog/face-yoga-for-neck