As you age, your skin loses elasticity. Your body produces less collagen and elastin, causing lower skin tone and facial aging. Your skin also loses moisture, giving you dry skin and wrinkles. Repeated facial expressions, motions, facial postures, and even gravity can cause wrinkles.
If you notice fine lines around your lips, eyes, chin, and other areas of your face, don’t despair. There are completely natural ways to slow down skin aging, reduce the appearance of wrinkles, and give your face a youthful appearance.
You can keep your healthy skin and reduce wrinkles for a time, but everyone eventually goes through the aging process. There are plastic surgical procedures that can treat wrinkles when all else fails.
There are two types of wrinkles – static and dynamic. Dynamic wrinkles happen when you do certain facial expressions and movements repeatedly. Smile lines and frown lines are dynamic wrinkles. If you squint your eyes repeatedly, this can cause dynamic facial wrinkles. Pursing your lips around a cigarette many times a day will cause fine lines around your lips.
Static wrinkles are due to the forces of gravity. The decreased collagen production and elastin cause gravity to give you sagging skin.
There are many ways to slow down aging skin and prevent premature aging of the appearance of your face. Here are ten natural things you can do right now to delay the aging process and reduce the development of wrinkles.
1. Limit Sun Exposure
Sunlight is essential for vitamin D production, regulating your sleep/wake cycles, and keeping your immune system strong. But too much exposure to the sun’s UV rays can cause sun damage to your skin. You really only need a small amount of time to get the benefits from the sun, so it is very easy to get too much damaging exposure.
The sun’s UVA rays can travel to the deeper layers of your skin and decrease your skin health, causing pronounced wrinkles and skin cancer. UVB rays may stay on the outer layer, but they can cause surface damage and wrinkles. The most detrimental sun exposure happens between 10 am to 4 pm.
Wearing Sunscreen
The best protection to prevent sun damage is to stay in the shade and cover up when you are outside. This will limit how much exposure you get to UV rays.
Sunscreens are labeled with their sun protection factor (SPF). The higher the sun protection factor, the longer you can stay in the sun without damage. If you can’t stay in the shade, wear sunscreen, especially between 10 am and 4 pm.
2. Reduce Stress
Stress can cause your facial muscles to tense up and cause dynamic wrinkles. Stress also affects your hormone levels, which can lead to premature aging and a thinner and weaker skin texture.
Relax, Practice Gratitude, And Think Positively
Having a positive attitude and being calm can reduce the tension in your face and prevent stress hormones from increasing your skin’s aging process.
3. Change Your Sleep Position
When you sleep on your stomach or your side, the pillow can compress your face and cause sleep wrinkles. These wrinkles might be temporary at first, but as your aging skin experiences this compression night after night, deeper wrinkles can form and become more permanent.
Sleep On Your Back
Sleeping on your back is the best position to keep sleep wrinkles at bay. You can get special pillows for your head, neck, and body to help support you in a back sleeping position.
4. Eat Right
Generally eating a balanced diet will help keep your skin and body at their best. A diet of fresh, whole foods and plenty of exercise will give you a more youthful appearance.
Avoid Excess Sugar
Refined sugar can wreak havoc throughout your body, including your skin. When you eat sugar, your body goes through a reaction called glycation. The result of this process is advanced glycation end products. These advanced glycation end products break down the collagen in your body, which then leads to increased wrinkles.
Fresh Fruits And Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants, which help protect your skin cells from UV rays, pollutants, and free radicals in your bloodstream. The deeper the color of the food, the bigger probability that it has a lot of antioxidants.
Beta-carotene is a nutrient in many foods that helps to keep skin moisturized. It helps your body make more collagen and elastin, protecting the surface layer of your skin and preventing wrinkles.
Vitamin C promotes collagen production, aids in healing, and is a powerful antioxidant. Bromelain is an enzyme that has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antibacterial properties.
Vitamin E is another component in food that is good for your skin. It helps to decrease the inflammation caused by sun damage. It can also help to prevent this damage in the first place.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES THAT ARE ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR SKIN
Fruits and vegetables that are particularly good for healthy skin because of their high antioxidant content include tomatoes, blueberries, spinach, and watermelon. Cantaloupe and red peppers have a lot of beta-carotene. Citrus fruits have a lot of vitamin C and pineapple has both bromelain and vitamin C. When looking for fruits and vegetables high in vitamin E, check out turnip greens, kale, and swiss chard.
Other Foods That Help To Keep Your Skin Looking Youthful
Soy products contain antioxidants, phytoestrogens, and other components that have been shown to improve the structure and firmness of the skin, which could reduce wrinkles.
Salmon is a particularly good fish to eat for good skin. It provides protein, like all fish, but it also has good essential fatty acids. These essential fatty acids are good to plump skin up and reduce wrinkles.
There are many foods with antioxidants and other factors that are good for your skin; garlic, green tea, dark chocolate, nuts, and seeds are all great for keeping skin looking healthy and supple. A diet that contains mostly whole, unprocessed plant-based food is good for your whole body, including your skin.
