Top 8 anti aging skin care tips for young looking skin
Today’s OTC markets are abundant with opulent anti aging skin care products, that thrive due to common misconceptions in the minds of consumers. Not that anyone is at fault here. I believe that each of us tries our best to do justice to our skin by seeking out the most lucrative, the most trusted and the most well-advertised solution.
This is where the problem lies. One cannot just rely on anti aging secrets that are advertised and condoned by cosmetologists or screen-actors. There’s much more to your skin than simply applying essential oils or resorting to treatments to help it look better.
Your skin is alive just like you are and it needs to be fed, cared for and understood, just like any other part of your body. Similarly, not even the best anti aging skin care regime will save you from the fate of time.
Like all your other organs, your skin ages too. What you can do about it is ensure your skin doesn’t age prematurely, and re-enforce it so it ages gracefully as it’s supposed to.
Natural skin aging Vs Premature skin aging
On one hand lies the effects of aging which are totally natural and usually occur at a steady pace in-line with a person’s age. This is inevitable and cannot be intervened with, not naturally at least. On the other hand, lies the problem of premature aging, which also reflects on your skin.
This is usually induced by lifestyle habits, trauma to your skin as well as the many beauty products you may resort to, to achieve more superior skin. This can very well be curbed, stopped as well as treated to ensure your skin returns to its naturally healthy condition and looks appropriate for your age.
I for one will tell you to identify and treat the issue that is causing premature aging. There are a number of factors that contribute towards the breakdown of your skin, leaving it less supple with reduced elasticity and aggravated age-lines. Knowing what’s right and what’s not is the best way to start on the road to achieving young-looking skin and help it stay that way.
Top 6 anti aging skin care tips for young looking skin
Below are some targeted solutions that provide you with rationale as to how they would help you keep your skin young and supple. These do not provide miracle solutions to skin problems but are based on rationality and best practices for your skin care routine.
Read on to know how you should be decisive the next time you decide you want to try something on your skin, eat something delicious that’s actually unhealthy or resort to external methods of improving your skins condition.
1. Eat the right foods. Your skin is considered to mirror your insides
This literally means, your skin will look as great as what you eat. From the time you swallow a morsel of food until its broken down, digested and assimilated, a number of chemical processes occur within your body. Hence, the food you feed yourself plays a pivotal role in enhancing and maintain the current state of your skin.
Indulging in the right food makes the top of my list of anti aging secrets. Pay close attention to what you eat. To take best care of your skin, include foods that are rich in omega fatty acids as well as proteins.
- Omega fatty acids: Good sources of fatty acids are usually available in the natural foods like nuts, flaxseeds, olive oil and fish. If you cannot stand eating fish, opt to take a fish-oil capsule, which is literally harm-free and allows you the same healthy nutrition of without the fishy after taste, unless the capsule pops open in your mouth. If that does happen, flush your mouth by drinking a lot of water and try brushing your teeth to get rid of the odor.
- Eat loads of fresh vegetables: This is one of the oldest and most hassle-free anti aging secrets there is. Colored vegetables boast of the best nutritional content as well are rich in anti-inflammatory properties that reverse the ill-effects of premature aging of skin, giving you back your young-looking skin. Such foods are high in nutritional elements and are most available to assimilate in your body when the foods are consumed raw or are not overtly cooked. In the latter case, these foods lose their nutrients due to extended exposure to heat whilst cooking which makes the food nutrition less.
- Avoid foods made with refined sugars: Make sure you avoid foods with refined sugars as well as those that are excessively rich in carbohydrates like processed foods. These are difficult for the stomach to digest, and the process causes internal inflammation which leads to a rapid decline in the condition of your skin. Feeding your body with superfoods that are rich in natural anti-oxidants will help reduce such auto-immune inflammation, thereby rendering your skin with the fortification as well as nourishment it requires to maintain its healthy condition.
2. Drink plenty of water
On an average, you are advised to consume in excess of 3 liters of water per day, at the very least. Water isn’t known as the universal solvent for nothing. It helps dissolve and flush out toxins from your body hence maintain good pH throughout your bloodstream.
Not to mention that water also provides more oxygen to your system, hence your bloodstream, keeping your skin both well hydrated as well as oxygenated. Trace minerals are also plentiful in drinking water, nourishing your body with each sip, although very gradually due to their trace occurrence.
