KEEPING YOUR SKIN BEAUTIFUL AND NON-AGING Age does a lot of things to us – and most of them aren’t good. Sure, we may get wiser, and more knowledgeable as a result of our experiences over time, but time also takes a hefty toll on our health, and appearance. Our skin, the outermost layer of our body, and definitely the most visible part, is where this toll is most apparent. Maybe this will surprise you, but the aging process that the skin goes through is actually very complicated. Granted, there are major and minor factors behind it, but all of them work together to rob your skin of its once-youthful appearance. Can you fight it? Yes, to an extent you can. Unless you have somehow discovered the miraculous fountain of youth, you’re not going to be able to stop aging entirely, of course, but you can slow it down, or at very least stop some of the more apparent effects. Here and now, you’re going to learn how. But even before we get into that, we’re going to take a look at some of the causes, and effects that come naturally as time passes. Instead of jumping straight into it though, there is one question that you should probably ask yourself first:
“Why Do I Want to Keep My Skin Beautiful and Avoid Aging?”
Yes, it does seem like a no-brainer, but asking it can’t hurt. Obviously, the most common answer is simply to avoid the undesirable appearance that goes hand-in-hand with the effects of aging. Great – but is there any other reasons to keep your skin looking young? Well, as you’ll soon see, since aging is a natural process, there are many theories about what causes it and how exactly it affects us all. In the particular case of skin though, keeping your skin beautiful and ‘ageless’ will not reverse the aging process. That said, there are some who feel that certain types of activities that help the well-being of the skin also can affect its ability to heal itself, and maybe even the blood flow within the skin. Don’t worry too much, we’ll get into some specifics later on, but the bottom line is that there might be much more to gain from keeping your skin young than you first imagined. Naturally, there are also the various psychological factors that run in tandem with young skin. Looking good, and feeling half your age are things that can definitely help boost your self confidence and make you feel good about yourself. So, without wasting any more time, let’s kick things off by looking at how the skin ages.
“What Causes Skin to Age?”
This really is the million dollar question. Okay, maybe it isn’t a ‘secret of life’ type question, but seeing as we’re interested in maintaining young skin, it is the one that we need to answer. But the truth is, as mentioned earlier, it is not just one factor that causes skin to age. Instead, it is a very complicated cocktail of factors that are all in cahoots to cause your skin to lose its youthful sheen. Let’s divide this cocktail into two types of factors though, so that we can better understand them.
Intrinsic Factors behind Skin Aging Basically, intrinsic just means internal, and so these are the sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ factors that make up the natural aging process. Seeing as there is no 100% accepted and completely uncontroversial theory of aging, we’re not going to discuss it too deeply. What you should know though is that genes are known to play a very big role in how fast your skin ages. Unfortunately, as you are probably thinking, this doesn’t help you much. After all, genes are genes, and you’re kind of stuck with them, even if they are bad and you’d much rather have some other genes. Perhaps at some point in the future, gene therapy will become a part of conventional medicine, but for now, it’s probably best if you don’t bank on it.
Instead of panicking if you are one of the many, many people with genes that really don’t seem to help you as you age, let’s move on so that you can see some of the other factors that also play a role. If nothing else it should cheer you up, since some of these are things that you can fix.
Extrinsic Factors behind Skin Aging In contrast to intrinsic factors, extrinsic factors are any and all external things that affect skin aging. As you can guess, there really are a lot of external things that can affect skin aging, and they form the most part of the cocktail. But the biggest player this game is that gigantic ball of fire that we all know and love as the Sun. Matter of fact, it is such a big effect that there is even a special name used by dermatologists for aging that is caused by exposure to the Sun’s rays: photoaging. For this reason, people who live in areas where the Sun is particularly intense end up having skin that seems to age faster. In actuality, this is caused by damage that the Sun’s rays cause to exposed skin. Although this is a big factor, it is by far not the by-all, end-all of skin aging. In fact, even the Sun’s rays can be combated. Other effects that play a big role too are animated facial expressions, gravity, smoking, and even sleeping positions.
All of these factors come together to effect the skin and how fast it appears to age. But, as you should already be able to see – unlike intrinsic factors, extrinsic factors are something that you can actually act upon. Suggesting that you completely avoid going out in the Sun would, of course, be unreasonable, but there are several things that you can do to help protect your skin while you are out in it. Similarly, with a few simple changes to your lifestyle, you could avoid some of the long term aging effects that certain other factors have on your skin. Soon, we’ll get into the specifics of some of the things that you can actually do to avoid slow down the aging of your skin and keep it looking beautiful. For now though, let’s also just take a short look at what the aging process does to your skin. Trust me – you’ll be much better off once you know the specific changes that aging can cause. Also, it will probably motivate you to try harder to stop your skin from aging fast, so it really worth discussing.
Effects of Aging on Your Skin Okay, so you already know what causes aging of your skin. But what is it exactly that aging causes on the skin which you would want to avoid? Wrinkles maybe?
