Most people would like to think that they are aging gracefully. By living a good, healthy lifestyle, they will look their best as they get older. Unfortunately, some things can age you much faster than you would like and make you look ten years older than you are. Things like stress, poor diet, and lack of exercise can all take a toll on your appearance. This blog post will discuss some of the top things that can speed up the aging process and make you look much older than you are. Stay tuned to find out what they are!
Smoking
Smoking damages your skin by constricting blood vessels. The lack of blood flow makes your skin look pale and discolored, causing fine lines or wrinkles to appear much more pronounced. You may also notice that the whites of the eyes become much paler in smokers than they are in non-smokers.
Not only does smoking cause premature aging on the outside of your body, but it ages you on the inside as well! Smokers’ livers have ten times fewer healthy cells than non-smokers’ livers, which means they age faster. Smoking can lead to cirrhosis, fatty liver disease, malnutrition, and other serious health problems.
Eating An Unhealthy Diet
There are numerous reasons why eating a poor diet makes you look and feel older than your age. The two main culprits of this issue are a lack of antioxidants and essential nutrients in your system and an abundance of unhealthy trans fats that build up in your arteries over time. Eating foods high in antioxidants, such as leafy greens, fruits, and nuts, can slow down the aging process by reducing most free radical damage to the skin.
This same type of damage causes plaque buildup on the inside of your artery walls, which promotes heart disease and hardening of the arteries (that’s why eating junk food is linked to heart disease). Foods high in essential fatty acids such as omega-3s also help reduce inflammatory damage to skin cells, making you look much more youthful.
Not Exercising
Your skin, hair, and nails are all affected by a lack of physical activity. Skin begins to wrinkle more quickly because your skin’s elasticity decreases when it doesn’t receive regular exercise. This can also cause you to develop sagging skin in certain areas of the body. Hair becomes dryer, duller, and even falls out faster without proper blood flow throughout the scalp due to a lack of cardiovascular exercise. Nails begin to chip more easily if they aren’t receiving healthy nutrients from within your body; this is why many people who work desk jobs complain about weaker nails than those who participate in regular physical labor.
Not Using Sunscreen
Sunscreen is a skincare product that everyone, every day, should use. When you aren’t using sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays, those rays penetrate the deeper layers of your skin and cause irreparable damage such as wrinkles and age spots. More than 90% of premature aging can be prevented simply by wearing sunscreen every day. Suppose you already have visible signs of aging on your skin. In that case, however, there are anti-aging creams available with retinol and vitamin C that help reduce fine lines and create a much more even appearance overall.
Being Stressed Out Alot
Stress can show itself in ways that make you look older than your age. Stress can create wrinkles around the eyes (crow’s feet) and forehead (the frowning “11” lines). Stress can also cause hair loss; cortisol is released when you’re stressed out, suppressing hair growth. And lastly, stress causes certain cells within the body to release inflammatory proteins like cytokines and prostaglandins, which damage healthy tissue after it has done its job protecting your body. The best way to deal with stress is through physical activity such as yoga, tai chi, or meditation – even just taking some time away from work to go for a walk.
Poor Posture
Do you sit at a desk all day long with your shoulders slouched forward, back hunched over? Poor posture not only makes you look older, but it can also cause serious health problems. When you hunch over at your desk every day for hours on end, your spine is constantly being misaligned. This can lead to soft tissue damage, disc herniations, and even bone spurs in some cases. These conditions are often very painful! Additionally, poor posture affects the blood flow within your body because it compresses certain parts of the vascular system that carry oxygenated blood throughout the body.
Conclusion
There are many ways to age more rapidly than most people might not know. While some might come as a surprise, others are relatively common knowledge. Regardless of what may cause your skin and hair to look older than it is, the good news is that you can do things to prevent the signs of aging from appearing prematurely on your body. Use sunscreen daily with a minimum SPF of 30+, drink plenty of water, get at least 7 hours of sleep every night, exercise regularly, and maintain healthy posture throughout the day!