Some people have extremely regimented skin care routines that take up a great deal of time either in the morning or in the evening or both. If you struggle with finding the time to develop an extensive skin care routine, don’t worry, you can still find simple ways to pamper yourself and take care of your skin. Believe it or not, making healthy lifestyle choices can help delay the natural aging process and prevent various skin issues from cropping up. WebMD recommends five simple steps to get your skin care game on point.
Step 1: Protect Your Skin from the Sun
Protection from the sun’s harmful UV rays is one of the best ways you can take care of your skin. Repeated sun exposure can cause wrinkles, age spots and other skin issues, not to mention increasing your risk of skin cancer. Some simple tips to protecting your skin from the sun include using sunscreen, moisturizer, or foundation with an SPF of at least 15, seeking shade during the heat of the day and wearing protective clothing like hats or long-sleeved shirts.
Step 2: Smoking is Harmful to Skin Health
Smoking contributes to wrinkles on your skin and can make you look older than you are. According to WebMD, smoking narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outermost layers of skin, which decreases blood flow and can make your skin look paler. Smoking also depletes the skin of oxygen and nutrients that are important to skin health. Smoking also damages collagen and elastin — the fibers that strengthen your skin and give it elasticity.
Step 3: Be Gentle with Your Skin
Even our daily cleansing routines can actually have an impact on the health of our skin. The experts recommend keeping it gentle by avoiding strong soaps in favor of mild cleansers, patting your skin dry to keep the moisture in, and moisturizing dry skin with a moisturizer that fits your skin type and contains SPF.
Step 4: A Healthy Diet for Healthy Skin
Again, according to the experts at WebMD, “the association between diet and acne isn't clear — but some research suggests that a diet rich in fish oil or fish oil supplements and low in unhealthy fats and processed or refined carbohydrates might promote younger looking skin.” And don’t forget to drink lots of water to keep your skin hydrated.
Step 5: Your Skin and Stress Management
If you aren’t managing your stress level, your skin may be more sensitive and trigger breakouts and other skin related issues. Making sure you make time to de-stress, get enough sleep, set boundaries and make time to relax can help you maintain healthy skin, as well as whole body health!
Red LED light therapy plays a role in skin health by increasing fibroblast activity. Fibroblasts make collagen fibers, so the more, and healthier, fibroblasts we have in the skin, the more and better collagen fibers are made. And as we all know, collagen synthesis and maintenance is the bedrock that supports your anti-aging efforts.
Healthy collagen levels are what give us a glowing complexion, firm skin and is crucial for skin elasticity. It is also essential in keeping muscles, joints, and tendons in healthy working order. Simply put, the more our bodies produce collagen, the better we’ll look and feel as we get older. Following these simple steps can help keep your skin glowing for years to come and help you maintain better overall health.
