Your lifestyle greatly impacts your mental and physical health, including how your skin looks. A healthy lifestyle results in radiant and youthful skin, but an unhealthy one leads to dull and damaged skin. As a result, your skin might age faster, and wrinkles will appear sooner.
However, people don’t always adopt unhealthy lifestyles and habits. Sometimes, these choices are unintentional but end up affecting the skin. If you can’t change your lifestyle, investing in good skincare products or opting for professional skin rejuvenating treatments is a good option. Still, you should try to adopt a healthier lifestyle whenever you can. Read this guide to learn how your lifestyle choices are affecting your skin.
How Lifestyle Choices Reflect On Your Skin
- Sun Damage
The most widespread unhealthy habit people have is not wearing SPF. People believe that a little sun exposure is good for the skin and doesn’t lead to any damage. But in reality, the UVA/UVB rage destroys skin cells and releases free radicals that increase hyperpigmentation. Not to mention, the top layer of your skin is burned, which leads to dryness and flakiness.
Additionally, excessive sun exposure can also lead to skin cancer, one of the most dangerous forms of cancer. So no matter how much you love getting tanned, always leave the house with a thick layer of broad-spectrum SPF to protect your skin.
- Low Cell Turnover
Exercise has many health benefits besides keeping you fit. One of which is maintaining a good cell turnover for your skin. Proper exercise repairs damaged skin, increases blood circulation, increases oxygen absorption, and helps regenerate cells.
A lack of proper exercise in conjunction with sugar-rich foods has the opposite effect. Your body accumulates fat, which dulls the skin, and increases breakouts. Moreover, it also prevents the body from maintaining healthy collagen production.
- High-Stress Levels
Too much stress is not only bad for your mental health but also for your skin. A high-stress lifestyle leads to hormonal imbalances, which increase the release of cortisol. Cortisol affects the skin’s oil production leading to more clogged pores and increased acne issues. You might also experience eczema, psoriasis, and other skin issues.
- Collagen Reduction
Sleep is the most important part of our lifestyle. Without proper sleep, you’ll run into a horde of issues, including exhaustion, increased stress, high blood pressure, depression, and poor skin. Poor sleeping schedules lead to improper cell repair that can dehydrate the skin and cause imbalances in the pH. You’re also more likely to experience breakouts, redness, and puffiness.
You might also experience hyperpigmentation due to dilated blood vessels due to lack of sleep. But most importantly, poor sleeping schedules lead to collagen reduction over time, increasing wrinkles and loss of volume in the skin. So make sure you try to get at least 8 full hours of sleep each night to maintain your collagen.
- Sunken And Sagging Skin
Just like your body, your skin also needs healthy nutrients to prevent collagen and elastin loss. Loss of these two can lead to sunken skin that develops wrinkles and lacks elasticity. Moreover, your skin will also heal slowly if your diet isn’t healthy. Try including healthy ingredients like fruits, veggies, dry fruits, and protein in your diet to keep your body and skin healthy. Besides that, you should also regularly visit a skin specialist to determine which ingredients you should include in your diet.
- Premature Aging
Certain habits like drinking alcohol, smoking and excessive sun exposure can lead to premature aging. Even if you’re wearing proper SPF, it’s still recommended to stay in the shade or wear a hat when going out in the sun to prevent sun damage. On the other hand, the tobacco from cigarettes shrinks your blood vessels, hindering the flow of oxygen and nutrients to your skin. It also leads to wrinkles around the mouth as a result of squinting and pursing the lips while smoking.
- Loose Skin And Cell Damage
Most of the problems listed here are related to lifestyle issues. However, too much skincare can also lead to skin damage and saggy skin. Some skin care with certain ingredients when used improperly or applied excessively can damage the dermis layer of the skin, cause burning sensations and make the skin more prone to breakouts, dryness and other reactions. Also, aggressive hand movements when applying serums or moisturizers can also lead to cell damage and loose skin. Always be gentle with your skincare application and lightly pat the products until they’re absorbed. In addition to that, try using fewer products instead of clogging the skin with too much.
Get Rejuvenated Skin With Skin Loft
Skin Loft offers several minimally invasive procedures to achieve healthy, younger-looking skin in no time. Our treatments include ResurFX laser skin resurfacing, chemical peels, Botox, Dermal Fillers, RF microneedling, laser sunspot removal, laser vein removal and more.
We offer detailed consultation sessions to clients before starting the treatment. Check out our services and book your appointment.