Top Ten Health And Anti-Aging Tips – By Dr. Kelly Burkenstock
When it comes to staving off the visible signs of aging, the efforts that you make on a consistent basis will always provide the greatest benefits. There’s no magic procedure or potion that will ever outshine diligent and ongoing self-care. In fact, proper self-care is essential for ensuring optimum outcomes following any skin rejuvenating procedure or surgery. Healthy life habits and a strong focus on preventative skin care will leave you looking far younger than your actual years. Instead of wading through a veritable sea of information, you can take advantage of the top ten health and anti-aging tips that we’ve carefully compiled for you.
1. Eat Good To Look Good
The very best natural skin care strategies often start from the inside. In terms of how your aging skin looks, what you put into your body really does matter. If you want to maintain skin that’s supple, vibrant, properly nourished, and deeply hydrated, you should:
- Avoid excess caffeine
- Steer clear of high-sugar beverages and foods
- Load up on a colorful array of fresh fruits and vegetables
- Add ample amounts of heart-healthy fats like olive oil, true nut butters, avocados, and coconut oil to your diet
- Make water your primary beverage and be sure to drink plenty of it. Lemon, lime and/or apple cider vinegar with water adds a burst of alkaline to maximize water’s hydrating and health benefits
- Limit your intake of processed and ready-made foods
A good anti-aging diet should be balanced to meet your current range of nutritional needs. Bear in mind that as most people enter their late thirties and early forties, their metabolisms slow down and certain nutritional requirements actually increase. At this stage of life, it’s important to pay careful attention to food quality and overall nutritional content. You want to make sure that the foods you’re eating are helping to minimize natural bone density loss, hydrating and supporting your skin, and promoting heart health and optimum blood circulation. Taking a whole-health approach to meeting your skin’s increasing needs will ultimately provide the greatest and longest-lasting benefits.
2. Get Active
Exercise has consistently proven to improve the overall look, health, and feel of the skin. Putting your body in motion increases blood circulation. This helps the body deliver oxygen and important nutrients to key areas. It also aids in overall toxin-removal. Make sure that your workout program matches your current fitness level so that you aren’t subjecting your joints and bones to any undue physical stress. Your workouts should make you feel challenged, accomplished, and ultimately relaxed. Well-timed workouts can additionally contribute to deeper and more restful sleep, which will also improve the look and condition of your skin.
3. Make Sleep A Priority
Getting adequate amounts of high-quality sleep shouldn’t feel like a treat. In fact, a night of good sleep should never be a noteworthy occasion. Instead, this is something that you should be getting regularly. Determine a reasonable amount of sleep for meeting your needs, and then establish your daily schedule around your sleep schedule. When you make sleep a top priority, you’ll quickly experience a vast range of benefits both in terms of how you look, and how you feel.
Quality sleep helps regulate the metabolism and the immune system. Balancing your weight will be easier, and your body will eventually become healthier overall. Moreover, when paired with better hydration and a nutrient-dense and needs-specific diet, increased sleep can also eliminate dark circles under your eyes, and minimize any superficial fine lines and wrinkles that are tension-related.
4. Start Performing Nightly Facial Massages
Promoting increases in blood flow will instantly revitalize your skin and improve its appearance. When applying your nighttime moisturizer, gently massage your face with your fingertips in a slow, circular motion. Beyond improving local circulation, this can additionally lift your facial muscles and release any built-up tension that may be causing dynamic wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, or at the brow. Over time, a nightly facial massage can even promote noticeable increases in skin elasticity.
5. Protect Your Skin From Sun Damage From The Inside And The Outside
Always protect your skin from the outside by wearing a quality sunblock with a suitably high SPF rating. Sunhats and sunglasses are other important and effective forms of sun protection. Surprisingly, however, you can additionally avoid sun spots, sunburn, and other forms of sun damage by protecting your skin from the inside. Bright red, orange, and even pink fruits and vegetables contain a reddish, carotenoid pigment known as lycopene that functions as the body’s own natural UV protection. Eating lots of oranges, tomatoes and carrots during the spring and summer months will give your skin an extra layer of coverage. The absolute best food for quickly and dramatically boosting your internal lycopene levels is tomato paste; which gives pasta lovers ample reason to have regular spaghetti dinners. Better yet choose summer squash spaghetti or zucchini spaghetti in place of pasta!
