Every once in a while that time of the month comes when you wake up, glance at the mirror and promise yourself that you’re really going to start taking good care of your skin. Next, you’ve got yourself running up to the drugstore to stack up on creams, cleansers, toners and what not.
Five days later though, that rough night out happens when you pass out in bed with your makeup still on. Sure enough, there hits a morning too when you snooze your alarm so many times that you barely got the time to brush your teeth before work. “It’s a busy time!” – excuses spring up in your head like mushrooms to account for you neglecting your skin once again.
When it comes to skincare, most of us tend to switch between the two extremes: either over-caring by using too many cosmetic products at once or forgetting about it altogether.
However, taking everyday care of your skin is necessary if you want to get younger skin and keep it healthy and youthful. To maintain naturally glowing and happy skin you should understand that skin care is a full-time job.
Here’s a list of the most important tips to follow to get younger skin and keep it that way.
Skincare Tips On How To Get Younger Skin
Hydrate
Hydrate your body, hydrate your skin – regularly.
Drink plenty of water and other healthy liquids such as green tea to maintain optimum skin (and overall) health.
Moisturize your skin regardless of which skin type you’ve got. It’s a widespread myth that oily skin needs to be kept away from moisturizers. This isn’t true. Literally, any skin type needs a boost in the morning with a good quality hydrating cream or some kind of natural oil.
During the night, your skin gets ready for the next day by building up its natural barrier. This is a thin protective layer consisting of dead skin cells, sebum, and some sweat. It works to both keep moisture locked in and prevent bacteria, dust, and other air pollutants from penetrating the skin pores so easily.
This layer can easily wear off during the day thanks to the sun, dry air, wind, and other external stressors. When you apply a natural oil or a moisturizing cream in the morning you support your skin’s natural barrier.
You can even “hydrate” your air! Using a humidifier in the room can have a visible positive impact on the look and feel of your skin. If you spend long hours indoors, especially if the room’s air-conditioned, it means your skin is exposed to very dry air. Dry air eventually dries out your skin too. It weakens the skin’s natural barrier meant to keep it moisturized and safe from outside stressors like pollution, dust, and bacteria.
Get Quality Sleep
No matter how elaborate the skin care routine you follow; no matter how expensive your face creams; no matter how much time you spend on nurturing your skin, if you fail to get quality sleep you can’t dream of wrinkle-free skin. By pulling all-nighters and depriving your skin of rest, you are slowly but surely carving your way to faster skin aging.
Nothing can help your skin look youthful as much as a good quality sleep. This doesn’t simply mean sleeping long enough. Getting quality sleep depends on many factors.
Make sure you have pulled down the blinds on your windows before you go to bed. Sleeping in the dark is found to be several times more beneficial to our bodies than being showered in sun rays as soon as they appear.
Don’t eat or drink alcohol soon before going to bed.
Use a high pillow, or two pillows instead of one. This helps to prevent puffiness and bags under the eyes in the morning, caused by liquids retaining in your face. It keeps skin youthful and makes puffy eyes and dark circles less likely in the morning.
Avoid Stress
Research has been gathering more and more evidence of the link between stress and premature aging. It’s not a myth that stress causes fine lines and wrinkles to appear earlier than it’s necessary.
More stress means your body is oversaturated with the stress hormone: cortisol. Cortisol affects the collagen in skin, which is the substance that keeps your skin young and supple. Over the years, the ability of skin cells to rebuild the needed amount of collagen weakens, which leads to skin aging. Cortisol can speed up this process.
That’s not all: cortisol has also been linked with causing cystic acne, among other things. These are the worst type of acne, which can easily cause scars.
All in all, you definitely don’t want to keep your body under chronic stress. We know it’s easier said than done in our fast-paced modern life. Yet, it has to be done.
Plan in daily breaks – the busier lifestyle you have, the more you need to add healthy intervals for relaxation each day. Forget about the daily stress, take long, deep breaths and focus on your breathing for at least five minutes.
Take some time off on a weekly basis too to relax with yoga, meditation or regular walks in nature. Anything in nature or outdoors, in parks, for example, comes with the added perks of fresh air! The quality of the air directly impacts skin health, and in most cities, the air isn’t the cleanest. Camping trips or even small, day hikes or walks in the woods can make wonders for your quality of life and for maintaining younger-looking skin.
Balance Your Diet
Skin aging is directly correlated with the kind of diet we are accustomed to. What’s the link? Well, you must have heard by now of antioxidants. Antioxidants are the main, natural defense of the human body against cell damage.
The daily metabolism on cell level produces the so-called ‘free radicals’ – waste atoms made up of a single electron. They freely roam around looking for another electron to pair up and most often, they steal an electron from another stable molecule. This results in damage to healthy cells.
Antioxidants are the main enemies of free radicals as they trap them and push them out of our bodies. In this way, antioxidants keep the skin cells healthy, slowing down the process of skin aging.
Eat foods rich in antioxidants.