5. Topical Treatments
There are lots of topical wrinkle remedies, including anti-wrinkle creams that have ingredients such as glycolic acid as well as home remedies that are used as wrinkle treatments. Some of these topical treatments work and some are just a waste of money.
Good Ingredients In Your Wrinkle Treatment Cream
Alpha-hydroxy acids have been shown to remove dead skin cells and improve collagen in the skin, especially around the eyes. Tretinoin, or Retin A, is an ingredient in many prescription creams that is approved by the FDA for reducing fine lines and deep wrinkles while undoing sun damage. Idebenone, growth factors, and pentapeptides are all chemicals that have been shown to improve wrinkles and support the production of new collagen to strengthen skin.
Topical Oils
Oils, such as coconut oil, olive oil, or avocado oil are great to put right on your skin to keep it moist and wrinkle-free. Mixing vitamin E or vitamin C in the oil can make it even better for your skin. Some people mix in a tiny bit of essential oil such as carrot seed, clary sage, jojoba, neroli, rose, and others. You can make your own serum to moisturize and protect your skin from wrinkles, but remember to never apply essential oils directly to your skin.
Masks And Other Topical Treatments
All of the foods with antioxidants, vitamins, and enzymes can be put directly on your skin so that these components can be absorbed. People make egg white masks by putting egg whites directly on the face, providing protein and collagen. Pureed carrots or other fruits and vegetables can be applied directly to your face as a wrinkle treatment.
You can make your own completely natural topical wrinkle treatments, buy over-the-counter creams that have approved ingredients, or get prescription wrinkle treatments. Your skin should feel nourished, moist, and refreshed after you use any of these products.
6. Drink Water
Drinking enough water will keep your skin hydrated and prevent wrinkles. Dry skin wrinkles more easily. Remember that drinking alcohol and smoking both cause dehydration so if you do these activities, you should drink even more water.
7. Wash Your Face Just the Right Amount
You need to keep your face clean. Dirt, excess makeup, and sweat can irritate your skin. However, too much washing, especially with harsh chemicals, can dry your face out and cause wrinkles. Vigorous scrubbing can also damage the skin.
The best way to wash your face is with a gentle moisturizing cleanser while avoiding overzealous scrubbing. Exfoliating can help to remove dead skin on the surface and encourage increased collagen in the underlayers. Just don’t overdo it.
8. Quit Smoking
Smoking accelerates the aging process in your whole body, including your skin. The frequent pursing of your lips when you bring the cigarette to your mouth causes facial distortion and dynamic wrinkles around your lips.
9. Don’t Squint
Squinting can cause facial distortion around your eyes, making wrinkles that we call “crow’s feet” in the corner of your eyes. To prevent crow’s feet wrinkles, keep your skin healthy, have a good skincare routine, and avoid squinting. Wear glasses if you need to and put on sunglasses when you are going to be outside in the sun. The sunglasses will help protect your eyes from sun damage and will decrease your need to squint.
10. BE Be Careful With Face Exercises
You may have heard an advertisement for face yoga or some other exercise for your facial muscles that they say will increase skin tone and reduce wrinkles. As far as wrinkle reduction, just the opposite is true. Working out the muscles in your face pulls on your skin and this is what actually causes wrinkles. Facial exercises will actually cause more wrinkles, not prevent them.
Gently massaging your skin with some of the oils mentioned above, could stimulate blood flow, and healing while reducing inflammation in your face. Just be gentle, don’t tug or pull at your skin.
What to Do if Wrinkles Persist
There are medical treatments for wrinkles. Facial plastic surgery, laser resurfacing, botox, and chemical peels are all medical strategies that people have tried with success, and dermal fillers are another procedure to consider.
Dermal Fillers
Dermal fillers are a popular treatment that work on most wrinkles, even deep wrinkles. Dermal fillers are FDA-approved treatments for wrinkles on the face. Dr. Thompson at Thompson Facial Plastics specializes in dermal fillers.
During a dermal filler appointment, your doctor will strategically inject a gel-like hyaluronic acid solution to plump up the skin. Side effects include swelling and bruising, but they usually go away in a few weeks.
The substance used in dermal fillers is often hyaluronic acid. This is a natural sugar found in the body. Your body will eventually absorb the hyaluronic acid and you would be able to get another dermal filler treatment.
When you go for a dermal filler procedure, you will first have a consult with Dr. Thompson to see if this is the right treatment for you.
Please call (303) 622-3288 to schedule your consultation today.
NATURALLY REMOVE FACIAL WRINKLES – FAQS
How can I keep wrinkles off my face?
Take care of your body and health in general. Eat right, don’t get too much sun, reduce stress and have a good skincare routine. We all get wrinkles as we get older, but taking care of yourself will minimize them. If you do get wrinkles, consult Dr. Thompson about medical procedures to reduce them.
What Is The Recovery Time For Dermal Fillers?
Recovery time is just one to two days. Many people resume their activities the same day. Dr. Thompson can advise you on your situation.