6. Be Cognizant Of How Age-Related Hormonal Changes Are Impacting Your Skin’s Needs
Hormonal fluctuations and their impact on the texture and resilience of the skin can be severe. This makes it important to keep your daily routine flexible. If your skin feels drier and more vulnerable than normal, switch to a heavier moisturizer and a sunblock with a higher SPF. If your favorite products start causing even moderate amounts of skin irritation, consult with your Anti-Aging physician to get age-specific product recommendations. Cleansers, toners, and moisturizers that worked well for you in your twenties may not be as effective as you enter and move through your forties.
7. Don’t Smoke
People who’ve smoked for several decades without any noticeably negative consequences often start seeing the very first signs of peri-oral or “smoker’s wrinkles” in their mid to late thirties. Smoking damages the layer of collagen that supports your skin, and expedites the development of the movement-related cracks that manifest as dynamic wrinkles at the skin’s surface. If you aren’t a smoker, then you’re already well on your way to winning the battle against early facial aging. If you do smoke, however, now is the perfect time to quit. Not only will quitting prevent additional damage to your skin, but it can also help clear up some of the age-related issues that you’re already dealing with. A smoke-free lifestyle will allow for better blood flow, increased toxin removal, and improved skin hydration.
8. Establish A Multi-Pronged Stress Management Plan
Nothing will wreak havoc on your skin quite like stress. That’s because chronic stress can disrupt your sleep schedule, diminish the efficiency of your immune system, create hormonal imbalance, and cause digestive distress among many other things. Worst of all, each of these negative changes will have a similarly negative impact on the appearance, condition, and resilience of your skin. You might try taking regular walks, practicing meditation, or enrolling in a yoga class to help better manage your stress. Signing up for regular spa treatments can sometimes help alleviate feelings of anxiety as well. The overarching goal of any effective stress management plan is to minimize and curb stress before it ever has the opportunity to spiral out of control.
9. Exfoliate Regularly
A number of the world’s most popular, non-invasive skin rejuvenating procedures rely largely on the body’s natural healing process. Treatments like chemical peels and micro-dermabrasion trigger this built-in, protective response by creating controlled damage at the skin’s surface. This incites a more rapid proliferation of new and healthy skin cells while additionally promoting increases in the production of collagen and other skin-supporting substances. At-home exfoliation mimics these efforts but at a much lower scale. Regular use of a facial brush or other facial exfoliating tool will promote better circulation in the targeted area, route out toxins, remove dead, dry, and damaged skin cells, and allow the healthy skin beneath them to shine through. Increased blood circulation can also help bolster and protect the smooth layer of collagen that supports your skin, while superficial, surface-level agitation will expedite the natural skin renewal process.
10. Treat Yourself To Monthly Facials
Getting facials will do more than rejuvenate and beautify your skin. These treatments are relaxing and cathartic. They’re great for alleviating both physical facial tension and general emotional stress. As such, routine facials are also an excellent addition to your ongoing stress management plan. There’s a very vast range of facial types that consumers can choose from. Schedule a consultation appointment to learn more about the available options and to get needs-specific recommendations. Deeply hydrating facials are great for instantly getting a bright, dewy, and undeniably youthful-looking complexion. These experiences will also give you the opportunity to pay careful attention to the techniques and movements of a seasoned skin care professional. As such, you’ll be able to refine and improve your own nightly facial massages.
Good general health and diligent self-care are the cornerstones of any truly effective anti-aging plan. We strongly recommend following the 10 tips above. Not only will these strategies minimizing any existing signs of aging, but they’ll also improve the overall efficacy and benefits of any surgical or non-invasive skin rejuvenating procedure that you invest in.