In reality, when your skin starts to age, a lot of changes take place that could be deemed ‘negative’, and to be honest, wrinkles don’t rank that high up, even if they are the most apparent. As a direct side effect of aging, within the skin itself various core changes are taking place. For one, collagen (one of the main components of skin) stops being produced in such abundance. Also, the elastin contained within skin, which is essentially the stuff that makes it so ‘springy’, also loses some of its ability to make skin snap back into place as fast. While this may not mean much to you as yet – it basically also means that your skin does not regenerate as fast, and it also is not going to ‘fit’ you as well by snapping to your body. Thus, it is common for aged skin to start to sag, in other words. Even the wrinkles that are so often regarded as being the hallmark of aging skin are actually caused by a combination of these effects. But of course, it doesn’t just stop there. No; aging goes on to also cause a loss of fat underneath the skin, which can lead to a ‘sunken’ appearance, as well as cause skin to appear thin, and even transparent at times. Coupled with extrinsic factors that also contribute to aging the skin, splotches or blotches can appear, as can age spots, and spider veins. On the whole, your skin will feel much more dry, and may even have very visible pores.
True, these effects can vary from person to person, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to end up getting all of them at the same time. Some people only have very prominent wrinkles, while others just have a few age spots scattered here and there. Still, as your skin ages, you will face at least some of these effects. Among the effects that appear in really aged skin include deep furrows, or a collection of excess skin around the neck that is commonly known as ‘chicken neck’. Don’t worry, unless you are really old, you probably don’t have it yet, so there is no need to check the mirror right now. But don’t you think that you would want to do whatever it takes to avoid getting it for as long as humanly possible? Of course you would – everyone would. And you can, so let’s go into how exactly it would be possible to do so, through many avenues, starting with avoiding those habits that cause skin aging.
Avoiding Factors that Cause Skin Aging Sure, you could buy thousands of dollars worth of anti-skin aging products, some of which may work, some of which may not. Instead of all that though, there are a few simple things that we sometimes do which can cause skin to age faster… So why not just avoid them?
Okay, for certain, some of this is much easier said than done. But honestly, some of us go our entire lives without knowing that what we’re doing is damaging our skin, or at least, prematurely aging it. At least if you know about it, you can, maybe, fix it. Really, it is up to you, but you’ll find that a lot of the things that we’re about to delve into aren’t really going to inconvenience you all that much. It’s really simple stuff to be honest, for the most part.
Smoking Possibly the most difficult habit to actually avoid, due to its addictive nature, it is probably best tackling smoking first. Of course, everyone knows that smoking is bad for a variety of reasons, but most of them have to do with the lungs or respiratory system in general. Still, research has shown that smoking can also cause problems related to the skin. For starters, smokers tend to end up with yellow-hued skin after smoking for a number of years. In itself, this is a reason to avoid smoking – but there is more. More recently, research has also shown that prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke (which is of course inevitable for a smoker) can increase both the dryness of your skin, as well as the likelihood that wrinkles form. In fact, the starts of facial wrinkling have been shown to exist in smokers as young as 20 years of age. Admittedly, at
this stage it isn’t exactly visible to the naked eye, but it just goes to show that even someone at that age, who, really, should not be suffering from any sort of skin aging, can actually be starting to. Generally, it is thought that this aging is caused by the effect that smoking has in damaging elastin. Therefore, a smokers skin is not nearly as ‘springy’ as a non-smokers, and wrinkles much more easily. But stopping smoking is far from easy, as we all well know. Still, it isn’t impossible, and if you really want to do it, for both the good health of your skin and lungs, well there are many places where you could start. Nicotine patches, gum, and other aids to help kick smoking are pretty easy to find nowadays, as are supervised programs and support groups that will give all the further assistance that you may need. Although it won’t be an easy journey, it is one that is without a doubt worthwhile, if you’re serious about stopping your skin from aging as fast.
Alcohol Consumption Just like smoking, it is an issue that is widely known about, but again, the specific effects that continuous alcohol consumption has on the skin in particular is not so common fare.
Know that red-cheeked ‘alcohol flush’ that is all too common after a night out drinking? Well, in actuality, that flush is caused because of increased blood flow near the skin’s surface. The more blood that is flowing, the more red it is. In turn, this is caused by alcohol causing the blood vessels to become dilated, thus allowing more blood in. Up to this point, it doesn’t seem like there is much wrong with that. However, after time, such actions can cause actual permanent damage to the blood vessels that are near the skin’s surface. Once that happens, the flush becomes more permanent, and it is even possible to visibly see the broken blood vessels through the skin. Although this doesn’t directly connect to skin aging, it still is definitely not exactly the most conducive activity for the well being of your skin. Also, it will affect the overall beauty of your skin in the long term too. Kicking or toning down alcohol consumption is just as worthwhile as quitting smoking, and similarly, there are many ports of call which you could turn to if you really need help. Chances are, you aren’t a full-blown alcoholic, but even if you are, you can find ample support from various societies that specialize in aiding those with problems as far as alcohol consumption is concerned. If you do manage to kick alcohol to the curb, you’ll find that your chances of gaining that ageless skin that you want are vastly increased.