Sure, you wash your face every night to remove makeup, dirt and other debris as well as every morning. You apply moisturizer after each wash and perhaps a skin serum and eye cream at night. You also use sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher every day. This is a great start to keeping your skin healthy and young looking. However, many people practice certain lifestyle habits that could be prematurely aging their faces. Here are three ways you may be unknowingly aging your face.
You Eat Too Much Sugar
We all know that consuming too much sugar can have a negative effect on the size of our waistlines, and can cause the onset of certain diseases such as type-2 diabetes. However, did you know that eating too much sugar can also activate a physiological process called glycatin that is bad for your skin?
Glycatin causes the proteins in the body to become rigid and inflexible. This includes causing the proteins collagen and elastin to become hard. These two proteins are crucial for maintaining healthy, elastic skin. Without them, the skin loses its elasticity, becoming coarse and uneven in texture. Rigid skin also allows oils, bacteria and dead skin cells to become trapped in the pores, causing the appearance of large pores and possibly acne.
You Smoke
Again, we all know that smoking is bad for your lungs and ultimately causes certain potentially fatal diseases including lung cancer and emphysema. Smoking also causes the blood vessels to constrict and robs your blood of essential oxygen. These effects alone can wreak havoc on your skin, causing it to harden and look older than it should. In addition, the constant motion of pursing your lips around the end of a cigarette can cause dynamic wrinkles to form around your mouth area. All these are great reasons to put down your cigarette now — for good.
You Don’t Get Enough Quality Shuteye Each Night
How is getting seven to eight hours of restful sleep each night good for your skin? While you sleep, your cells dispense human growth hormone, which is necessary for cell repair. If you are not getting enough sleep each night, your cells do not have enough time to release an adequate amount of this hormone, detracting from your body’s ability to repair damaged skin cells. This can lead to dull, tired, older-looking skin.
To learn more about caring for your skin or to get help improving the look of already-noticeable signs of facial aging, contact Michaels Aesthetic and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery by calling (301) 468-5991 or (703) 957-8610 today.