You may have to visit the toilet more often on account for higher consumption of liquids, but that’s a small price to pay for the many boons of drinking the adequate amount of water every day.
3. Maintain optimum exposure to sunlight
Strange as it may sound, all living things require sunlight to thrive. Plants require light to create food which sustains their very being. Although human beings aren’t that highly dependent on sunlight directly, some of it is required to maintain optimal health.
Exposure to sunlight is paramount for the synthesis of Vitamin D. That’s right, contrary to popular belief where it is assumed that sunlight itself provides it, your body actually produces Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Common advice says you should bask in morning sunlight anywhere between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. for beneficial exposure.
The production of Vitamin D which acts as a natural anti-oxidant fights free-radicals within your body and hence reduce internal inflammation taking away the effects of pre-mature aging of skin.
Exposure to sunlight post 9:30 a.m. in most parts of the globe can be harsh on the skin. UV rays from harsh sunlight is known to cause skin cancer, skin spots as well as auto-immune diseases that are skin related. To protect your skin from these harsh UV rays, your body induces a low-level inflammation under the upper layer of your skin that acts as a shield but rapidly increases the rate at which your skin ages prematurely. You skin will begin to feel crustier and hardened as well as will have a patchy appearance instead of an even tone.
Exposure to high UV rays also cause damage to the collagen and elastin that holds your skin together firmly, hence making it droopy and saggy, naturally inducing wrinkles and age-lines across the exposed area. This is especially true with the skin on your face as well as your hands because they are often exposed to sunlight. Using a scarf, walking in the shade and choosing to avoid the outdoors during the peak of the afternoon heat helps protect your skin before letting the damage occur at all.
4. Buy products wisely
Use beauty products discerningly, even under the direction of a cosmetologist-
As I mentioned in the very beginning, each one of us is simply attempting to get the best anti aging skin care results by adopting solutions that fit into our busy schedules. Try as you may, you will find it hard to completely avoid topical treatments to nourish, fortify and aid in achieving healthy and young-looking skin.
So while you join in on the race to find the best product, here are a few things you should know before you make your picks:
- Try organic solutions:
I know the whole point in resorting to topical treatments is because your skin needs external help in staying healthy, but using organic solutions to do so ensures you achieve your goals with no side-effects, although they may work slower than chemical treatments. If you do not see ‘organic’ mentioned on the labelling of the product, it’s probably derived from chemical based elements.
There are a large number of people that will swear by organic or natural products for their skin care regimes. While chemical treatments do show effective results immediately, the effects tend to last for a limited or short period of time, rendering natural solutions for more effective for the long-haul.
Natural products are in truth more expensive than chemical solutions, but that’s because these natural products come with very volatile elements whose bioavailability depends on the methods of extraction to prepare consumer products. Hence paying a little more does go a long way.
- Choose chemical treatments wisely:
Loss of a prominent jaw line, saggy skin, indents and age-lines are all caused by premature aging. One of the prime factors that is responsible for the deterioration of your skin’s structure is UV rays. They literally render the collagen and elastin in your skin useless, which are otherwise responsible for firmly held or young-looking skin.
With aging from UV rays being a rampant problem across the World, a common solution involves one using topical Retinol-based product applications. One boon of using Retinol as pointed out by cosmetologists is that it boosts collagen in your skin, making it appear firmer and more lively.
Other boons include the fact that it has an abrasive effect on the upper, dead layers of your skin to reveal suppler skin underneath. While this can seem helpful, ointments that use steroids shouldn’t be used in your anti aging skin care routine and if they are, you should do so with great caution.
Such ointments, often steroids, thin the epidermis, eventually exposing very sensitive skin underneath. Such inner layers of the skin are all the more susceptible to harm done by exposure to the sun and can in fact aggravate your skin problems.
Always ensure to use a sunscreen before you step outdoors. Depending on where you live you will need to check the SPF on the content as geographical areas with higher amounts of sunlight pose a higher threat and hence require sunscreen’s that are double effective.
Even under the guidance of a professional, tread with caution when applying products to your face. Go through the contents of the product, which are usually mentioned on the reverse of the packaging. If you see that the product contains harsh chemicals and acids, try and avoid them as these strip the upper layers of your skin of its essential moisture.
Look for products with mild ingredients that aren’t acid-based, so you do not have new skin problems from trying out various products. If you’ve already found the right solution for your skin, stick with it and do not try other options.
