Some specific things in this world are inevitable. Things such as death, growing older and so on are the unavoidable occurrences of life that one can’t run away from. However, there are some things that are not out of your control.
Ageing before your time is something that is within the specks of our control. But guess what, it turns out that there are so many bad habits which are unfortunately part of our daily life that can make you age really fast.
More often than not, these behaviours will make us age even faster than our years, and this is a massive problem on our side. According to the American society for aesthetic plastic surgery, they say that an ageing face is one of the most common insecurities men face and seek to correct cosmetically through creams, peels, plastic surgery and so on.
But let’s face the face, how many creams can one buy to push back ageing? Why even waste money on such creams when you can try living right and avoid certain habits? Here is a list of some of the bad habits we all do that causes us to age faster.
1. You don’t wear sunscreen or sunblock when in the sun
According to Dr Joshua Zeichner who is the director of cosmetic and clinic research in the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital, he says that UV light rays expose us to free radicals whoever function is to damage the collagen, elastic fibres and even the skin cells which are all present in our skin.
This will undoubtedly lead to premature ageing and wrinkling. The person will also be seen with dark spots, and will most likely develop cancer of the skin if care isn’t taken. Don’t doubt it for a minute. Even a little exposure to the sun every day will keep adding up and accumulating until one day, it becomes too much.
If you are wondering what collagen and elastin are, well, these are proteins that are found underneath our skin to help make sure that our skin is healthy, strong and resilient. Having to kill these collages due to the massive exposure to sunlight means your skin will be unhealthy, weak and wrinkled.
2. Lack of sleep and rest
According to Dr Zeichner, one of the best methods to look younger is by adequately resting and sleeping. Usually, our body cells function with the normal circadian rhythm which is just like the sleep cycle. Hence we always feel energetic during the day and tired at night.
During the night, these cells work tirelessly to repair damages in any part of the body which must have occurred during the day. Damages caused by being exposed to the sun, pollution, a skin, tissue or cell breakout are all repaired by these cells at night.
When you don’t sleep, you will be hindering a lot of body processes hence throwing your body system into disarray thereby leaving your body entirely unprepared for the new day. Once this continually happens, your skin will become stressed and will be unable to unable to rejuvenate itself. If it doesn’t rejuvenate itself, there will be no repair process hence all your skin cells might end up becoming damaged and this will lead to fast ageing.
For every night, you must try to sleep at least 8 hours. Before you dive right into bed, after your shower, endeavour to apply a bit of moisturising cream on your body so as to not get your skin dehydrated even as you sleep.
Dry skin or skin that has inflammation don’t function properly; hence they may be limiting their rejuvenating process, therefore, slowing down the body’s healing processes.
3. Do you skip on taking fruits?
If your answer is yes to the above question, then you are limiting your skin ability. It is recommended we take at least 2 or 3 cups of vegetables a day; however, most of us do not even take up to one cup of vegetables.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 90% of Americans font eat the required number of cups of vegetables per day while 76% don’t even eat fruits at all. The CDC actually Re immensely that adults should at least have a cup of vegetables a day, however, how many of us can try to say we do have this every day?
According to a research carried out by the American Academy of Dermatology, studies have shown that eating balanced diet daily which is taken alongside with fruits and vegetables that can aid in fighting diseases can help in preventing the damage that makes the skin age on time.
You may be wondering why fruits and vegetables, why are they are significant to the body? Fruits and vegetables contain loads of antioxidants as well as lots of vitamins which is essential to your body.
Studies have shown that Vitamin E helps to protect your skin from the harmful effects of UV rays, straighten out any pigmentation problem, as well as reduce any form of inflammation in the skin cells.
Vitamins A, B3 and C are also very essential for your skin. They help to reduce the amount if collagen breakdown, they also cause a lot of elastin production in order to maintain the elasticity of the skin, and even they help in reducing hypersensitivity and hyperpigmentation.
You are encouraged to eat vegetables such as dark leafy greens like spinach, etc. as well as potatoes, red peppers and so on.
4. Too much intake of sugar
We all know that most people love doughnuts, burgers and every other type of fast food you can think about. It is also common knowledge that the intake of doughnuts damages the waistline. Not only do they have adverse effects on the waistline but also on the face as well.
Chips, white bread, ice-cream cause so many problems as well. This is because they always cause an increase in your blood sugar levels and that can cause inflammation and also cause the Outbreak of acne all over your face.
If you have to deal with multiple amounts of pimples on your face all the time, it will cause scarring of your face which could be permanent. This scarring could be in the form of a raised bump on the skin which is as a result of the effect of damaged collagen.
Even if after the bump goes away eventually, you might have to keep dealing with the marks they left behind which is almost similar to sunspots. This will cause your face and skin to look much older than you are.
Do you know that eating if too many sweets can lead to something known as glycation? Glycation is the process by which the molecules of sugar gets attached to your collagen fibres or directly to the building blocks of your skin cells. This causes the collagen to become very hard and quite rigid hence causing early wrinkling of the skin.
5. Smoking of cigarettes
Do you love smoking? Well, before you decide to light another cigarette, bear in mind that it is not only your lungs that are paying the price of this bad habit. Even your face and skin would pay the price.
Smoking tobacco either as cigarettes or as plain tobacco can make you look very old very fast. According to a research study that was carried on 79 twins, some of the twins smoked a cigarette while others didn’t.
After a period, it was noticed that those who puffed had more magnificent eye bags and more wrinkles than those who didn’t smoke. It is not only your face that bears the brunt of being wrinkled. Your inner arms would also start to wrinkle, and this is because smoking deprives your body of the much-needed oxygen as well as nutrients that are required by your body.
It cuts off blood circulation by causing the blood vessels to constrict severely. According to the Mayo clinic, tobacco is laced up with chemicals and toxins that cause harm to your collagen and elastin.
6. Excessive intake of alcohol
Have you ever been hungover? There is a reason why you don’t look so impressive after being hungover in the morning. According to research, studies have shown that alcohol causes a reduction in the level of antioxidants in your body and let’s not forget antioxidants are essential for your body.
This causes the release of free radicals in your body system as well as inflammation of your skin. Alcohol also causes your cells to be dehydrated because it sucks out the moisture content from your skin cells causing your skin to look very rough and dry.
7. Do you not take in enough water?
When you are dehydrated, there are a lot of processes in the body that will be hindered. It causes different common symptoms such as dizziness, Cramps, as well as cravings. It can also cause your skin to look older and rough.
When you get dehydrated, your body will still need water as it can’t do without water. Hence, due to its need for water, it goes to the body tissues and skin to draw water from them so as to maintain the healthy body water composition.
When this happens, your hands will begin to look dry as well as your skin, and your eyes will look sunken. Once your skin being to look dry, it will lose its elasticity causing you to have wrinkles.