Eat more tomatoes, papaya, and grapefruit. Among other nutrients, these foods are rich in lycopene. Lycopene is a dark red photochemical that gives the orange and red color to fruits and vegetables. The more you have of it in your system, the more protected your skin is from the sun. Research showed that this antioxidant prevents dark
Exercise
Yes, we know you’ve heard it already. It’s a cliche, but one that we have to mention and remind you of! Getting enough healthy exercise means better overall health, but it’s also one of the most important factors for keeping young-looking skin!
Go for a walk or a run, go for a swim or hit the gym – anything that suits you best. If you can’t do it daily, then at least on a weekly basis. Whatever works for you, but you have to start with something. Small steps are fine.
Don’t skip your very face during your daily workouts. If you can shake that booty, you should also give a stretch to your facial muscles. There are excellent video tutorials out dare for all sorts of facial yoga exercises. These should make their way into your weekly routine at least, if not the daily exercise routine.
Another good facial exercise is the lymphatic drainage massage. Sounds complicated but it’s not. It’s is a simple DIY evening facial massaging technique, best done with a non-comedogenic natural oil such as almond or avocado oil. It helps you push out toxins built up in the lymphatic vessels under your facial skin. This way you support your skin in its natural function. It keeps the skin young and works wonders with reducing bags and morning puffiness too. Many online tutorials await you to get down to it and learn the moves.
Wear Sun Protection at All Times
The importance of applying sunscreen on all of your exposed skin whenever you leave the house can’t be overstated! Sun exposure leads to dark spots in the long run. They appear more and more as you start aging. So, effective sun protection ensures spot-free skin when you get older. Instead of struggling with blemish and dark spot remedies, you can prevent them with sunscreen.
Two myths related to sunscreen have somehow made their way firmly into the public.
Myth Number 1: Wearing sunscreen causes cancer and it’s more dangerous than going unprotected into the sun.
This is absolutely a mistake to think. A good-quality, effective sunscreen isn’t just beneficial for keeping your skin young; it’s also super important for keeping your health.
Myth Number 2: Wearing sunscreen is only for the beach.
Nope. Sun damage can occur in as short as 15 minute exposure to the sun at any given day of the year. It may not be visible as sunburns from the beach are, but the accumulated invisible sun-caused damage to the skin slowly but surely robs it of its youthful glow.
While we’re at it: avoid sun tanning beds by all means! No temporary tan is worth the permanent damage you’re causing to your skin by exposing it to the UV radiation.
Apply sunscreen regularly and wear sunglasses! Sunglasses protect you from the glow that makes you squint all the time. Squinting is enemy number one to the fine skin around your eyes! Prevent fine lines and wrinkles around the eyes by regularly wearing sunglasses.
The DO’s and DONT’s of Keeping Skin Young
Do sleep on your back.
In the long run, this becomes a factor in gaining wrinkles. Especially so if you tend to sleep on the same side by habit. Squeezing your skin in the pillow has shown to quickly turn fine lines into wrinkles in specific areas of the face.
Relax on your back and try to doze off in that pose.
A related point when it comes to preventing wrinkles from forming during sleep: buy yourself silk or sateen pillowcases. Cotton or linen can impact badly on your skin in the long run, after rubbing against it for years.
Do follow a skincare routine regularly.
Imagine neglecting dental hygiene for a year. You’ve got a busy period, you can’t care about it now. Then you show up at your dentist’s asking to fix your teeth and make them, white and healthy in one go. Well, you guess how successful could that outcome be.
Please remember that it’s almost the same with your skin! You have to take proper care of it daily, otherwise, irreversible damage occurs with every passing day. Even though this process of decay isn’t as drastic as with our teeth, and you won’t feel pain – it is happening!
For a bright skin and beautifully even skin tone, you need to find a morning routine that works for you, then decide on the best nighttime skincare regimen and supplement it all with a once-per-week skin and spirit-nurturing ritual.
Do apply face masks once a week.
In the modern, urban setting, weekly facials for your skin are the equivalent of Vitamin C supplements for your immune system during a period of flu and viruses. The best type to go for is light, natural ingredient-based exfoliation masks.
We recommend opting for chemical exfoliants (masks) as opposed to physical exfoliants (scrubs). You can try from the pool of DIY home remedies for a clean face. Or you can consult a dermatologist and opt for a conventional cosmetic products. Either way, don’t neglect your skincare routine.
Don’t go to bed with your makeup on.
Never never never. It’s hard to always stick to it, we know. You also want to have some fun in your life and you very well should. We’ve all skipped the must-do ritual on some of those long nights out. Here’s a trick: Keep a pack of makeup-removing wet wipes on your bedside table.
Don’t expose your skin to the sun unprotected.
As we said, probably it’s been repeated enough times by now, but it’s never too much to emphasize: you really need to be using sunscreen at all times. There’s no such enemy to young and glowing skin as the sun. By now, we have seriously damaged the ozone layer of our plant. As a result, the sun’s UVA and UVB radiation today are much more dangerous than it used to be for your grandma.
Make sure you’re using a broad-spectrum sunscreen because, without this, you’re still exposed to sun damage causing premature aging of the skin, as well as skin cancer.
You can also download an app on your phone to help you check the level of harmful radiation in your city at each time of the day. Avoid exposing yourself in the sun in the prime hours of sun radiation.