5. Reduce stress
We all blame premature aging to stress. Any rightly so, it does bring about very noticeable change in the look of your skin. Stress causes the body to release a host of hormones and neurons to cope with the distress your mind goes through. This often causes an overworking of your immune system, which works unchecked and abnormally when your body is in a frenzy full of hormones.
Naturally with your body doing what it does best, protecting itself, it is left with no time and little energy to heal and re-generate spent parts, especially your skin.
Simply put, the more your stress, the more your skin worsens no matter what anti aging skin care tips you look up and try. A stressed person is also more prone to acne and hence blemished, tired and oily skin.
What makes things worse is that if you do not get enough sleep or rest, your body is unable to attempt to repair the damage caused to your skin on a daily basis.
6. Exercise but don’t overdo it either
Additionally, exercising within limits is recommended. It is a common misconception that over exerting your body tends to provide more pronounced and early results.
What actually happens is, when you ware your muscles too much, the body induces the same low-level inflammation as with UV rays, to protect itself, which causes rapid breakdown of collagen.
This obviously leads to premature aging of your skin. Indulge in exercises that push your physical limits but do not necessarily test them. Consult a physical trainer to chart out a personal workout regime so you know you aren’t going wrong anywhere.
7. Regular cleansing is essential
So while you decide if you’d like to go organic or not, you still have to pay attention to and care for your skin regularly. Neglect will not help in your quest to maintain the best anti aging skin care practices, neither will paying an overt amount of attention or fussing with your skin.
Ensure you follow a healthy care routine for your skin that involves the practices of cleansing, toning (if necessary) and moisturizing/ feeding.
Cleansing is probably the single most important step in your skin-care regime and it won’t matter if you practice the other two if you don’t cleanse right. The pores in your skin are deposited with minute particles of dust and dirt from you stepping out of home every day.
These particles clog pores that let our oils from your skin, causing a build-up which leads of acne and skin infections around the affected area. This is especially true with people who have naturally oily skin as the pores on such tend to remain open. Cleansing your skin properly will ensure you do not develop acne or blemishes which cause your skin to appear aged.
8. Avoid toning your skin
Tone your skin only if its utmost necessary. Try and opt for a toner that uses a mild alcohol base as it tends to strip your skin of essential oils to provide you with a matte finish.
This in-turn causes the skin to work harder and produce twice the amount of oil to rehydrate your it. Although toners are advised for those battling acne troubles, you should be aware that sometimes toners agitate acne making the problem worse, also sometimes extending break-outs to problem-free areas of the skin on your face.
If possible try and avoid the use of a toner altogether, better to be safe than sorry later.
Pick a moisturizer that suits your skin type. Those with excessive oily or dry skin should select water-based lotions and gels for deeper hydration minus the stickiness that skin butters provide you with.
Those with regular or balanced skin can choose to apply an oily moisturizer, although these are best used at night. This is because if these are used in the day, you will gather more dust and dirt making skin problems worse.
Caring for your skin in the right manner from the outside will help you aid in in regenerating as well as defending itself from future issues. You needn’t spend too much time caring for your skin, you just need to make enough time for the right fuss-free care.
Bonus tip- Avoid alcohol and cigarettes
While you do care for your skin by taking measures so it stays healthier and younger looking, you must make conscious decisions about lifestyle habits too. Alcoholism as well as smoking of cigarettes are two factors that cause rapid aging of skin.
Both habits cause a build-up of toxins from the inside which is directly reflected by wrinkling skin beginning with the hands and feet which extend to other areas of the body too.
Since such habits last over a period of time, they pose the threat of permanently damaging the condition of your skin, the effects of which are often irreversible, or not easily changed.
Other lifestyle habits include consuming packaged foods, processed foods and fast foods which are high in harmful fats, preservatives as well as carbohydrates and sugars.
These too cause a build-up of toxins, reduce the resilience of collagen in your skin and set in premature aging whose incidence grows rapidly.
Conclusion
You’ll often find that those with the simplest of eating habits and the least fussy skin care regime always tend to have commendable skin. This is because they eat right and play it right. Like I said in the beginning, there is no need to go in search of the best anti aging secretsexperts may have to offer. They all boil down to the choices you make and the effects results they bring.
So what do you think of these 7 anti aging tips? Let me know in the comments below