When you think about slowing down the aging process, what comes to mind first? Is it a load of creams and lotions that need to be slathered onto the skin each night? Or is it something more natural (and less expensive)? The key to slowing down the aging process is not about spending as much as you can on ‘magic potions’. It’s about doing things that are good for your body and cutting out what is harming you. Here are some examples.
Give Up Sugar
Too much sugar is bad for us in all kinds of ways, including our weight, general fitness levels, and our dental hygiene. It’s also bad for our skin and can speed up the aging process. Too much sugar (especially fructose and glucose) affect the collagen and elastin in our skin, dehydrating them. When that happens, your skin loses its elasticity, and wrinkles form. Not only that, but it will look dull and less youthful too.
Try Gluten Free
Just like sugar can cause problems with our skin, so too can gluten. It affects how minerals are absorbed into the body, particularly those minerals which give us younger-looking skin. Plus, eating bread can mean you are putting as much as two tablespoons of sugar into your body, and we already know how bad that is for us. Trying gluten-free bread can reduce the chances of the minerals not being absorbed and give us a more youthful appearance.
Drink More Water
Chronic dehydration is one of the main reasons we’re all aging so much; many of us go throughout our day without drinking the right amounts of water, and that has a seriously detrimental effect on our skin. Drinking enough (around two liters) of water each day will flush toxins from your body which keeps you healthier in general. As well as this, water will restore the elasticity of your skin, making skin plumper and giving us a healthy glow that makes us look younger.
Ditch The Bad Habits
Smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illegal drugs such as cocaine all speed up the aging process. By cutting out all of these bad habits, you can reduce the look of aging and keep yourself much healthier. All of these bad habits have a terribly detrimental effect on your health, in some cases leading to an early death. Giving up can be hard, though, and if you need professional help for drug or alcohol addiction, for example, don’t be afraid to ask and find out more about how a good behavioral health center can be beneficial.
De-Stress
When you’re stressed, you’ll produce high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. This happening every now and then is not a bad thing; in fact, it’s good for you to feel stress from time to time as it keeps you active and productive. When stress is chronic, however, and cortisol is constantly at a high level, you are damaging your health and potentially leading yourself to diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.
On top of that, stress speeds up the aging process because cortisol steals away essential minerals (including vitamin B5, B6, and C), which are responsible for healthy, glowing skin.
